Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the Trump press ban Friday, asking an audience at Colgate University to picture the reaction if he had ever tried the same thing with Fox News.
“I’m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News, you’re out of here!” Obama said. “It’s unimaginable!”
Earlier that day, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from reporting at the White House. MS NOW is the cable network formerly known as MSNBC. Trump accused all three of spreading what he called “FAKE NEWS” and warned that other outlets would face the same treatment, without naming them. Speaking in the Oval Office later, he said the decision came from years of stories he did not like.
Obama told the crowd his imagination could not have predicted some of what is happening right now. He described the White House’s message to the outlets as simple: you can no longer come to briefings because your coverage of the current president is unfavorable.
He then turned to the voters who support moves like this. Obama estimated that roughly 30 to 35 percent of the country thinks banning reporters is fine, and said that shows Americans have not developed a real understanding of what democracy requires. He added that he does not believe all is lost, but that people have to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
The Trump press ban took effect the next morning. On Saturday, CNN’s Betsy Klein, Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett and MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner arrived for work at the White House and were refused entry. An MS NOW photographer was turned away too, and Klein’s press pass was taken from her. Inside, the desks those outlets normally use sat empty.
Reporters who cover the White House every day carry a credential known as a hard pass. It lets them walk onto the grounds, work out of the press offices, attend the daily briefings where the press secretary takes questions, and cover events with the president up close. That is what the Trump press ban strips away. Without the pass, a reporter can no longer cover the White House from the inside, no matter how long they have been on the beat.
All three outlets say they will challenge the Trump press ban in court. CNN said its reporting on the government will continue regardless of any attempt to restrict its access. Politico called Trump’s claim that it received government subsidies false and said it would defend its First Amendment rights. The First Amendment protects the press from being punished by the government for what it publishes. Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America, said press access is a right that keeps the public independently informed, not a privilege for journalists.
The reporters have precedent on their side. In 2018, a federal judge ordered the Trump White House to return CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass after it was pulled following a heated exchange with Trump, ruling the White House had not followed a fair process. A senior White House official defended the latest ban to NBC News, repeating Trump’s complaints about fake news outlets.
Obama’s own history with Fox comes with an asterisk. In October 2009, his administration tried to leave Fox News out of a round of TV interviews with Kenneth Feinberg, the Treasury official overseeing executive pay at companies that took federal bailout money. Emails later released through a public records request showed a White House staffer asking Treasury to skip Fox. The plan collapsed when ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC refused to do the interviews without Fox, and the administration backed down. That fight was over a single interview. The Trump press ban removes three news organizations from the White House entirely.
