Some of Donald Trump’s most ardent defenders have lashed out at the president’s bid to ban media from the White House, describing the move as a desperate bid to get more favorable coverage—and warning it could backfire spectacularly.
As his popularity continues to tank in the polls, the president on Friday announced that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico would be barred from the White House, and suggested that other outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post could be next.
The announcement represented another escalation in the president’s extraordinary second-term campaign to punish news organizations he believes are insufficiently friendly to his administration.
However, the 80-year-old’s latest chilling threat to the First Amendment appears to have unnerved even some of Trump’s conservative and MAGA allies.
Conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a longstanding defender of the president, said the move was an “assault on long-honored principles of a free press,” while acknowledging that he has frequently criticized left-leaning outlets for bias.
“Barring disfavored media from the White House is a terrible precedent and practice,” Turley wrote, warning that it raises “serious constitutional questions.”
“It is hard for the United States to advocate for press rights globally when it is banning disfavored outlets,” he added.
Fox News anchor Brit Hume reposted Turley’s criticism with a blunt warning: “100%. And if he thinks this will lead to more favorable coverage, I think he’s dreaming,” he said.
Consultant and former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer agreed that some outlets were biased—but argued the answer was to challenge them, not restrict them.
“Open the pool and the briefing room to conservatives. Challenge liberal reporters. Argue and defeat them. Don’t ban them. Or one day they’ll ban us,” Fleischer said.
Even Trump loyalist Laura Loomer turned the dispute into a complaint about her own exclusion, arguing that the White House had mishandled press credentials for pro-Trump independent journalists while allowing “hostile” reporters access.
“I hate to say it, but in a way, the White House created this issue when they decided to deny certain independent journalists who have always supported the President press passes while allowing for hostile media to get front-row access during every press briefing,” the MAGA acolyte said.
“I love President Trump, but his staff should have seen this coming when they treated anti-Trump media personalities so well and bent over backwards to reward Trump haters in the fake news media,” Loomer added.
Trump’s announcement came after a brutal stretch of news, including polls showing his approval deeply underwater over the Iran war and affordability, a federal court ruling blocking his attempt to put his name back on the Kennedy Center, and fresh setbacks over his administration’s attempt to control mail-in voting.
Moments before he announced his ban, Politico also published an extraordinary report that sensitive F-35 components being shipped from Australia to the U.S. were diverted to Hong Kong and went missing, raising concerns that China could potentially gain access to stealth technology.
The Pentagon confirmed a “shipment issue” and said it was working to recover the parts; there is no public confirmation that China obtained them.
Against the backdrop of a tough week, and merely 45 days from the midterms, Trump’s instinct was not to change the news, but to attempt to change who gets to report it.
“There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” he told reporters after announcing his ban on Truth Social, claiming it would be “effective immediately.”
“Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my…,” he added, before correcting himself, “into the People’s House.”
The legal fight could be familiar territory for Trump. In 2018, his White House revoked then-CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass after a heated exchange with the president.
CNN sued, arguing the move violated Acosta’s constitutional rights, and a federal judge ordered the White House to restore his credentials. The administration ultimately backed down.
Asked what might be different this time, Trump told reporters it would “depend on the judge.” But some legal experts don’t believe the ban would hold up in court, while others described it as yet another “distraction.”
What Trump’s ban would mean in practice is also unclear, as his aides did not immediately provide clarity.
Asked if he thought Trump would follow through, Ty Cobb, the president’s former lawyer, told CNN on Friday: “We know that he thinks it’s his house. He leveled the East Wing in violation of the law and without talking to Congress; he has gilded the Oval Office with so much gold you have to wear sunglasses in there just to avoid the wh**ehouse vibes… Let’s not put anything past him.”
Trump’s announcement on Friday was the latest attempt to undermine the free press. Last year, the White House restricted AP reporters from presidential events after AP refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”.
Trump has also cut funding to NPR and PBS, threatened to revoke the broadcast licenses of ABC, NBC, and CNN after they declined to carry one of his prime-time speeches live, and has repeatedly attacked female reporters with vile insults.
Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said, “This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office.”
