Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the White House’s decision to remove CNN from its scheduled TV pool duties aboard Air Force One, citing national security concerns in an interview Sunday morning.
“The president has every right to decide who gets to fly on his plane, and it is national security, especially on Air Force One, and especially at the White House,” Blanche said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It’s not just the fact that they refuse to report anything accurately.”
Blanche’s Justice Department used the same reasoning in federal court last week to defend the White House’s prior restrictions on CNN, MS NOW and Politico, which were barred from the White House grounds for nearly a week.
The government’s argument failed to hold water with U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who ordered the White House to temporarily reinstate the outlets’ press credentials while litigation over the ban continues.
Blanche’s national security argument stands in contrast to Trump’s public reasoning for the various restrictions on press freedoms, which he has repeatedly blamed on what he calls the inaccuracy of the news organizations’ reporting. He has questioned why journalists he views as “perpetrators of FAKE NEWS, like CNN and MSDNC” should be allowed access to the White House, and said he wants “real news, not fake news” covering his administration.
CNN said it was blocked from boarding Air Force One for Trump’s Saturday trip to attend the top-ranked Texas Longhorns’ college football game at Tennessee in Knoxville, preventing the network from fulfilling its TV pool coverage responsibilities.
In response to CNN’s removal, the other four major TV networks that decide the daily rotation of White House pool coverage alongside CNN — ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News — declined to take the network’s place in the television rotation, leading to a temporary halt in independent video pool coverage for the trip.
The White House television pool cameras picked up coverage of Trump Sunday, with a Fox News crew following the president on his visit to a golf tournament outside Chicago.
Blanche told ABC’s Martha Raddatz that the White House was well within its rights to remove CNN from the executive jet, but did not directly explain how the network’s coverage of Trump’s attendance at a football game would impact the administration’s national security agenda.
“At some point, complete misinformation and the inaccuracy of one-sided news of certain organizations does become a national security issue,” Blanche said Sunday.
“When you have complete misinformation coming out of the White House, that affects our relationship with our foreign partners, that affects our relationship with our foreign enemies,” he added.
When Raddatz challenged Blanche on what the criteria will be for media outlets to earn access to Trump’s White House or Trump’s Air Force One in the future, Blanche said it wasn’t his decision, but reiterated Trump’s own desire for what he views as “accurate” news.
“It doesn’t have to be positive. It doesn’t have to be something that just makes Republicans look good. But it has to be fair and balanced, and that’s what the president expects,” Blanche said.
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