After MS NOW, CNN and Politico sued the Trump administration on Monday over the president banning their reporters from White House grounds, Trump’s communications team sent congressional Republicans talking points Monday night in defense of the president’s decision.
According to the document obtained by MS NOW, the White House wants Republicans to argue that “no president has been more transparent or offered more of his time to the press” and that the First Amendment does not grant reporters access to the White House.
“The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle certain outlets and members of the press to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool,” the talking points say.
The White House did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment on the talking points.
The White House argues to congressional Republicans that Trump’s ban isn’t unprecedented, drawing a false equivalence with previous press restrictions from Democratic administrations — such as the Biden administration updating its credentialing rules in 2023.
That update — which required reporters to live near Washington, D.C., have gone to the White House within the last six months, and have a press pass with the Supreme Court or Congress — led to hundreds of reporters who didn’t meet the criteria losing their hard passes.
But the Biden administration didn’t ban those reporters from the White House. Most of those reporters simply chose not to renew their hard passes, and the White House still allowed those reporters to apply for a day pass. Only one person — who did not meet all of the news criteria — was denied a hard pass.
The White House links to a press release it issued Monday detailing some Democratic controversies with the press titled “White House Access Is a Privilege — Not a Right.”
The talking points were included in an email titled “White House Highlights,” which was sent to GOP offices in the House and Senate, according to a House GOP aide and a senior GOP Senate aide.
Among other talking points supplied to Republicans are these arguments:
- “No member of the public or the press has a freestanding constitutional right to access the White House complex.”
- “Fabricating facts or reporting verifiable falsehoods from inside the White House complex is an intentional breach of professional decorum and it is severely disruptive to the mission and purpose of the White House.”
Despite the claims of “fabricating facts or reporting verifiable falsehoods,” the talking points do not identify any specific report by MS NOW, CNN or Politico as an example of such conduct, and Trump has said his ban isn’t because of any particular story.
Gabe Rottman, the vice president of policy at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told MS NOW that while the White House is correct that the president and his communications staff have “a fair amount of discretion in how it manages press access to the White House grounds,” the circumstances are different when decisions are based on viewpoints.
Rottman said, based on existing case law, one thing was “abundantly clear”: The White House can’t bar press access based on viewpoints and the content of reporting.
He said the president’s own statements, both on Truth Social and during a press conference on Friday, had provided “all of the evidence one would need to determine that the ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico from physically entering the White House at all is because the White House perceives their coverage as as overly negative.”
“That’s what’s called under the First Amendment ‘viewpoint discrimination,’ and it is anathema to the U.S. Constitution,” Rottman said.
In a lawsuit that MS NOW, CNN and Politico jointly filed on Monday in the D.C. District Court, the media organizations note that the White House grounds are a “nonpublic forum,” as established in Ateba v. Leavitt, and because it’s a nonpublic forum, the government can’t discriminate based on viewpoints.
Additionally, when the Secret Service revoked the White House press passes of reporters from these media organizations, the government agency was breaking the code of federal regulations, which states that the Secret Service’s granting of these press passes must be “guided solely by the principle of whether the applicant presents a potential source of physical danger to the President and/or the family of the President so serious as to justify his or her exclusion from White House press privileges.”
Trump himself has also referred to the ban as a “ban on the free press.” And in explaining his motive, Trump said, “there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” and that “if they want to write them, that’s fine, but I don’t have to let them into my — into the people’s house.”
And when reporters pressed Trump on whether there was a particular reason or story that had triggered his ban, he said no.
“It’s really just cumulative stories over the last two years,” Trump said, further claiming without evidence that the organizations “purposely write negative news” and do so “because they want to try and diminish the Republicans.”
The talking points also include a quote from President Trump, which he issued on Truth Social on Monday, about the ban.
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” Trump wrote. “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Below is the talking points the White House sent to congressional Republicans in their entirety:
Taking on the Fake News Media Bias: “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW! Thank you for your attention to this matter.” – President DONALD J. TRUMP
- No President has been more transparent or offered more of his time to the press. In addition to working around the clock to serve the American people, President Trump also makes time to bring them into the conversation and answer reporters’ questions on a near daily basis.
- The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle certain outlets and members of the press to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool.
- For years, Democrat Administrations have restricted, punished, and locked out the press.
- No member of the public or the press has a freestanding constitutional right to access the White House complex.
- Fabricating facts or reporting verifiable falsehoods from inside the White House complex is an intentional breach of professional decorum and it is severely disruptive to the mission and purpose of the White House.
- Read More: White House Access Is a Privilege — Not a Right
The post Here are the talking points the White House sent Republicans on Trump’s media ban appeared first on MS NOW.
