The Daily Blast: Trump’s Rage at CNN Boils Over as Case for Press Ban Starts Collapsing
The DSR Network
The episode examines the legal challenges facing Donald Trump's attempt to ban CNN, Politico, and MSNBC from the White House grounds. Host G
Key takeaways
- The White House's legal defense for the press ban relies on claims that certain reporting threatens national security, which experts argue is protected First Amendment activity.
- Donald Trump has specifically targeted CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins with personal insults, calling her a 'sleazebag' and accusing her of a 'Trump addiction.'
Main topics
- White House press ban lawsuit
- First Amendment rights
Notable quotes
He is essentially cutting off his own propaganda channel.
Conclusion
The episode highlights how Trump's aggressive tactics against the medi
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:10) This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I'm your host, Greg Sargent. Donald Trump's press ban is already running into legal trouble. The White House offered a response to the lawsuit against the ban brought by news organizations, and legal experts quickly poked some pretty big holes in it. This comes as Trump seems to have fixated for some reason on CNN as his main target. He exploded in fury at reporter Caitlin Collins this week and also tried to publicly humiliate her. Amusingly, he's only uniting the media against him, Fox News included, and we think this is a harbinger for the deeper institutional resistance he's set to face as his power diminishes. So we're talking about all of it with New Republic staff writer Timothy Noah, who's been writing well on Trump's shrinking influence. Tim, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Greg. So Trump banned CNN, Politico, and MSNOW from the White House grounds. The three organizations sued. The White House just filed its response in court and claims the ban is pursuant to national security and some other stuff. Tim, what is the White House arguing here exactly? The White House has argued, making Speaker 3 (1:37) several arguments, all of them so ridiculous that I wonder whether the White House even wants to win this lawsuit. First of all, they emphasize that this is the president's house. And as we all know, that is not the president's house. That is the people's house. He happens to be living in it at the moment. Surely somebody who's in the real estate business ought to Speaker 2 (1:59) understand who owns that building. Trump is unable to recognize that the White House and the presidency is a public thing. Right, right. Which Speaker 3 (2:10) echoes Mussolini. Mussolini had a famous statement that everything is encompassed by the state. Speaker 2 (2:16) And Speaker 3 (2:16) so that's, you know, his claim that this is his house is ridiculous. He also says that it is a privilege, not a right for the press. to have access to the White House, and that's quite wrong. It is a right for the press. It is not necessarily a right for every member of the press, but it is a right. Collectively, the press has a right to have reasonable procedures for admitting members of the press, and that such admissions can't be based on Speaker 3 (2:56) displeasure with what a particular reporter is writing. Speaker 2 (2:59) There has to be consistency in the way the media is treated. And clearly, this is all just arbitrary and rooted in Trump's fury. Trump's also been making this other weird argument. He's been pointing out that initially the press pool was suspended in solidarity with the banned outlets. But now he says, hey, news organizations did cover me during my UN speech. And he's flaunting this fact as if it's supposed to show his dominance over them. Tim, the juvenile nature of this is hard to avoid, isn't it? It's quite juvenile and Speaker 3 (3:35) childish. But to me, the most important thing is that it's self-damaging. the actual value of what a reporter is going to pick up by sitting in the White House press warren, the actual value was never great, and it is probably smaller now than it's ever been in human history. The real business of gathering news about what's happening in the White House is never going to happen Speaker 2 (4:05) in the White House press room. It Speaker 3 (4:06) is handy just as a way to handle. kind of routine information, but almost all of that routine information, possibly 100 % of it, is all stuff that Trump wants to get out. It's because it's the place where the White House controlled information feed takes place. So he's essentially cutting off his own propaganda channel. And he's also denying himself distribution of his propaganda through a much larger network, i.e. CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, than he possesses himself. Well, Speaker 2 (4:50) his whole argument that, okay, you said you were cutting me off, but now you showed up at the UN, this is at the center of his explosion of fury at Caitlin Collins, amazingly. Trump posted this, quote, all of the sleazebags like third-rate reporter Caitlin Collins of fake news CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren't going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like lunatics at the United Nations? Why was she there? She's got a Trump addiction, and so does CNN and MSDNC. They're all sick, treasonous, and demented, close quote. Tim, as we