Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump administration’s decision to remove CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House workspace access, telling NBC’s Craig Melvin that the outlets have not been banned from covering the administration but have lost their dedicated space inside the building.
“We’re not closing CNN,” Rubio said. “There aren’t a bunch of police officer or soldiers kicking down the doors of MSNBC, or MS NOW, or whatever it is called, and arresting people and unplugging it from the grid. They’re just not allowed to work from the workspace at the White House.”
The change prompted the White House press pool to suspend its coverage of President Trump’s events, and CNN and other networks said they would stop distributing pool coverage as a result. CNN nonetheless had a reporter present covering Trump at the United Nations General Assembly, where CNN’s Kaitlan Collins questioned him as he arrived.
Rubio’s Criticism of Coverage
Asked about the decision, Rubio criticized what he characterized as the outlets’ coverage of Iran at a moment when the United States has been engaged with that country. “It sounds like they’re rooting for Iran,” Rubio said. “Anything Iran says they treat as true and they downplay American officials.”
Rubio said the administration’s position is that reporters from the three outlets remain free to cover the White House but are not entitled to a workspace inside it if the administration believes they are not “honestly covering his administration.” He noted he was scheduled to hold a press conference later, which he said the media would cover regardless of the workspace dispute.
The episode has intensified an ongoing dispute between the administration and several legacy news organizations over access to the White House press area, a debate that touches on longstanding questions about how much control the executive branch should exercise over which outlets receive physical proximity to government proceedings.
Those and other legacy media operations are nothing but Anti-American and especially Trump Administration Globalist Shills!
Point Blank I say they are Enemies Within! And they should be shut-down in the least and possibly some should be arrested for being Seditious Enemies Within who are supporting America’s Enemies like that diabolical leadership of Iran! Giving aid and comfort to such wicked and diabolical enemies of the American People is clearly antithetical to the US Constitution which should be severely punished without a doubt!