Blanche Defends Trump’s White House Media Ban: ‘It’s a Privilege, Not a Right’ | Trump administration

Donald Trump’s attorney general, Todd Blanche, argued Sunday that the administration is authorized to ban three media outlets from the White House because “it’s a privilege, not a right, to be there.”

Appearing on ABC News’ This Week during the second week of the White House dispute over press accreditation and access, Blanche also said the administration made the decision to ban CNN, MS Now and Politico starting September 19 because the president was “fed up” with what he saw as those outlets’ inaccurate reporting.

Blanche provided no evidence to support her claim that the media reports were inaccurate, rather than simply unflattering to the president. Pressed by interviewer Martha Raddatz to point to a report the administration opposed, Blanche appeared to suggest that any negative reporting about Trump must be inaccurate.

“Wait, are you giving an example of when CNN isn’t reporting accurately? You can’t ask me that,” Blanche responded. “There’s not even any real dispute that the information coming from CNN and some of these other networks is entirely, almost 100 percent, negative about the president.”

On Thursday, a judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to temporarily reinstate the credentials of the affected journalists, and they were allowed into the executive complex.

But on Saturday, CNN said its journalists were barred from joining the media group traveling with the president aboard Air Force One.

“The president did not deny access,” Blanche told ABC. “That’s not the right way to describe it.”

The lingering dispute between the administration and the White House press corps appeared to be resolving before CNN was again blocked from providing consolidated television coverage of Trump on Saturday. This was after media outlets stood in solidarity with CNN, MS Now and Politico by briefly refusing to provide joint television feeds to the president.

On ABC, Blanche said it was not unusual for a media outlet not to be allowed to board the president’s plane.

“The White House regularly decides who can board Air Force One,” Blanche said. “This is not a one-off refusal from CNN. There are all kinds of times when some journalists don’t fly or fly.

“This is not unusual, and in fact it is common, whenever the president travels, that he and his team decide which journalists will travel with the president.”

What Blanche didn’t explain was that before Trump’s second term, choosing which correspondents were part of the pool covering presidential travel was left to the White House Correspondents’ Association and the broadcast networks that took turns providing camera crews. After Trump returned to office last year, the White House took control of media allowed in the Oval Office or on Air Force One, increasing access for partisan and pro-Trump journalists.

Blanche reiterated the administration’s position that the reporting by the three media outlets involved constituted a “national security issue.”

Raddatz reminded Blanche that Trump himself said he banned CNN, MS Now and Politico because, he said, “they deliberately write negative news, and they do it because they want to diminish Republicans and a Republican administration.”

In the ruling to temporarily restore the three banned media outlets’ access to the White House for 14 days, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said nothing in the record suggested the revocation of the press passes was motivated by national security concerns.

“That is certainly not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘barring’ Plaintiffs from the White House – instead he focused on the alleged lack of veracity and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting,” Kelly wrote in his ruling.

Trump faced a bleak political landscape just over a month before the federal midterm elections in November. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that Trump’s overall approval rating was 32 percent, a historic low.

But trust in the news media is declining, with only 28% expressing “a lot” or “somewhat” confidence in newspapers, television and radio stations to report the news completely, accurately and fairly, according to a 2025 Gallup survey.

Bill Clinton recently commented on the battle between what the media sees as a crude effort at censorship and a denial of constitutional rights – and what the White House sees as unfairly negative reporting.

“There were many times when I wanted to ban the press from the White House,” the former president said at the Clinton Global Initiative 2026 summit. “And there’s a reason we have a constitution — because none of us are safe from being angry.

“But I’m glad I never did it, and I’m glad I couldn’t have done it. And these people shouldn’t do it. The law should be what it is.”

Blanche was asked what the First Amendment to the US Constitution – which guarantees the right to a free press – meant to him.

“The law says: What the free press can do is be free to report what it wants,” Blanche noted. “Of course they can. But when it comes to the White House, it’s the people’s house. It’s a privilege, not a right, to be there.”

He added that “it is absolutely the president’s duty to ensure that the American people hear accurate information.”