{"id":205355,"date":"2026-09-21T19:50:03","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T02:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=205355"},"modified":"2026-09-21T19:50:03","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T02:50:03","slug":"white-house-access-is-a-privilege-not-a-right-says-trump-admin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=205355","title":{"rendered":"White House Access Is a Privilege \u2014 Not a Right, Says Trump Admin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC…Last week, President Donald J. Trump\u00a0removed<\/a>\u00a0CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House grounds after\u00a0years<\/a>\u00a0of<\/a>\u00a0false<\/a>\u00a0reporting<\/a>.\u00a0The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never \u201cevery outlet gets in.\u201d It was always \u201cour side stays in.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, Democrat Administrations have restricted, punished, and locked out the press.<\/h2>\n

2009:\u00a0The Obama White House\u00a0branded<\/a>\u00a0Fox News as the \u201cresearch arm\u201d and \u201ccommunications arm\u201d of the Republican Party,\u00a0barred<\/a>\u00a0it from a round of exclusive Sunday show interviews,\u00a0instructed<\/a>\u00a0agencies to \u201cskip\u201d including it in pooled coverage,\u00a0derided<\/a>\u00a0it as \u201creally not news,\u201d and\u00a0undertook<\/a>\u00a0an all-out effort to isolate the organization. Barack Hussein Obama now\u00a0calls<\/a>\u00a0a Fox ban \u201cunimaginable,\u201d but his White House\u00a0tried it<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and his spokesman admitted they were willing to do it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

2010:\u00a0The Obama Justice Department\u00a0labeled<\/a>\u00a0Fox News correspondent James Rosen a possible \u201cco-conspirator\u201d in a criminal leak case, secretly\u00a0monitored<\/a>\u00a0his emails and phone calls, and tracked his movements \u2014 an \u201cunprecedented\u201d level of surveillance and intimidation of a journalist over his reporting.<\/p>\n

2011:\u00a0Obama White House officials\u00a0restricted<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Boston Herald<\/em>\u00a0from coverage \u2014\u00a0writing<\/a>\u00a0that pool slots depended on covering Obama \u201cfairly\u201d \u2014 after the paper ran a front page Mitt Romney op-ed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

2011:\u00a0After a\u00a0San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>\u00a0reporter recorded protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser, White House officials\u00a0threatened<\/a>\u00a0to strip the outlet from access and warned of retaliation if the paper reported on it.<\/p>\n

2012:\u00a0The Obama Justice Department secretly\u00a0seized<\/a>\u00a0two months of telephone records covering more than 20 Associated Press lines used by more than a dozen journalists \u2014 targeting them over their reporting.<\/p>\n

2023:\u00a0The Biden White House\u00a0blocked<\/a>\u00a0New York Post<\/em>\u00a0reporter Steven Nelson from covering the President\u2019s only daytime public event \u2014 despite empty seats in the room \u2014 after the reporter pressed Biden on his family\u2019s shady business dealings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

2023:\u00a0The Biden Administration\u00a0restricted<\/a>\u00a0more than 440 reporters from White House access through a new, retroactive press credentialing process \u2014 with independent and conservative journalists taking a heavy share of the hit. The White House Correspondents\u2019 Association barely objected.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

2008:\u00a0In the Obama campaign\u2019s final days, senior campaign officials\u00a0pulled<\/a>\u00a0reporters from three prominent outlets off the traveling press plane \u2014 restricting them from coverage after the papers endorsed Obama\u2019s opponent.<\/p>\n

2021:\u00a0The same media now suing once urged a ban on Fox News. CNN\u2019s Brian Stelter\u00a0repeatedly<\/a>\u00a0floated<\/a>\u00a0removing Fox News from the White House press tool as a \u201cpolitical tool,\u201d and later even\u00a0suggested<\/a>\u00a0Fox News be dropped from cable altogether.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n

During the first 100 days of President Trump\u2019s second term, the\u00a0Media Research Center<\/a>\u00a0found that 92% of coverage by mainstream outlets was negative compared to nearly 60% positive coverage during the same period under Biden. That\u2019s more like a political operation with cameras than a free press holding power to account.<\/p>\n

No President is required to host a hostile operation on the grounds.\u00a0Access has always been a privilege \u2014 and President Trump is applying that rule.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC…Last week, President Donald J. Trump\u00a0removed\u00a0CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House grounds after\u00a0years\u00a0of\u00a0false\u00a0reporting.\u00a0The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool. Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":187469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/WhiteHouse25.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":205356,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205355\/revisions\/205356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/187469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}