Donald Trump has banned journalists from CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House effective immediately. He says the move responds to “cumulative stories over the last two years” and declares the outlets “fake news” that “cannot write the truth.”
I assume even Trump understands that ejecting reporters simply because he dislikes their opinions is indefensible and would draw little support even from his strongest backers. Framing the ban as a response to fiction and deliberate lies is a different matter; that claim could attract reasonable people, and I would support it if the evidence were clear and specific. Yet he has offered none.
The ball is in his court. Produce the actual instances of lies and fabricated reporting or this episode stands as nothing more than another thin-skinned performance by a president who treats disagreement as personal injury.
I have zero doubts those journalists and agencies have lied; all news agencies have lied and continue to lie. Whether this rises to illegal depends entirely on which judges hear the case, since access to press rooms and Air Force One is limited like all resources, and as usual, lawyers on both sides will spin this every which way they can. No due process, equal protection, doesn't follow procedures laid out in some obscure laws, violates freedom of the press, the possibilities are endless, and in the end, have less to do with it than the judge's mood and ideological slant.
In the end, it will make no difference to anything. It won't change what those or other agencies do or report or who they lie about and how. It won't change what the public learns or what more power Congress delegates away.
It's just thin-skinned Trump getting butt hurt in the third degree and lashing out without thinking, as he does for just about everything.