(Photo illustration by Bill Kuchman/The Bulwark | Photos: Shutterstock)
UNDER DONALD TRUMP, the formula for American authoritarianism has been distressingly simple: Trump crosses one line after another—usurping congressional powers, mounting an insurrection, ordering prosecutions of his enemies—and Republicans go along. The same thing happened this week after he banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, and after Secret Service agents followed through by confiscating the reporters’ press passes. While a few Republicans in Congress dissented—and a judge eventually ordered the White House to restore the journalists’ access for now—Republican leaders in Congress joined administration officials in defending the president’s assault on the First Amendment.
The excuses Republicans have offered for the press ban are worth examining, in part as a measure of their willingness to justify any abuse of power. Here are some of their arguments.
1. The ban is a matter of national security. Trump invented this excuse on Monday, three days after he explicitly said he had targeted the three offenders because they tried to “diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration.” His lackeys in Congress were happy to spout the new party line. “I can understand why the president of the United States doesn’t want the news outlets that are aiding and abetting our enemies into his workspace,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). As evidence of this alleged treachery, Johnson cited CNN’s coverage of the Iran war: “Was it Kaitlan Collins who talked to Trump about, you know, two-thirds of Americans believe Iran’s winning? Well, that’s because that’s what you’re telling them.”
This argument portrays any critical reporting about the war as a security threat worthy of censorship. It’s the kind of sweeping rationale you’d expect from a dictatorship.
2. The banned outlets used anonymous sources. On Sunday, Trump’s U.N. ambassador, Mike Waltz, told CNN’s Dana Bash that Trump was right to act against “garbage gossip journalism.” Waltz defined this kind of journalism as reliance on “one anonymous source.” As an example, the White House cited a Politico article that quoted a “senior administration official” talking about the war.
It turned out that the official was Vice President JD Vance. So the administration fed a quote to the press, stipulated that the quote had to be anonymous, and then used it to justify banning Politico.
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3. Twitter and Facebook did the same thing to Trump. On Meet the Press on Sunday, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) defended Trump’s press ban by protesting that the president had been treated the same way. “In his first term, he was banned from Twitter, he was banned from Facebook,” said Barrasso. “So it goes both ways.”
But Twitter and Facebook aren’t the government. And they acted only after Trump incited violence on January 6th. Trump isn’t reciprocating. He’s opening a new frontier in federal control of the press.
4. Biden did the same thing. On ABC’s This Week, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise excused Trump by claiming that “Joe Biden removed the press credentials from over 400 different agencies.” That’s a misrepresentation. As ABC’s Jonathan Karl and other fact checkers have noted, neither Biden nor Barack Obama ever barred a news organization based on objections to its reporting. Press credentials were tightened under Biden, but the rules were neutrally applied.
5. Trump talks to reporters in the Oval Office all the time. “He brings in the press, and everybody gets to not only take pictures, but ask questions,” said Scalise.
But if you watch these sessions, you’ll notice that many of the reporters who get called on—and sometimes most of them—are from propaganda outlets such as Lindell TV and One America News. In effect, they’re state media. They’re invited in to crowd out serious journalists.
6. Banned news organizations can cover Trump by following his social media. “He may not be allowing for some journalists to go into one place,” Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) conceded on Face the Nation. “But with social media, and with all the different outlets out there for people to receive information, I am sure that those journalists are going to be able to cover the president . . . the way you determine.”
Salazar is a daughter of Cuban exiles. But for Trump, she’s willing to pretend that a president’s propaganda feed counts as freedom of the press.
7. Other reporters still have White House access. Last Friday, as Trump explained his ban in the Oval Office, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-Ark.), his former press secretary, stood behind him. She told the assembled reporters that they couldn’t fairly accuse him of undermining the First Amendment “when you’re literally standing in the Oval Office asking questions.” But Trump’s willingness to admit some reporters while he excludes others doesn’t show that he supports a free press. It shows that he’s selectively targeting news organizations he doesn’t like.
8. The banned outlets can get back in if they shape up. On Monday, CNBC’s Joe Kernen asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent whether there might be an “off-ramp” from the ban. “We’ll see,” said Bessent. “Maybe it’s a change in coverage at the White House.” But if news organizations have to give Trump favorable coverage to regain access, that means he controls the media.
9. Reporters aren’t entitled to “special access.” Vance used this term five times as he defended Trump on Monday. “He’s not banning media outlets,” said Vance. “What he’s doing is saying, ‘We’re not going to give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda.’”
Vance is notorious for rationalizing anything, including the fake-electors plot in 2020 and 2021. And in this case, his argument is just as bogus. For reporters who cover the White House, access to the building isn’t special. It’s normal and essential.
10. Voters don’t care. On Meet the Press, Barrasso denied that Trump’s ban violated the Constitution. “The bottom line on all of this is, this is not going to have an impact on an election 44 days from now,” said Barrasso. That’s how today’s Republicans think: Rules and norms don’t matter unless discarding them hurts us at the polls.
11. The banned outlets don’t represent the people. As Vance put it on Monday:
About 92 percent of the stories that they have on the president of the United States, on the administration, are negative. That’s not representative of the American people. It’s not representative of public opinion. So if you’re going to engage in what is effectively far-left propaganda, why would a Republican White House give you special access?
That’s illiberal pseudo-populism. The purpose of the First Amendment is to protect freedom of speech and freedom of the press regardless of whether the viewpoints expressed are popular—or whether they satisfy an administration that claims, falsely, to represent the people.
12. This is just Trump’s style. On Face the Nation, Salazar was asked whether Trump’s ban violated the First Amendment. She shrugged it off: “I think that he has his own style and that he will determine who he wants to talk to.”
There’s a name for that style. It’s “fascism.”
13. Congress should defer to the president. “The White House should probably be able to determine who [and] what cameras are in the White House,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told reporters after Trump announced the ban. Hawley said he would “defer” to Trump. That’s how Republicans in Congress have behaved throughout Trump’s reign: Whatever he wants, he gets.
14. The president is entitled to adjudicate who’s a real journalist. “The president is absolutely within his rights to limit journalists to government facilities, particularly when, in his opinion, they’re not behaving as good-faith journalists,” Waltz argued on CNN. Why grant access based on objective standards of journalism, as Biden did, when you can rely instead on the president’s whims?
15. The White House belongs to the president. Last Friday, Trump said he had banned the three outlets because “I don’t want ’em in my office.” That language—“my office”—is the way a CEO might talk about his suite, not the way a public servant ought to talk about a national institution. But Trump’s attitude apparently struck a chord with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. On Tuesday, speaking on NBC’s Today show, Rubio parroted Trump: “The president feels strongly that, ‘Why should I have people working in my building and in my office that I believe are not honestly covering my administration?’”
16. Give us credit for not arresting journalists. “They’re not banned,” Rubio said in Trump’s defense, referring to the excluded news outlets. “We’re not closing CNN. There aren’t a bunch of police officers or soldiers kicking down the doors of MSNBC or MS NOW, or whatever it’s called, and arresting people and unplugging them from the grid.”
ON THURSDAY, THE BANNED REPORTERS were back in the White House, thanks to the district court’s temporary restraining order. But that evening, CNN and MS NOW were denied access to the arrival at the White House of Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state dinner. The dinner could have showcased our constitutional democracy. Instead, it showcased Trump’s continued disdain for freedom of the press.
And the sickness goes well beyond Trump. Officials who pretended to care about freedom in other countries—Rubio, Vance, Waltz, and Republican leaders in Congress—have demonstrated that they’re willing to trample it at home. The problem in the United States isn’t just that we’re ruled by a thug. It’s that we’re ruled by men who will do and defend whatever the thug says.