Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump administration\u2019s decision to bar three media organizations from the White House, saying in an interview on NBC News\u2019 \u201cTODAY\u201d that President Donald Trump was not closing outlets or arresting reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not closing CNN,\u201d Rubio said of the ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico. \u201cThere aren\u2019t a bunch of police officers or soldiers kicking down the doors of MSNBC or MS NOW, whatever it\u2019s called, and arresting people and unplugging it from the grid. They\u2019re just not allowed to work from the workspace at the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Tuesday interview, Rubio also addressed the war with Iran, including its impact on oil and gas prices, arguing that if Tehran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, it would use the threat to constrain oil shipments and drive prices up even further. He also discussed concerns about the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and the need for a developmental framework to maintain the benefits of the technology while lowering the risks.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s ban on the media outlets marked the president\u2019s most extreme instance so far of blocking access for news organizations whose coverage he dislikes. <\/p>\n
The three banned outlets sued the Trump administration <\/a>Monday, and major television networks, including NBC News, refused to provide TV pool coverage of the president at least through Monday. Pool coverage allows media members and subscribers to share video, editorial information and costs for newsworthy events where space is limited. <\/p>\n Individual TV networks, including NBC News, continue to provide coverage of White House events that are open to the press, outside of the pool. Outside of events, NBC News reporters continue to report on the administration\u2019s activities.<\/p>\n Television pool coverage of other administration officials, including Rubio, has continued. On Monday, CNN provided TV pool coverage of him. <\/p>\n When asked by \u201cTODAY\u201d host Craig Melvin whether he planned to make changes to his pool coverage, Rubio said, \u201cWe haven\u2019t discussed it.\u201d <\/p>\n Rubio told \u201cTODAY\u201d that the three banned outlets would be able to continue covering the president from outside the White House, adding that Trump believed that the outlets have shown bias against his administration and therefore did not have a right to remain in the White House building. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat he is arguing is, why should I have these people, what right do they have to be embedded in this building?\u201d Rubio said. \u201cThey can cover the White House. They just can\u2019t have a desk there.\u201d<\/p>\n In their lawsuit, the outlets argued that the ban violated their due process and First Amendment rights, claiming the ban \u201cretaliates against protected newsgathering and speech\u201d and bars the outlets \u201cfrom a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n In his Truth Social announcement <\/a>of the ban last week, Trump said the move was \u201cas a result of their constant \u2018reporting\u2019 FAKE NEWS!\u201d In a separate post<\/a> Monday, Trump again criticized media as \u201cfake news,\u201d calling it \u201ca threat to our National Security\u201d that \u201cmust be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump is set to address world leaders Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly, followed by a high-stakes summit in Washington, D.C., with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week.<\/p>\n Iran war impact<\/p>\n Asked whether Trump plans to meet with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, <\/a>who will attend the assembly, Rubio said Trump \u201chas said that he\u2019s open a meeting with anybody.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that he would \u201cprobably\u201d be open to meeting the Iranian president. Iran\u2019s president is an important official of the country, but not the top official. The top Iranian official, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in public since taking over the position in March after his father, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in airstrikes at the start of the war. <\/p>\n The war with Iran has sent economic effects rippling around the world, and the cost of oil and gas has spiked since the conflict began. An NBC News poll <\/a>found that 62% of registered voters think the war has not been worth the costs. <\/p>\n Pressed on rising prices and Americans\u2019 sentiment on the war, Rubio said that \u201canyone who\u2019s concerned about prices itself is not wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, if the war is being blamed for that, then of course you\u2019re going to hear and you\u2019re going to see responses like that,\u201d he said, referring to the polling. <\/p>\n Rubio argued, however, that prices would be far higher if Iran had a nuclear weapon and could \u201cchoke off the world\u2019s energy supply any time they wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n Concerns about AI<\/p>\n Later this week, artificial intelligence is expected to be a major topic at the Trump-Xi summit. Concerns about the future of AI have risen in recent weeks after industry insiders warned of potentially catastrophic impacts of the technology. <\/p>\n Trump has argued<\/a> for maintaining the accelerated development of AI in the U.S., saying it is necessary to ensure that America keeps its lead on the technology over global rivals like China. At one point, he posted on social media that the only guardrail needed<\/a> for AI is \u201cis a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades!\u201d<\/p>\n Rubio said in his interview Tuesday that the reality of AI is that the technology cannot be stopped.<\/p>\n \u201cLike every technological advance in human history, it\u2019s impossible to stop it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will happen. The question is, how can we put guardrails and frameworks around it so that we can get the benefits of AI while mitigating the risks?\u201d<\/p>\n Rubio did not propose specific guardrails or frameworks, saying, \u201cI don\u2019t think anyone has an easy answer\u201d for AI yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump administration\u2019s decision to bar three media organizations from the White…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-856749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}