Arabic version: منع مراسلين من دخول البيت الأبيض بعد حظر ترامب
According to BBC News, journalists from Politico, CNN and MS NOW were denied access to the White House after President Donald Trump announced he was barring the three outlets. Trump said on Friday that he was excluding them because they wrote “fiction or lies” about his administration.
On Saturday morning, an MS NOW reporter and photographer tried to enter the White House grounds but their badges would not scan, the outlet reported. Reporter Akayla Gardner said an officer confiscated the badges and told her they had been disabled. CNN reporter Betsy Klein said a Secret Service agent told her that her badge had been deactivated. Politico later said its reporter Cheyenne Haslett was denied entry and her pass was revoked.
Trump did not identify specific reporting that prompted the decision, later describing it as based on “cumulative stories over the last few years”. He said there “may be others to join them”, and named The New York Times and The Washington Post when asked about further outlets.
All three organisations criticised the move as a violation of constitutional protections for free speech and press freedom. The White House Correspondents’ Association called for access to be restored immediately. Its president, Jacqui Heinrich, said a standard used to exclude one outlet over its coverage could be applied to others. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said it expected courts to strike down the ban quickly as “flatly unconstitutional”.
