Donald Trump announced that he is barring access to the White House by CNN and MS Now, as well as the outlet Politico, due to their reporting. He announced the move in a post on his platform Truth Social on Friday, stating that he was barring them "effective immediately".
He cited what he described as their constant 'reporting' of FAKE NEWS. During the event in the Oval Office, he accused the three outlets of 'fake news' and 'dishonesty'. He warned that the ban could extend to other media outlets.
It remains unclear what the ban would entail, or whether staff at the outlets would be barred from entering the White House compound.
The move was condemned by media freedom advocates, lawmakers and former President Barack Obama. Seth Stern, a spokesperson for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, along with Tim Richardson, director of media and disinformation at PEN America, and Aaron Terr, director of public affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, were among those who spoke out against the ban.
Speaking on Friday at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, Obama briefly commented on Trump's decision. 'I was trying to imagine what would happen if I said, you know, Fox News, get out,' Obama said, adding: 'That is unthinkable.'
Fox News had broadcast continuous negative coverage of him during Obama's two terms, regularly promoting conspiracy theories about his birth and tailoring content to the fears of white conservatives, yet always retaining its place in the White House press corps.
In a separate development, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, announced on Friday that he was planning to sign an executive order aimed at addressing transparency, energy consumption and environmental concerns in the development of data centres. Governor Josh Stein of North Carolina, a Democrat, had previously signed a similar executive order.
On Friday evening, thousands of protesters gathered outside the Kennedy Center, with the marble facade visible behind the scaffolding and tarps. Among the speakers at the protest was a drag queen.
Among the demonstrators were people in costumes of inflated animals and a man in a gold Trump mask with a crown, wearing a sign that read 'Return my name in gold, you suck-ups'. Another man wore a blue hat with the inscription 'Make America Smart Again'.
Balloons shaped like 'Baby Trump' floated in the air against the setting sun. Protesters beat drums, chanting 'hands off!' and waving banners, including: 'Keep your little hands off our Kennedy Center'; 'You are no Jack Kennedy'; 'Don't, you are no JFK!'; 'Kennedy Center forever'; 'Our center, not DJT's'; 'Hands off the arts' and 'Wicked with DJT in the lead role'.
Utah's Republican Senator John Curtis commented on the fact that a Russian oligarch had paid for a party for Donald Trump Jr.
