U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz argued Sunday that President Donald Trump is fully within his legal rights to bar reporters from CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from accessing the White House.
Waltz made the remarks during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, where anchor Dana Bash pressed him on the administration’s decision to deny those outlets access to White House grounds.
“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 told Bash during the interview.
Waltz cited Supreme Court precedent to support the administration’s position, referencing the case of Zemel vs. Rusk as legal grounding for restricting press access to government facilities.
“You can have the ability to speak. You can have the ability to publish as an open and free press. But you don’t have an inherent right to any government facility that you want, whether it’s Langley or the White House,” Waltz said.
Bash challenged Waltz by pointing to his 27-year military career as a decorated veteran and former Green Beret, arguing that his service was in defense of the constitutional rights now being curtailed by the ban.
Waltz responded by drawing a comparison to the Biden administration, saying: “The prior administration limited all kinds of journalistic outfits and journalists themselves that they deemed as right-wing.”
He added that those previously restricted right-wing outlets had since been granted access, while Trump now believes the newly banned organizations are not operating as good-faith members of the press.
Waltz also called on the media to reflect on its own conduct, criticizing what he described as a pattern of publishing damaging stories followed by only minor corrections, and drawing a distinction between “negative reporting and garbage gossip journalism.”
Trump announced the ban on Friday via his Truth Social platform, writing that it went into immediate effect “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” and warning that additional outlets could face similar restrictions in the future.
Reporters from the three banned organizations were turned away from White House grounds on Saturday, marking a significant escalation in the administration’s ongoing tensions with mainstream media.
The Biden administration had also tightened White House press pass requirements, with the number of active passes falling from 1,417 to 975 after stricter renewal conditions were introduced, according to Snopes citing Politico.
Separately, journalists Max Blumenthal and Sam Husseini were removed from a State Department press briefing in January 2025, after both confronted then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the administration’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Husseini was escorted out after screaming that Blinken belonged “in the Hague,” an incident that some critics now cite when arguing that press access restrictions did not begin with the Trump administration.
