Trump’s Media Critics Have Their Own History of Limiting Press Access

Posted by Luis Cornelio

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA)  Much has been said about President Donald Trump’s Friday decision to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, but some of Trump’s supporters are pointing to the loudest critics’ own records of disputes over press access.

Left-wing figures immediately accused Trump of violating the First Amendment by effectively expelling journalists from the three outlets from the White House grounds.

In contrast, conservatives countered that Democratic administrations have repeatedly taken aim at news outlets they view as adversarial.

For instance, left-wing activists have circulated a video of former President Barack Obama criticizing Trump’s 2025 decision to remove credentials from members of the White House press corps.

“Imagine if I had done any of this stuff. Imagine if I had pulled Fox News’ credentials from the White House press corps,” Obama said during an April 3, 2025, appearance at Hamilton College.

“It’s unimaginable that the same parties that are silent now would have tolerated behavior like that from me or a whole bunch of my predecessors,” Obama added. “I say this not on a partisan basis.”

But Obama’s own administration very publicly attempted to ban Fox News reporters from a Treasury Department briefing in October 2009. The administration walked back the ban only after fellow journalists objected.

The White House, however, went on to double down on its attack against Fox News, with then-White House Communications Director Anita Dunn claiming Fox operated “as the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.”

She added, “They take their talking points, put them on the air; take their opposition research, put them on the air. And that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network the way CNN is … We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent.”

Another critic of the Trump ban is Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who described the move as “yet another attack on the First Amendment.”

“Donald Trump can’t hide from his failing record, so he’s banning journalists he doesn’t like to keep you from hearing about it,” Pritzker added.

Veteran journalist Amy Jacobson quickly replied to Pritzker’s claims by pointing out that he banned her from his administration’s press briefings in 2020, shortly after Jacobson reported that Pritzker’s family had traveled to the governor’s vacation home in Wisconsin while he was enforcing a statewide stay-at-home order.

At the time, Pritzker defended the decision by arguing that Jacobson was no longer a reporter because she had attended an anti-lockdown rally.

“That is not a reporter,” he said of Jacobson, according to her then-employer, Salem Media. “Once upon a time she was a reporter, but she proved that she is no longer a reporter.” Pritzker removed the ban after Jacobson filed a federal lawsuit against him.

Another critic of the Trump ban is CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter, who in 2021 led a segment questioning whether then-President Joe Biden should remove Fox News from the White House press pool.

But on Saturday, Stelter condemned Trump’s decision to ban his network from the pool, saying: “People around the world recognize this for what it is: Yet another Trump move straight out of the autocratic playbook.”

Neither Pritzker’s press office nor Stelter responded to Headline USA’s requests for comment before publication.

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