White House bans CNN reporter from press event

WASHINGTON: The White House on Wednesday afternoon took the step of banning CNN White House reporter Kaitlan Collins from a Rose Garden announcement about tariffs following what the Trump administration believed were inappropriate questions shouted by Collins hours earlier about Michael Cohen and Vladimir Putin to the president.

In reacting to this move, however, CNN’s Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer falsely decried the move as “unprecedented” and behavior fitting for “some totalitarian regime.” Really. “But first, I want to go quickly to the White House where, in an unprecedented, CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins was banned from a late afternoon press event in the Rose Garden because the White House simply didn’t like the questions she asked the president earlier in the day,” Blitzer announced at 5:56 pm Eastern, reported international media on Thursday.

Before going further, it’s worth noting that not only has the Fox News Channel released a statement in support of CNN, but Fox News personalities such as Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum tweeted their support. It’s safe to say some at CNN are devastated they couldn’t use this occasion to go after the outlet they treat like an enemy.

Collins explained that she “was blocked from attending an open press event here at the White House because the White House did not like the questions I posed to President Trump earlier in the day during an event in the Oval Office with the president of the European Commission” when she represented the five television networks (ABC, CBS, MSNBC/NBC, CNN, and FNC).

After playing clips of her questions from the pool spray, Collins further explained what happened later in the day. “We left the Oval Office and then later, I was called into the office of Bill Shine, the president’s latest hire, who is his right hand man for communications. It was him and the press secretary, Sarah Sanders, who told me I would not be invite today an open press event here in the Rose Garden moments later at the White House because they thought the questions that I posed to President Trump were inappropriate and inappropriate for that venue. I told them that it is often our only chance to ask the President questions. Those questions were questions any reporter would have asked and I was there to represent all of the networks and, therefore, ask about the questions of the day along with the other reporters and my colleagues in that room. Because of that, the White House blocked me from going to an open press event here at the White House that all reporters are allowed to go because they did not like the questions that I asked President Trump about the news of the day.”

Wolf Blitzer responded that it’s “truly shocking,” “really unheard of,” and something he’s “never heard of” especially because “it’s an open event” where Collins is “an accredited White House correspondent.”

Collins noted that other CNN journalists were allowed to attend the event with no problem even though, earlier in the day, she “was simply doing my job, asking questions of the President about the news of the day.”