Joe Biden restricted press credentials for more than four hundred reporters and Democrats said nothing.
Now CNN, Politico and MS NOW are suing Trump for banning three outlets instead of four hundred.
Then his own ambassador cited a Supreme Court case from 1965 that could end their lawsuit before it begins.
Waltz Cites a 1965 Supreme Court Case to Defend the Ban
President Trump pulled White House access from CNN, MS NOW and Politico last week.
The White House called it simple: access is a privilege, not a right.
Trump's team didn't stop at a talking point.
UN Ambassador Mike Waltz went on television and did something the corporate press never expects from this administration – he cited actual case law.
Waltz pointed to Zemel v. Rusk, a 1965 Supreme Court ruling written by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
The freedom to publish, Warren wrote, doesn't guarantee an unlimited right to go gather that information in the first place.
"The president is absolutely within his rights to limit journalists to government facilities," Waltz told CNN anchor Dana Bash. "That's just not his opinion. That's the Supreme Court's opinion."
CNN didn't have a comeback.
They had a lawsuit instead.
Biden Restricted Four Hundred Reporters and Nobody Called It a Scandal
Here's what the same networks screaming "authoritarian" this week buried for three years straight.
In 2023, the Biden White House restricted hard press credentials for roughly 440 reporters.
Fact-checkers now scrambling to defend Biden are forced to admit the number is real, even while they quibble over the word "banned."
None of those reporters got a network solidarity boycott or a week of panels about democracy dying in darkness.
They got memory-holed, because the White House doing the restricting had a "D" next to its name.
Compare that silence to this week, when Fox News Media, ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC all suspended their own pool coverage the moment three left-leaning outlets got a smaller version of what Biden handed out to hundreds.
The Washington Post called Trump's move "a clear form of intimidation to silence coverage."
The Washington Post did not call Biden's purge anything at all.
That's not principle.
That's a press corps protecting its own team.
Trump Explained Exactly Why He Did It
Trump didn't hide behind lawyers when reporters asked him directly.
He said the outlets never once cover his wins.
"We have the best economic numbers for the country in the history of our country," he said, pointing to twenty one trillion dollars pouring into the country under his watch.
"I never get anything positive," Trump said. "It's always negative, even having to do with the war."
He called CNN's coverage exactly what it is – fake news.
Democrats want you to believe this is about press freedom.
It is actually about a White House that finally decided it doesn't owe hostile outlets a front row seat to a presidency they've spent a year lying about.
Even Mamdani Couldn't Resist the Contrast
New York's socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, hosted Trump at Gracie Mansion the same day the story broke.
Mamdani told reporters he'd welcome every outlet Trump banned, standing right next to the president who banned them.
Trump didn't flinch, and didn't back down either.
He said he only engages the press at all because they carry an obligation to cover a presidency fairly, ban or no ban.
Two men who call each other a communist and a lunatic in public somehow found more common ground on a lawn in Manhattan than CNN's legal team found in a sixty year old Supreme Court case.
The Legal Fight Just Started, and Trump's Team Came Prepared
CNN, Politico and MS NOW filed suit in the DC District Court, betting on a friendlier bench.
Their lawyers are leaning on a 1977 ruling that says the White House cannot deny access based on a journalist's viewpoint.
Trump's team is betting the Zemel precedent settles the question first – access has never been an unlimited constitutional right, and no court has ever said otherwise.
Nixon restricted the Washington Post over Watergate and never lost his presidency over it.
Obama's campaign bounced conservative reporters off his plane in 2008 and the press shrugged.
Trump is simply the first Republican in decades willing to say the quiet part out loud: coverage isn't guaranteed, it's earned, and CNN stopped earning it a long time ago.
Sources:
- Bonny Chu, "Mamdani tells Trump banned White House outlets are welcome at NYC meeting," Fox News, September 21, 2026.
- White House, "White House Access Is a Privilege — Not a Right," WhiteHouse.gov, September 21, 2026.
- Brian Stelter, "Trump's UN ambassador defends press ban as news outlets prepare legal challenges," NBC26/Scripps News, September 20, 2026.
- Politifact Staff, "Did Biden revoke 440 press passes? Fact-checking Trump allies after White House bans news outlets," PolitiFact, September 21, 2026.
- CNN Staff, "CNN, MS NOW and Politico sue Trump administration over White House access," CNN, September 21, 2026.
- ABC10 Staff, "Trump not the only president to ban media outlets from the White House," ABC10, archived report.
