Discussion on Trump's Press Relations

Uh, Leader Scalise, let me start with what Trump has now done

with the press at the

White House. Uh, do, do you support him banning

these news organizations 'cause he doesn't like what they're reporting?

Well, good morning, Jonathan. Good to be with you.

And first of all, I don't think we've had a president that's

been more open to the

press. Uh, look, I've been at... You go to a bill signing with

President Trump, and the first thing he does before he even

signs the bill is he

brings in the press, and everybody gets to not only take

pictures, but

ask questions. Uh, go look at Joe Biden.

Joe Biden removed the press credentials from over 400

different agencies. You know, what President Trump's done

is brought a lot

of those back in, uh, but he wants a free and fair press.

He's, you know, been to the White House Correspondence

Dinner.

He just, the other day, he was answering pre- questions about

this to the press, and they're asking him about his attitude

towards the

press while he's holding a press conference.

Yeah, so-

You never saw that under President Biden.

So, so, so-

A very open president.

So, so first of all, that's actually not true about,

about Biden.

They, they, the 400 n- uh, individual reporters who had credentials

did not reapply. There was only one that was actually denied a

credential, and all of those who didn't reapply

were allowed to come in.

But they weren't removed.

They, they, they were not banned from the White House.

That did not happen.

And what we're seeing now is Trump is saying, for as

open as he may or may not have been, and I agree with you, he is somebody who's

taken a lot of questions from reporters, he is now banning

CNN, MSN- MS Now, and Politico from the White House.

Do you support him doing that? Do you think it violates the First

Amendment?

Well, I don't know why he did it. I don't know what the background is.

Look, when we have our press, press conferences every week, the

speaker, myself, our leadership team, we take questions from

everybody. CNN's there, all of them.

Uh, but the president takes those questions.

I've never seen him turn a question down from anybody.

Again, I've been in the room with the president

when he's taken questions from

the press. And, and again, most of the time it goes over a half hour,

almost an hour long, where he takes questions from everybody,

and

some of them are very hostile questions, and the president sits there and takes

them, answers them all.

Okay. Well, I guess he's not gonna be taking

questions, at least from those three

news organizations, 'cause they are banned from the White House.

Let me turn to the mid-