Discussion on Press Access and National Security

But other outlets can still go

But you just ignored what I just said.

You don't have an inherent right to any government facility that you want,

whether it's Langley or the White House, and that has been determined by

multiple Supreme Court cases, the '60s, '70s, as recently as a few years ago

But actually, that case found-

That's, that's an important distinction

I- I remember you said that to Dana Bash on Sunday.

That case found that-

I just quoted one case. I mean, there's been several

But that ca- the case that you're referencing is found

that reporters don't have

carte blanche access to everything.

But you can't just ban outlets based on their viewpoint or their reporting.

He's not saying no reporters can come in the Oval Office.

He's not saying don't go out and report.

He's saying these three reporters can't come in the Oval Office.

We're talking right now. I mean, we're talking right now.

I'd hope we talked about the reforms that we're going to do at the United

Nations,

an important international institution.

But if we wanna spend the entire time talking about this, fine.

What is-

We can just talk about Iran and Russia

No, but we haven't talked-

and these other-

But what we haven't talked is this institution

that we're actually trying to reform

that many people thought he'd walk away from.

We haven't talked about the billion dollars of cuts that we've,

uh, imposed here that the American people

are gonna benefit from, the

3,000 employees, the UN bureaucrats that they're now firing, the 25%

of peacekeepers.

But isn't it true the president banned three outlets on the verge of coming to

the

United Nations assembly?

I'm standing here talking to CNN, and you just referenced when I was

on CNN on Sunday morning. That is very different than you

have access to any government institution that you want.

I mean, those are two separate and distinct things.

The president is making an argument now that it's a national security threat.

He did not make that argument on Friday or Saturday or Sunday.

How is reporting on the president-

I think when we have outlets-

... a national security threat?

When we have outlets that are relying on anonymous sources and

talking about the levels of ammunition we have in the middle of conflict, when

we're talking about, uh, vulnerabilities that the United States

have,

when fa- in fact, we're talking about deployment orders

for our soldiers, our Navy, our Air Force

that are highly classified, that's absolutely a national security

threat and should be investigated and prosecuted.

Well, that's not what the president cited

when he banned CNN and the two other

outlets. But on the munitions, that was in the inspector general's report from

the

Pentagon talking about shortages.

I mean, that was a,

that is, you're really obligated-

There is a, there's a two tier

... to give that report to Congress, right?

There is,

there is... I mean, you know, I hope we have a lot of airtime to talk

about this.

There's an investiga- investigative report, but there's also

been a whole slew of anonymous sources, and we know our adversaries

pay attention to headlines. And when you're essentially signaling to the

world

that the United States have out, is out of ammunition

when in fact that's not

true, that's a legitimate concern and it's-