白宫封杀令与电视黑屏：特朗普与驻白宫媒体的极限对决

Donald Trump: People are stunned the fake news back there. Look at those cameras rocking and rolling.

Rachel Abrams: From The New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams.

Donald Trump: Got a lot of cameras going. Whoa.

Rachel Abrams: And this is The Daily.

Donald Trump: Look at ALL THOSE RED LIGHTS. DON'T WORRY, I won't say anything bad about your network.

Rachel Abrams: For every day of Donald Trump's presidency—

Donald Trump: You better make me look good with that camera. All right.

Rachel Abrams: —there's been a camera from one of the major television networks pointed at him.

Donald Trump: Every time I speak, they put me on live television. Look at all those cameras you got. You got a lot of television going. It's true. [cheering]

Rachel Abrams: But on Monday, all of that changed. [music] Today, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Michael Grynbaum explained the faceoff between the president and the press and why the networks turned their cameras off. It's Tuesday, September 22nd. Michael, Zolan, turn off your phones.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Okay.

Rachel Abrams: That's how I greet the guests today.

Michael Grynbaum: I love that.

Rachel Abrams: The two of you are so busy and on deadline covering the story we're about to talk about. I need to make sure your phones don't buzz in the interview.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: My last Slack was "I'm starting. Goodbye."

Rachel Abrams: All right, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, White House correspondent and we should note CNN contributor. Welcome to the show.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Thank you, Rachel.

Rachel Abrams: Michael Grynbaum.

Michael Grynbaum: Hi.

Rachel Abrams: So happy to have you. You are a media reporter. We are also very invested in this story. So Michael, let's start with you. Tell us what has been happening between the press and the White House.

Michael Grynbaum: So seemingly out of the blue on Friday afternoon,

News Broadcast: Another shakeup in the White House press corps today. President...

News Broadcast: President Trump decrees that three news outlets—CNN, Politico, and MS Now—are barred effective immediately in his words from entering the White House grounds.

Michael Grynbaum: Putting out a post on Truth Social about this saying other news media outlets to follow.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: We had no heads up about this. Our reporting shows that White House aides were caught completely flatfooted. And by Saturday morning the journalists from those outlets attempted to walk through the security gates like they usually do.

Reporter: She went through multiple checkpoints as we always do. Went to...

Michael Grynbaum: Not only were they told they couldn't come in, their badges were confiscated by security officers. Teams were denied access from the executive branch grounds.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: This is an extraordinary escalation even by the standards of a president who has threatened, who has called the media the enemy of the people.

Michael Grynbaum: And so that's a huge deal. TV networks have been covering presidents back to the Eisenhower era. There has always been, essentially, a camera from one of the major television networks on the president for virtually all public appearances.

Rachel Abrams: What also makes this so intriguing is this is a president addicted to his TV coverage. He's obsessed with television. He conducts so much in front of the camera. Now he is pushing them away.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: So, as Michael mentioned, the president has basically been calling the press the enemy of the people throughout his political career. But why now?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Well, I think it's important to say that in the leadup to this, the president had faced some significant headwinds: pushback on tariffs; the news last week, of course, being that he was going to raise interest rates, which is not what the White House had been saying.

Rachel Abrams: The news last week, of course, being that he was going to raise interest rates, which is not what the White House had been saying.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: No, absolutely not. He's railed against decisions just like that up until last week, right? So, that was negative news. When there's negative news, the president looks for a scapegoat.

Rachel Abrams: And that is the media.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: And that's the media. That's right.

Rachel Abrams: So the president is clearly frustrated. This is the context in which all of this stuff is happening.

Michael Grynbaum: And the post, just to point out, says that news outlets should not be able to report, quote, "fiction and biased lies."

Rachel Abrams: Right. And I have to be honest, you know, because the president has often railed against the media, my initial reaction was, "Is this new? Hasn't he done this before?"

Michael Grynbaum: Well, this president did in his first term strip the press badge of Jim Acosta, the CNN reporter. Jim had a combative exchange with him at a press conference. And there was a court battle that ensued, and CNN won decisively. The judge decided that Acosta should get his pass back because the White House denied him due process.

Rachel Abrams: And that's actually part of the legal precedent that we expect to come into play here when we're talking about this lawsuit.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: That's right. President Trump did take steps to restrict access in term one. I would say in term two, we have seen him expand that. He's changed the rules of which outlets can go into certain spaces in the White House. The daily press briefing, which was a daily occurrence in term one, is basically gone. And he's cut down on the number of journalists that can go into events in the Oval Office.

Rachel Abrams: It used to be that the White House Correspondents Association would select which news organizations were in this small pool. But now the White House has taken that over and started selecting the outlets that they want.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: That's right. So Rachel, I think the instinct initially of "Is this new?" is totally fair because so many of these steps have been happening over the last couple of months. But there's a real difference in what happened just over the last 72 hours. Because now we're talking about three news organizations entirely. This isn't just about an individual reporter. This is an outlet being denied access to the White House grounds entirely.

Donald Trump: Hello everybody.

Reporters: Good afternoon, sir.

Rachel Abrams: So, you're at the White House. It looks like business as usual. What happens next?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: So, a few things. Yes, it was initially business as usual, but then when the president's next event turned to the question and answer portion...

Kelly O'Donnell: Mr. President, earlier today you posted that you...

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Kelly O'Donnell, a veteran White House correspondent for NBC News. She's a former president actually of the Association.

Kelly O'Donnell: Every president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution which includes the First Amendment. How do you justify such a ban?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: He quickly in his initial answer uses the language we've often heard. He rails against the fake news.

Kelly O'Donnell: Sir, the First Amendment protects...

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Reporters continued to press him on this asking him, "What is this ban? How are you going to carry it out? And also, how could you ban whole organizations?"

Donald Trump: Well, I'll just answer it again. I'll say it the same way. I don't think somebody should be allowed to come in and write stories that are just not true.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: And through this Q&A, the president, while he's not very clear on the specifics of how this is going to get carried out, he defends it.

Donald Trump: It's really just cumulative stories.

Rachel Abrams: And what is it?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: The reasoning is that he did not like the coverage of these outlets. He did not think that this coverage was fair.

Donald Trump: If they want to write them, that's fine. But I don't have to let them into my—into the people's house.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: "Look, if you want to write critical coverage, fine. But you will not do it from my—" And then he corrected himself quickly to "the people's house." That was a big moment.

Rachel Abrams: So, okay, he defended this. What is it?

Michael Grynbaum: And by the way, neither of us were getting clear answers from the White House.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: There was an initial sign there that this fell into the pattern of a haphazard announcement: "I'm going to tweet this and you're going to figure out how to make it happen."

Michael Grynbaum: That's right. So, then we're trying to figure out, well, how are they going to make this happen? At that point, throughout the rest of the day at the White House, we still see no sign that these outlets are going to be kicked out. CNN reporters were doing lives from the lawn that night.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Right. It was only on Saturday when we saw reporters show up, try to get access to the White House, and get denied.

Michael Grynbaum: Around 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, I started getting scattered reports from my sources that reporters had attempted to enter the gates at the northwest gate, the guard shack, and were told, "Your names are on a list, and you can't come in."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Not like the show.

Michael Grynbaum: Yes, exactly. They don't do the walk-and-talk necessarily with the deputy chief of staff. What happens is reporters walk up and are told no. And remarkably, their badges are actually taken away. Security guards confiscate their hard passes. And at that point, the ban was real.

Michael Grynbaum: I've covered the White House press corps for about a decade, and the very first thing I thought about was, "What the heck is going to happen to the TV pool on Monday?"

Michael Grynbaum: On most days, the five major networks—ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Fox News—take turns. One network provides the cameras for the day, and they will share their footage with the other network partners and news outlets around the world, and then it will rotate. As it turned out, the network that was scheduled to be the pool on Monday was CNN.

Rachel Abrams: Mhm.

Michael Grynbaum: The other four networks spent the weekend trying to figure out, well, what are we going to do about this? And Monday morning, they came up with an extraordinary joint decision: If CNN's camera was not going to be allowed in, none of them would send a camera.

Rachel Abrams: And so basically what that means, just to put it really simply, is that CNN on Monday was supposed to follow the president, provide the feed for everybody. But because CNN was barred, all of the networks, including Fox News, decided, "If CNN can't bring a camera, none of us are bringing a camera."

Michael Grynbaum: Well, that's right. And news outlets are very competitive with each other, which is why it's so unusual that they take this kind of collective action.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: And one thing that stuck out to me is this is not only going to impact our reporting, but also it's going to impact President Trump.

Michael Grynbaum: That's right. And you have to remember, it's not just the journalists and the viewers who benefit from this TV pool. It's the president.

Rachel Abrams: Wait, wait. So talk to us about the coverage on Monday then.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: So on Monday the president had this helipad unveiling and...

Rachel Abrams: And he is obsessed with this helipad. Can we say that?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: He is. It's one of the things he really cares about, this helipad. Okay. So, he's going to do a ribbon cutting ceremony of this gigantic helipad. He has his cabinet out there.

Michael Grynbaum: Right, right. And for me watching this, when I'm watching these events, I need to hear what the president is saying. I need to see the president up close. I want to see the reactions of the cabinet members. I want to take in the scene.

Rachel Abrams: But wait, if there's no television coverage, what are you guys actually watching?

Michael Grynbaum: None of the big networks brought cameras because of what's going on. So, there was a YouTube stream, the White House's own video feed. But the camera that the White House had set up didn't have a telephoto lens, and it had no microphone.

Rachel Abrams: Okay. So, there is no microphone because the pool cameras aren't there. So, maybe...

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Oh my gosh, you can't hear anything he's saying.

Michael Grynbaum: It was very difficult to take notes on the event. One of the many reasons we do not rely on state-run media.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: That's right. Now, I have been in situations where you're watching this White House video stream and it cuts out before the questions end. If there's a scuffle, if something goes wrong, the White House could pull the feed.

Michael Grynbaum: But television still really is like the mass medium for this. And you know how much of this presidency is communicated on television?

Rachel Abrams: So in preparation for talking to both of you guys today, we chatted with our colleague Peter Baker, another White House correspondent, who made this really great point: It's not just about, you know, accountability.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Part of it is about accountability to the American public and part of it is a fundamental role of the press and society, but it is also—as Peter said—it's a service.

Rachel Abrams: It's a service.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: It's a service. Remember, we do have a sitting president right now that's had a number of assassination attempts on his life as well.

Michael Grynbaum: That's right. And the pool is just so important, particularly the moving image as well when it comes to having presence and accountability in a moment of crisis.

Rachel Abrams: As you both have referenced in this conversation, we know two things to be very true about Donald Trump. One, he's very hostile to the press. And two, he loves being on TV. So, what is the view from the White House right now? Can this actually last?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Well, I'll start from the White House side. I think already we have seen his top aides, namely Vice President J. D. Vance, trying to explain away this.

Reporter: Do you think it's appropriate for the president to be banning media outlets just because he doesn't like what they report?

J. D. Vance: Well, I take some issue with the premise. So,

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Seemingly sort of tie himself in knots trying to explain away this.

J. D. Vance: He's not banning media outlets. What he's doing is saying, "We're not going to give you special access to the White House." So, if you're going to engage in what is effectively far-left propaganda, why would a Republican White House give you special access?

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: President Trump was the one that used the word ban. He said that President Trump wants fair coverage.

Reporter: How is it not an attack on free speech?

J. D. Vance: Well, they can still report on the Trump White House. They can still get the public reports. They can...

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: But President Trump was pretty clear the other day that if these outlets give him more favorable coverage, he would reassess. Michael, what are your thoughts?

Michael Grynbaum: Well, CNN along with MS Now and Politico have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to restore their access to the White House. And one thought among news outlets is that a judge might issue an injunction or a temporary restraining order that allows the White House to reverse this without having to concede anything. So that's a potential denouement here of a tense situation.

Rachel Abrams: Right? It really feels like the question is: What's going to win? Trump's hatred of the media, or his desire to be on TV? No, you guys have to say things. It's radio, you can't just nod at me.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Uh, uh, I...

Michael Grynbaum: It feels like the highest stake showdown yet between the president and his press corps. I can't remember when it felt this tense.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: I mean man, you just look at the rest of this week for President Trump. He's got UN General Assembly, but then he's also got meetings with foreign leaders like Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Michael Grynbaum: And look, I mean, I'll add one more note on this. We've talked about this individual case, but this is a piece of a larger puzzle. What we're seeing is the rules are really changing here.

Rachel Abrams: Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Michael Grynbaum. Thank you both so much.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs: Thank you, Rachel.

Michael Grynbaum: Thank you.

Rachel Abrams: On Monday afternoon, The Washington Post and The New York Times also announced gestures of support for the three media outlets barred on Saturday from the White House grounds. Both outlets said they would hold off publishing any photographs of Monday's presidential events until midnight. In a statement, The Times said that quote, "Americans deserve a free and independent media covering their government without intimidation as well as comprehensive coverage of newsworthy events."

We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know.

Today, Paramount reached an agreement to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which includes CNN, resolving an antitrust lawsuit that had delayed the $111 billion merger. The agreement with several state attorneys general, including from California, required a number of concessions, including the establishment of an independent committee to ensure editorial independence at CNN and CBS News.

Today's episode was produced by Adrienne Hurst, Caitlyn O'Keefe, and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Michael Benoist and Liz O. Baylen. Contains music by Alicia Baetup, Rowan Niemisto, and Dan Powell. It was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Wonderly.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.