The president’s lawyers are arguing that the president has the power to ban all reporters from the White House. They are 100 percent correct. He can absolutely do this.
Donald Trump sought Wednesday to land a massive blow in his long-fought battle against the news media, with administration lawyers asserting in court that the president could bar “all reporters” from the White House complex for any reason he sees fit.
The sweeping claim, which came in the first public hearing over CNN’s lawsuit to restore correspondent Jim Acosta’s White House credentials, could have a dramatic impact on news organizations’ access to government officials if it is upheld in court.
CNN argued in its lawsuit filed Tuesday that the White House infringed on Acosta’s First Amendment rights by revoking his access in response to a dispute over a press conference last week.
But Trump’s lawyers replied Wednesday in a legal filing that he has “broad discretion” to police journalists’ access to the White House.
“If the president wants to exclude all reporters from the White House grounds, he has the authority to do that,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General James Burnham said during the hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “There’s no First Amendment right.”
The First Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with media access. The First Amendment guarantees the right to free political speech without government interference. The president can ban any and all reporters from the White House grounds as he sees fit. That includes Jim Acosta and anybody else he doesn’t like.
If access to the White House was a right, than they’d have to accommodate access for millions upon millions of people which is not feasible. It is simply absurd to claim that the First Amendment equates to having the right to access the White House and the president himself.
But quite frankly, the president should just go ahead and ban all these fake news assholes. Let them cry about it. They’re not important. He can more effectively get his message out on social media and via alternative media platforms. And it isn’t like they’re going to stop covering him because he bans them from the White House. If anything they’ll just cover him more.
I personally think he should just do press conferences where the only people asking him questions are from Breitbart, Infowars and the Daily Stormer. They’d be far more entertaining and interesting. He could field questions about Jews, Moslem terrorists, gay frogs, and Illuminati chemtrail conspiracies.
