President Donald Trump probably didn’t expect his attempt to silence members of the press to boomerang like this.
Footage from a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House came with completely indecipherable audio, following the press pool’s decision to stop filming daily events at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. after CNN, Politico and MS NOW were banned from the grounds.
Though the White House’s social media accounts were there to capture Trump as he unveiled the new granite helipad on the South Lawn, the sounds of the Marine One chopper just yards away completely drowned out any of the president’s remarks — a problem professional newsmakers and their boom mics would have easily handled.
Video of the scene was so awkward that even right-wing network Newsmax had to admit his attack on the news seemed to be “backfiring just a little bit.”
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Amateur hour stretched into the later afternoon when the president’s inaugural meeting of the Military Spouse Commission was streamed with an “audio only” disclaimer.
The Trump administration was typically testy after the TV press pool announced it would be boycotting its White House coverage in solidarity with CNN, Politico and MS NOW.
“Access changes are nothing new,” a statement on the White House website read. “What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never ‘every outlet gets in.’ It was always ‘our side stays in.’”
Early on Monday morning, the trio of banned outlets filed a joint lawsuit against the White House requesting their press access be restored.
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the suit alleged.
