CNN anchor Jake Tapper pressed President Donald Trump’s UN Ambassador Mike Waltz during a Sunday interview.
As their wide-ranging discussion came to a close, Tapper asked Waltz to speak with Trump about the White House decision to exclude CNN from the press pool.
Tapper criticized the administration for blocking CNN from carrying out its rotating pool assignment on behalf of five major television networks.
“I would just ask if you could please convey to President Trump to let CNN back in the pool,” Tapper said.
“It was not OK when President Obama tried to freeze FOX out of the pool back in 2009. And I don’t think we want a world where presidents decide who gets to cover them.”
Waltz rejected the criticism and repeated Trump’s claims that some news organizations engage in biased coverage.
“Well, I hear you, Jake, but I think we need fair and objective and well-sourced reporting,” Waltz replied.
The ambassador added that he and his family had personally been affected by what he described as misleading media coverage.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper challenged Trump’s UN Ambassador Mike Waltz over the President’s media restrictions during Sunday’s interview
CNN White House reporter Kaitlan Collins has openly criticized the Trump administration’s decision to bar her and her colleagues this month
“We need a free and fair and honest press corps without an agenda that tries to take facts to fit a narrative,” he said.
Waltz pointed to CNN’s coverage of former President Joe Biden and denied that Trump was targeting news outlets merely because they published unfavorable reports.
He also noted that the Washington Post and New York Times continued to receive access to the White House, despite publishing stories the Trump administration viewed as unfavorable.
“So that’s a false narrative that it’s about negative reporting,” Waltz said.
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Tapper challenged that argument by referring to Trump’s own comments.
“President Trump specifically said that there’s something wrong with a country where people are allowed to report things that are purposely negative,” Tapper responded. “That’s his language, not mine.”
Waltz argued that Trump was speaking more broadly about media bias, while criticizing negative storylines and the use of anonymous sources.
“So, this needs to be fixed, and President Trump is quite frustrated with this – this media bias across the board.”
Tapper closed the exchange with a pointed observation: “As has every single president that I’ve ever covered been frustrated with the press.”
In support of the excluded outlets, which also included MS NOW and Politico, major broadcasters including Fox News, NBC, CBS and ABC refused to cover the President. Those networks make up the television pool responsible for providing presidential coverage on a rotating basis.
Trump announced the ban earlier this month in an angry social media post, accusing the outlets of spreading “fake news.”
He was reportedly shown a series of negative reports from the organizations by aide Natalie Harp shortly before the restrictions were announced.
Several days later, the White House reversed course, allowing reporters to return on Thursday after initially barring them ahead of Donald Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping late last week.
“CNN was allowed back into the White House on Thursday at noon,” host Kaitlan Collins posted on X following the standoff.
The White House had turned away several journalists that morning, even though a judge had restored access for the banned outlets just hours earlier.
US District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order early Thursday, effectively requiring the Trump administration to restore access for Politico, CNN and MS NOW, which Trump had barred the previous Friday.
Despite the ruling, the White House continued denying entry to the outlets and confiscated some employees’ credentials Thursday morning before allowing them to return later that afternoon.
