Vance defends Trump’s media ban as ‘totally appropriate’

Vice President Vance, who has long cast himself as a champion of free speech, defended President Trump’s ban on three outlets from the White House, calling the move “totally appropriate” on Monday.

“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 if you engage in what is effectively propaganda,’” Vance told reporters at Joint Base Andrews en route to North Carolina.

“If you’re going to engage in what is effectively far-left propaganda, why would a Republican White House give you special access?” he added.

Vance’s comments come after CNN, MS NOW and Politico announced they were suing the Trump administration after being barred from the White House grounds last week.

“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the outlets said in a joint statement on Monday.

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement continued. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

Trump defended his move in a post on Truth Social, writing that he was not instituting an assault on the free press but rather an assault on the “FAKE NEWS.”

When asked how Trump’s move is not an attack on free speech, Vance said the outlets “could still report on the Trump White House.”

“They can still get the public reports. They can still, of course, talk to people inside the administration and outside of the administration,” he said.

Vance went on to compare Politico’s coverage with that of the conservative outlet Breitbart during the Obama and Biden administrations, claiming Politico is as “anti-Trump as Breitbart was anti-Obama or anti-Biden.”

“Why on God’s green earth would Donald Trump be expected to give Politico special access when nobody in the media expected the Biden administration or the Obama administration to give Breitbart special access?” Vance continued.

“It’s about basic fairness. They can still report. They still have the access to free speech. They’re just not going to get an office in the White House anymore, and I think it’s totally appropriate, unless of course, they start to behave like real news organizations,” he said.

Breitbart has previously complained that it was not given regular turns in the White House press pool, which is determined by the White House Correspondents’ Association. But the outlet was not barred from the White House during the Obama or Biden administrations.