Bessent revisits 'negative' media coverage as he defends Trump's press ban

WASHINGTON, DC: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended President Donald Trump’s decision to ban three media outlets from the White House, explicitly citing their negative and "fake news.”

President Trump reportedly announced the controversial ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House on Friday, September 18, after Executive Assistant to the president Natalie Harp showed him a clip of MS NOW anchors criticizing his administration.

Scott Bessent says press 'cares more about the press'

Bessent said on Monday, September 21, on CNBC’s 'Squawk Box' that the press cares mostly about itself, defending Trump’s ban.

Bessent was talking with CNBC’s Joe Kernen about Xi Jinping’s upcoming summit visit to Washington when Trump’s ban came up.

“Some of these reporters, they just don’t do their job well,” Bessent said. “We’ll have something, and then they’ll ask some crazy question.”

Kernen said that Bessent had previously made it clear that he wanted to focus on policy and avoid “palace drama.”

Kernen added that the press cannot be controlled because “the press is going to press” and the media will continue doing its job.

“Joe, you know, the one thing I’m sure of, the press cares more about the press than anything else,” Bessent declared.

Bessent said the gunman behind the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting was not there to target the press, but the president.

He criticized the media for focusing on the personal experiences of journalists who were in the room rather than the attack on the president.

He made a similar point about the aircraft incident in Ankara, saying journalists focused on how vulnerable they felt after being placed on a different plane while the main concern was protecting the president.

In July, Trump secretly boarded a different plane while reporters flew on the decoy Air Force One.

Bessent said the Secret Service made the decision and suggested that the media should focus more on reporting than on its own experiences.

Three outlets sue Trump over White House ban

CNN, MS NOW and Politico filed a lawsuit on Monday in US District Court for the District of Columbia.

Their complaint argues that the White House retaliated against them because of their reporting and discriminated against their viewpoints.

The outlets also argued that their Fifth Amendment due-process rights were violated because the credentials were revoked without notice or an opportunity to contest the decision.

“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, on Monday, reframing the fight as a security threat.