House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) pleaded ignorance when asked about President Donald Trump’s banning of three news outlets from the White House.
Speaking to ABC News’s This Week, Scalise was asked about Trump’s controversial move to ban CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House. In response, he said he was as in the dark as everyone else.
“Well, I don’t know why he did it. I don’t know what the background is,” Scalise said.
“When we have our press conferences every week, the speaker, myself, our leadership team, we take questions from everybody. CNN’s there, all of them. But the president takes those questions. I’ve never seen him turn a question down from anybody,” he continued, adding that Trump even answers “very hostile questions.”
Scalise didn’t address whether he believed the ban violated the First Amendment.
Trump announced the ban on Friday, not elaborating on the choice of the three outlets aside from deriding them as “Fake News.”
“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico (The recipients of an illegal and ridiculous $8 Million Dollar subscription, an All Time Record, directly from the United States Government, under Crooked Joe Biden, in order to keep them ‘alive.’ Seems like corruption to me!), from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
TRUMP BANS CNN, MS NOW, AND POLITICO FROM WHITE HOUSE
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” he continued, adding that he would soon ban other outlets.
The move was immediately met with heavy backlash on First Amendment grounds, though Trump has stood by the decision.