Blanche says ‘one-sided news’ is a national security issue worthy of barring press

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Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Sunday that media outlets reporting what the Trump administration considers to be “one-sided” news is a national security issue severe enough to justify banning the press from gaining access to the White House and Air Force One.

“By the way, that is what is a national security problem. When you have completely misinformation, complete misinformation coming out of the White House, that affects our relationship with our foreign partners. That affects our relationship with our foreign enemies,” Blanche said in an interview on ABC’s This Week.

The attorney general’s definition of what constitutes a national security risk elaborates on a government claim made in a court filing seeking to justify President Donald Trump’s effort to implement such a ban against CNN, MSNOW and Politico, which a federal judge overseeing that case has greeted with skepticism.

Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore the credentials of CNN, MSNOW, and Politico journalists affected by the ban, saying the revocation was done without “constitutionally adequate due process.” He also pushed back on the argument from the Justice Department that it was on the basis of national security, saying the articles cited by the government were “routine” and that the government’s arguments “offer little to back up their asserted national security interest.”

“For one thing, nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” Kelly wrote. “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”

The government cited reports from the outlets that referred to information provided by “senior White House officials” as a national security concern. Blanche said the administration’s concern was rather that the reporting was “one-sided.”

“What I’m talking about is the government’s position and what the Department of Justice said in court, which is the same thing that President Trump has said repeatedly, which is at some point, at some point, the complete misinformation and the inaccuracy and the one-sided news out of certain organizations does become a national security issue, and it’s not right for the people of the United States to have to put up with it,” Blanche said. He did not offer any details to support his claims of inaccuracy.

In an exchange last week with US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins noted that one CNN report he cited about concerns over a shortage of munitions during the Iran War, was based on a Pentagon Inspector General’s report.

Despite being let back into the White House complex, the White House barred CNN from flying on Air Force One on Saturday as part of the news outlet’s duties covering the president on behalf of major television networks.

CNN had been scheduled to fly aboard the president’s plane on his trip to Tennessee for a college football game as part of the White House TV press pool — a small, rotating group of journalists that cover the president in areas where space is limited and share the information they gather with other TV networks. On Sunday, Fox News was allowed to handle its regularly scheduled pool duties for the president’s trip to Chicago, where he attended the Presidents Cup golf tournament.

In an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Waltz echoed Blanche, saying “media bias across the board” is something that “needs to be fixed.”

“There is a negative agenda. There is a negative narrative, and then we’re going to get anonymous sources. Heck, I just saw a story where anonymous sources were referring to a now dead senator. So, yeah, this needs to be fixed. And President Trump is quite frustrated with this, this media bias across the board,” he said.

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司法部长托德·布兰奇周日表示，媒体报道特朗普政府认为的“片面”新闻是一个严重的国家安全问题，足以构成禁止媒体进入白宫和空军一号的理由。

“顺便说一句，这就是国家安全问题。当完全错误的信息，完全错误的信息从白宫散布出来时，这会影响我们与外国伙伴的关系，也会影响我们与外国敌人的关系，”布兰奇在接受美国广播公司《本周》节目采访时说道。

司法部长对构成国家安全风险的定义，详细阐述了政府在法庭文件中提出的主张，该主张旨在证明唐纳德·特朗普总统试图对 CNN、MSNOW 和 Politico 实施此类禁令的合理性，但负责该案的联邦法官对此表示怀疑。

蒂莫西·凯利法官下令特朗普政府暂时恢复受禁令影响的CNN、MSNOW和Politico记者的记者证，称吊销记者证的行为缺乏“符合宪法的正当程序”。他还驳斥了司法部以国家安全为由的论点，称政府引用的条款“例行公事”，政府的论点“几乎没有提供任何证据来支持其所声称的国家安全利益”。

“首先，本诉讼之前的记录中没有任何内容表明，撤销原告的通行证是出于国家安全考虑，”凯利写道。“当然，特朗普总统在宣布‘禁止’原告进入白宫时，也并非如此表态——相反，他强调的是原告的报道缺乏真实性且带有负面色彩。”

政府援引媒体报道，称其援引“白宫高级官员”提供的信息涉及国家安全问题。布兰奇则表示，政府真正担忧的是这些报道“片面”。

“我指的是政府的立场，以及司法部在法庭上的表态，这与特朗普总统反复强调的观点一致，即某些机构散布的完全错误信息、不准确信息和片面新闻，在某种程度上会构成国家安全问题，美国人民不应该忍受这种情况，”布兰奇说道。他没有提供任何细节来支持他关于信息不准确的说法。

上周，CNN记者凯特兰·柯林斯在与美国驻联合国大使迈克·沃尔兹的交流中指出，沃尔兹引用的一篇关于伊朗战争期间弹药短缺问题的CNN报道，是基于五角大楼监察长的一份报告。

尽管被允许重返白宫，但白宫还是禁止 CNN 在周六乘坐空军一号，因为这是该新闻机构代表各大电视网报道总统的职责之一。

CNN原计划搭乘总统专机前往田纳西州观看一场大学橄榄球赛，作为白宫电视记者团的一员——这是一个由几名记者组成的轮换小组，负责在空间有限的地区报道总统，并将收集到的信息与其他电视台共享。周日，福克斯新闻获准履行其原定的记者团任务，报道总统前往芝加哥参加总统杯高尔夫锦标赛的行程。

周日，沃尔兹在 CNN 的“国情咨文”节目中亮相，他与布兰奇的观点不谋而合，称“媒体普遍存在的偏见”是“需要解决的问题”。

“这背后存在着负面议程，存在着负面叙事，而且我们还会看到匿名消息来源。哎，我刚看到一篇报道，匿名消息来源竟然提到了一位已经去世的参议员。所以，是的，这种情况必须纠正。特朗普总统对此感到非常沮丧，这种媒体普遍存在的偏见，”他说。