Brit Hume on White House Media Ban: Will This Be Effective In Any Way The President Wants?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/09/21/brit_hume_on_white_house_media_ban_will_this_be_effective_in_any_way_the_president_wants.html

FOX News chief political analyst Brit Hume argued on "Special Report" that while some media coverage of President Donald Trump has been heavily biased, banning news organizations from the White House is unlikely to change their reporting.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: Let's talk about the president's action and the response to it by the media. Joining us tonight, FOX News chief political analyst Brit Hume and contributor Jonathan Turley.

Brit, this is how the president put it out there on Truth Social. He said, "The White House is not instituting an assault on the free press, something which I cherish. It's instituting an assault on the fake news, something that has grown like cancer in our beloved United States of America. It's corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, totally out of control. It is a threat to our national security and must be stopped now. Thank you for your attention to the matter."

The statement by the networks that stood together in support of the organizations that have been kind of banned from the White House and from covering there. The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting. FOX News is, of course, part of that as well, the pool. Brit, your thoughts on all of this, how it comes down?

BRIT HUME: Well, I think the president has a case. Some of the coverage that's been done by the organizations that have now been banned from the White House, it has been almost comically unbalanced. And they've pursued all kinds of stories, the Russia collusion matter being chief among them that have ended up dead ends.

And it seems clearly motivated by a belief that Donald Trump's presence in the White House is a national emergency, and that their job was to somehow take him down. Having said that, however, you've got to also ask this question: Will this be effective in any way the president wants?

After all, being banned and sharply criticized by the president to these people that we're talking about here at these organizations is likely to be seen as a badge of honor. It will do them no professional harm. They're not accountable to the president in our country because we do indeed have a free press. And the idea that the coverage will become more balanced because of this, I think is fanciful. I just don't think it's going to have that effect. And in political terms, Brit, this will rally the base.

I've seen by the reactions on social media that people who were MAGA, who were for Trump, think this is great, right on brother. But I don't think it's going to do much for him beyond that base. And at this point, with this midterm election coming, he needs to get people who may not have been part of his base, but voted for him in 2024, and may not this time to come back his way.

And I don't think this advances that cause at all.

BAIER: Yeah, there is precedent as far as the network pools, the network standing together. 2016, in the first Trump administration, we stood with CNN when they were excluded from an Oval Office briefing. And then back in 2009, the administration of the Obama administration tried to keep us out of an interview with Pazar, Ken Feinberg.

I was a part of that. And they tried to exclude FOX News, but the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless FOX News was included. Let's talk legally, Jonathan, about where this stands.