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Vance: Trump isn't banning the press. He's ending special access for propaganda.

Photo: Emily J. Higgins / Public domain (source)

Vance Rejects the ‘Banning Media’ Charge: CNN, MS NOW and Politico Lost Special Access, Not Free Speech

by
M.A. Rothman

By M.A. RothmanSeptember 21, 2026 · 4 min read
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Vice President JD Vance on Monday, Sept. 21, 2026, rejected the charge that President Trump is banning the press, telling reporters that CNN, MS NOW and Politico are losing special access to the White House, not their right to report. Asked whether it was appropriate for the president to ban outlets over coverage he dislikes, Vance answered: “Well, I take some issue with the premise. So, he’s not banning media outlets.”

Vance spoke to reporters Monday morning before leaving to campaign in North Carolina with Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, according to the Washington Examiner. His remarks came the same day the three outlets sued the administration in federal court.

The question and the answer

The exchange started with a framing that has become standard in Washington coverage of the dispute. According to Mediaite, one reporter asked: “Do you think it’s appropriate for the president to be banning media outlets just because he doesn’t like what they report?”

Vance rejected the premise and drew the line he would return to throughout the exchange. According to Mediaite, he said the White House is “not gonna give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda.”

He then reached for a number. Vance said that roughly 92 percent of the outlets’ stories on the president and his administration are negative, according to Breitbart’s account of the remarks. “That’s not representative of the American people,” he said, and “not representative of public opinion.” His conclusion: “If you’re going to engage in what is effectively far-left propaganda, why would a Republican White House give you special access?”

“How is this not an attack on free speech?”

A reporter pressed again, noting Vance’s long record of speaking about free speech. “How is this not an attack on free speech?” the reporter asked, per Mediaite and Breitbart.

Vance’s answer was a list of everything the three outlets can still do. “They can still report on the Trump White House. They can still get the public reports,” he said, according to Breitbart. “They can still, of course, talk to people in the administration and outside the administration.” What they lose, he said, is “special access inside the White House,” adding that “they’re just not going to get an office in the White House anymore.”

Then he turned the question around. “Politico is as anti-Trump as Breitbart was anti-Obama or anti-Biden,” Vance said, according to Breitbart. “Now, 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? It’s about basic fairness.”

He said the restriction was “totally appropriate, unless, of course, they start to behave like real news organizations,” according to Mediaite.

Where the 92 percent comes from

Vance did not cite a source for the figure, and it is worth being precise about it. The best-known version of the number comes from a Media Research Center study published in April 2025. It examined 899 stories about Trump or his administration on ABC’s World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and CBS Evening News from Jan. 20 through April 9, 2025, and found coverage was 92.2 percent negative and 7.8 percent positive, Fox News reported. Breitbart linked Vance’s figure to the same research by the MRC’s Rich Noyes, and HuffPost, via Yahoo, likewise tied it to the first-100-days analysis while noting that the study measured the three broadcast networks, not CNN, MS NOW or Politico.

So the exact statistic belongs to the evening newscasts. But the broader point does not depend on it. The same MRC study found that Joe Biden’s first 100 days drew 59 percent positive coverage on those newscasts, and that the networks spent 1,716 minutes on Trump in the period studied, compared with 726 minutes on Biden in the same weeks of 2021, according to Fox News. I would be surprised to find anyone who has watched CNN or read Politico over the past decade arguing that those outlets run warmer copy on this president than ABC, CBS and NBC do.

Access is not a right

The dispute is now in court. CNN, MS NOW and Politico argue the ban violates the First Amendment. Vance’s argument is that the First Amendment protects the right to publish, not a guaranteed desk inside the president’s house, and that nobody in the media expected the Obama or Biden White House to hand that kind of access to Breitbart.

That framing is why the administration keeps returning to the word “special.” A credential to walk the White House grounds and an office inside the building are privileges the government hands out. Nothing Vance described stops any of the three outlets from reporting, publishing, broadcasting or interviewing anyone they please.

The press corps will keep calling it a ban. The vice president’s point is that the outlets have confused a perk with a freedom.

If your coverage of the president runs more than nine to one against him, you can keep your First Amendment, but you don’t get to keep the desk down the hall.

Sources

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