CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins Was Denied Access to Cover White House Event

By A.J. Katz 

The Trump administration escalated its ongoing conflict with CNN by barring White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins from covering an open press event today in the Rose Garden.

The relationship between CNN and the Trump administration has been combative for years, with CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta seeming to be public enemy No. 1 in the mind of President Trump and his most ardent supporters. During a press conference in the U.K. earlier this month with Trump and Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump told Acosta that he doesn’t take questions from CNN (despite taking one from CNN’s Jeremy Diamond the day before), and referred to the network–as he often does–as “fake news.”

But the Trump White House went after a different CNN White House correspondent today. Collins was denied access to cover the Rose Garden event  featuring Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission. Why? At an Oval Office photo op with the two leaders earlier in the day, Collins apparently asked questions the White House said were “inappropriate.”

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“They said ‘You are disinvited from the press availability in the Rose Garden today,'” Collins said. “They said that the questions I asked were inappropriate for that venue. And they said I was shouting.”

Here’s an official statement from the network:

Fellow TV news journalists seem to agree that the White House went over the line with this decision.

Fox News anchor Bret Baier expressed support for CNN:

And Fox News president Jay Wallace released the following statement this evening: “We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.”

TVNewser has reached out to the White House for comment on the statement coming from the CNN Communications’ verified Twitter account, but has yet to hear back.

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