Freedom’s Just Another Word….

Waltz: We have a first amendment, right to publish, right for free speech. But what you don't have an inherent right to is to have access to any government institution that you want.

Collins: What's the message to world leaders if he's banning coverage because he doesn't like… pic.twitter.com/crdxxOVZjD

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 22, 2026

Waltz: We have a first amendment, right to publish, right for free speech. But what you don't have an inherent right to is to have access to any government institution that you want.

Collins: What's the message to world leaders if he's banning coverage because he doesn't like what the reporters are reporting?

Waltz: I think the message to world leaders is we need an open, free and fair and objective press corps. That's not what we're seeing right now.

Collins: How do we have an open and free and fair press corps if he's saying, well, this outlet I don't like so they can't come into the oval office, but other outlets can still go.

Waltz: You just ignored what I just said. You don't have an inherent right to any government facility that you want, whether it's Langley or the White House.

Nope. A) Langley is a classified facility not regularly open to the press or the public. Denying the press access there is not at all like denying select outlets access to the White House Briefing Room.

B) Trump opens the Oval Office to the press. And controls access to the Oval Office. There is also a White House press room. He’s denied three news agencies access to the entire building. But can he?

C) So the question is: who can he bar from the Oval Office, or the White House Press Room and, or the entire building? And on what grounds?

D) The legal analysis revolves around that question. But we don’t have to examine all the grounds the courts allow under the First Amendment, because Trump has given us the grounds: he doesn’t like what CNN and MS NOW and Politico report about him. And that’s too bad, because government cannot discriminate based on content. What a news outlet says about a President is protected under the First Amendment. If it wasn’t, we’d have no freedom of the press at all.

Trump has said, clearly, he is discriminating against three news outlets because he doesn’t like what they say. Textbook violation of the First Amendment. Which it wouldn’t be if Trump weren’t the POTUS. As a private citizen he can deny anyone press access that he chooses. But as POTUS, he’s very much subject to the First Amendment. 

Which he will have to be told. Again.