The White House Correspondents’ Association said it would be an “unconscionable assault” on press freedoms were President Trump to follow through on his threat to crack down on news outlets covering his administration.
“Some may excuse the president’s inflammatory rhetoric about the media but just because the president does not like the news coverage does not make it fake,” the association’s president Margaret Talev said Wednesday in a statement. The statement later added, “And a president preventing a free and independent press from covering the workings of our republic would be an unconscionable assault on the First Amendment.”
Trump had said earlier in the morning that “the fake news is working overtime” to undermine his administration’s accomplishments. “Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt?” he said. “Take away credentials?”
Trump has made similar threats about “opening up” libel laws to make it easier to sue news outlets or even finding a way to strip NBC’s broadcast license, which experts say his administration has no authority over.
[Related: Trump: NBC News ‘now as bad as Fake News CNN’ after false Michael Cohen bombshell]
The White House Correspondents’ Association lobbies for increased media access to the White House and oversees the rotating “pool” of reporters who cover the president each day.
Comment on President Trump remarks on Twitter today about news media coverage. pic.twitter.com/mry3puZXKA
— WHCA (@whca) May 9, 2018
