President Donald Trump’s decision to ban three major media outlets from the White House was met with a collective sigh Saturday from two prominent Republicans, one of whom argued the move was particularly poorly timed.
On Friday, Trump announced that he would be banning MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House, accusing the outlets of reporting “FICTION and LIES.” He also warned that “Other Fake News Media Outlets” would also be banned from the White House at a future date.
The White House followed through on Trump’s announcement Saturday as the three outlets were prohibited from accessing the White House grounds, with the Trump administration facing “mounting accusations” that it had violated the First Amendment.
With the midterms just weeks away, however, and with gas prices continuing to increase at unprecedented rates, one prominent conservative characterized Trump’s latest outburst as self-defeating.
“He certainly uses brash tactics to take over news cycles. I would argue that quite often these are unhelpful to him,” said Douglas Heye, former communications director for the Republican National Committee, speaking with The New York Times for its report published on Saturday.
“We are 45 days ahead from the election and what are we talking about this week and going into next week? Nothing about Donald Trump’s plan to lower prices.”
Sarah Matthews, a lifelong conservative who served as deputy press secretary during the first Trump administration, argued that Trump’s latest attempts to “bully” his adversaries into submission were being met with greater and greater pushback.
“He thinks that he can bully anyone or any entity into doing whatever he wants and he’s seen it work out for himself with the entire Republican Party bending the knee to him,” Matthews told the Times. “He is facing pushback from the courts, the Fed, people in his own party, and he’s lashing out.”