Several senior White House aides were caught off guard by President Donald Trump’s ban on three news outlets, according to an NBC News report that also quotes a person close to the administration describing Trump as “more impulsive with age.”
Trump announced Friday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would be barred from the White House. It came as a surprise to several high-level aides who had not known about the decision beforehand and struggled to explain it afterward, NBC News reported.
“He’s very unpredictable. He calls it trusting his gut,” a Republican senator told the network, referring to Trump’s broader decision-making style.
The ban came shortly before an Oval Office event on lowering prescription drug prices. NBC’s analysis on Wednesday said the subsequent fight over press access “dominated the news cycle for days.”
“Rather than steer the conversation back to the savings Americans would reap from his policies, Trump amplified the furor,” according to the report.
A person close to the administration told NBC News that the economy was doing well “in spite of the president’s lack of discipline” but said Trump, 80, was growing “more impulsive with age.”
The confusion extended to Vice President JD Vance, who told reporters the president was denying the outlets “special access” to the White House, while Trump specifically called it a ban, NBC News pointed out.
“President Donald Trump has left his political allies struggling to keep pace with his pronouncements and lost precious time to drive a compelling message ahead of the midterm congressional elections,” GOP strategists and people who have worked with him told the news outlet.