Axios media correspondent Sara Fischer said it was a national embarrassment for President Donald Trump to joke about China having the "friendliest press corps" on the same morning his White House was turning away American journalists in defiance of a court order.
The remark came during Chinese leader Xi Jinping's state visit Thursday, as Chinese photographers documented the day. According to a White House pool report, Trump "made a joke about how the Chinese had the friendliest press corps," and the Associated Press reported he also noted that Chinese reporters ask Xi for permission to speak. China is an authoritarian state that jails journalists and enforces media loyalty to the government.
Fischer refused to let the claim go unchallenged, telling a panel: "This is such an embarrassing moment for the United States," she railed on CNN, noting that the country was hosting one of its biggest global adversaries while failing to live up to the values it purports to stand for.
"We're supposed to be meeting with one of our biggest global adversaries, a communist country, and representing democracy on the global stage. And democracy stands for freedom of the press, freedom of speech," Fischer said. "And the fact that we have reporters who are not being allowed in the White House... a president who is sort of acknowledging the fact that another world leader, in his view, gets the opportunity to have less of a free press. It is everything that we don't stand for here in America."
Just after midnight Thursday, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the administration to restore White House access for CNN, MS NOW and Politico, which Trump had banned last week over what he called their "FAKE NEWS." U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly found the outlets' press passes were revoked without "constitutionally adequate due process."
Hours after that order, the White House was reportedly still turning reporters away, with CNN's Betsy Klein denied entry at least four times before she was finally let in around noon. Some journalists had their passes confiscated. Full access was restored around lunchtime, and the news organizations had to return to court for an emergency hearing because the administration was, as one CNN correspondent put it, essentially defying the judge's order.
Fischer praised the White House press corps for staying "professional" through the episode, calling their coverage a reminder "not just to the people here in the US, but everywhere around the world" that the country still believes in press freedom regardless of the administration's conduct.