White House Bans Reporter Over Her 'Inappropriate Questions'

In what CNN calls "another serious escalation against the press by the Trump administration," one of its White House reporters was banned from a press event Wednesday, apparently because she asked questions that President Trump didn't like. As the pool reporter representing five networks during Trump's meeting with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker Wednesday, Kaitlan Collins asked Trump about the Michael Cohen tape and Vladimir Putin. The White House later announced that Juncker would be at a press event in the Rose Garden. Collins says she was told she was "dis-invited" to the event by deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed that Collins had been banned from the Rose Garden event for "shouting questions" at the earlier meeting and refusing to leave. Other journalists who were present, however, say Collins, who can be heard on video here, was respectful and spoke at the same volume as any other reporter. The White House Correspondents Association denounced the banning of Collins as "wholly inappropriate, wrong-headed, and weak," the Guardian reports. Fox News also condemned the move, with president Jay Wallace saying the network stands with CNN "for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press." (More CNN stories.)