Newsmax host Greg Kelly pressed Vice President JD Vance Monday night over whether President Trump’s decision to bar certain major news outlets from the White House could come back to haunt Republicans if a Democrat wins the presidency in the future.
During the interview on Newsmax, Vance pushed back firmly against the concerns, arguing that Trump is actually far more accessible to the press than either of his two immediate predecessors, former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
“What we’re saying is we’re not going to give these papers and these news organizations special, privileged access to the White House,” Vance told Kelly. “The good thing about this, Greg you have to realize is we want every bias and every perspective to be present, but there are limited spaces.”
Vance explained that with only so many seats available at press briefings, the administration has to apply some kind of standard when deciding which outlets receive access.
“I mean, I’ve done a press briefing, probably more than any vice president in recent history,” Vance said. “And when you go there, there are only so many places, right? You have to choose some standard for how you dole out seats to these particular news organizations. If you are engaged in reporting, that is 98% negative if you’re engaged in effectively propaganda, why wouldn’t we give that seat to somebody who’s going to be a little bit more fair?”
Kelly pushed further, questioning the “98% negative” characterization before shifting to a broader concern about precedent, asking what the policy might mean for conservative outlets down the road if a Democrat eventually occupies the Oval Office and decides it’s “your turn” to face similar restrictions.
Vance responded by pointing to what he characterized as unfair treatment of conservative media by communications staff under previous administrations.
“Well, I think that, you know, you saw in the previous administrations, the presidents, the communications staff of those administrations actually really treated conservative news organizations unfairly,” Vance said. “We’re not even kicking out all biased media organizations. We’re not banning anyone. We’re saying that for a few of the most aggressive propaganda artists in the media, we’re not going to give you special access to the White House.”
Vance argued that if the administration had simply followed the precedent set during the Biden or Obama years, it would be justified in taking an even harder line against outlets perceived as liberal-leaning, given what he described as their treatment of conservative media in the past.
“I think, frankly, if we followed the precedent of the Biden or Obama administrations, we’d be much more negative towards or towards liberal media because they were so negative towards conservative media,” Vance said. “The precedent was set a long time ago.”
He closed by reiterating that Trump remains more accessible to reporters overall than his predecessors, insisting the policy simply denies special treatment to outlets the administration views as engaging in propaganda rather than straight reporting.
