When Donald Trump was president, he often criticized the media for its blatant bias and its constant pursuit of bogus stories — like the Russian collusion hoax — while ignoring anything negative about the Democrats. He frequently called the media the “enemy of the people” for the way it lied to the public to pursue an agenda over the facts.
The left couldn’t handle it, likening Trump to a fascist dictator for criticizing the media. Of course, when it came to accessibility, you’d be hard-pressed to find any president who made himself more available to the media to answer questions.
But what do Trump’s enemies — those who declare anything and everything he did to be “fascist” — say about what’s happening in the Biden White House now?
At the end of July, the so-called “hard passes” for the White House Briefing Room will expire, at which point, the White House will implement new rules that will likely result in “unfriendly” journalists no longer having easy access to the briefing room and being unable to question the administration or its policies.
One journalist who is about to lose his credentials is Fred Lucas of The Daily Signal, who has had a hard pass since 2009, which means his ability to attend press briefings will be extremely limited. Two weeks from now, Lucas will lose his White House press credentials. It’s the latest — and perhaps most brazen — attempt by President Joe Biden to limit media access to what he regularly calls “the People’s House.”
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“The White House Press Office will implement new rules July 31, when all ‘hard passes’ expire. Lucas, holder of a hard pass since 2009, no longer will be able to easily attend White House press briefings or access the sprawling Pennsylvania Avenue campus—as he has done for the past 14 years,” the Daily Signal reports. “At issue are new rules, announced in May, that limit the number of journalists who are eligible for a White House hard pass and give Biden’s press team greater power to expel journalists it doesn’t like.”
According to The Daily Signal, pass holders will be required to first obtain “accreditation by a press gallery in either the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, or Supreme Court.” It is unclear how many other journalists will lose access, but several reporters who have been known to ask tough questions to the delicate White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, clearly see what’s going on and are sounding the alarm.
Imagine if the Trump White House did this. There was quite the uproar after CNN’s Jim Acosta lost his credentials after an incident where he put his hands on a female White House aide demanding to ask a question. What the Biden administration is doing is certainly worse, as it is clear that it’s trying to protect Jean-Pierre, who has struggled with her job from day one, from having to answer tough questions — which she had been getting quite a few of lately.
