President Donald Trump is “shooting himself in the foot” and creating fresh evidence against his administration in the legal battle over its media ban, CNN’s attorney said Thursday.
Attorney Ted Boutros, who represents CNN, MS NOW and Politico in their First Amendment lawsuit, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump’s own public statements undermine the administration’s claim that it banned the outlets over national security concerns.
“The problem they have is that President Trump laid it out in detail in his social media posts — the posts he’s making even as we’re on together, apparently — that the reason he ordered this ban on CNN and MS NOW and Politico and their reporters is because he doesn’t like the content of the reporting,” Boutros said.
He called that “classic viewpoint discrimination” and “one of the most egregious types of First Amendment violation.”
“And the administration is just shooting itself in the foot by doing this,” Boutros added.
Tapper then brought up Trump’s remark during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit that China has the “friendliest press corps,” despite the country’s lack of a free press.
“He is our lead witness in terms of showing this antipathy toward independent journalism and toward content,” Boutros replied. “That joke —it’s not very funny. He’s basically saying he likes an authoritarian government where there’s no freedom of the press.”
“So right up til now, President Trump is creating more evidence that proves our case,” he said.
Tapper closed the interview by recalling for viewers how news organizations rallied behind Fox News when the Obama administration attempted to exclude it from pool coverage in 2009.
“Presidents don’t get to pick who covers them,” the CNN anchor concluded.
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