Watch: Dana Bash 'At a Loss for Words' Over CNN Ban at WH, But Then Video of CNN Suggesting WH Ban Fox News Surfaces
Dana Bash ran out of words the minute the lockout hit her network.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Bash asked U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz if he is “comfortable” with President Trump barring CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House — and compared Trump to dictators abroad.
“Historically, it was the United States pushing countries like China for greater press freedoms,” she said. “Now, President Trump is the one backsliding on these rights.”
Bash thanked Waltz, a combat veteran of the Army Green Berets, for fighting for the First Amendment. Then declared she was at “kind of a loss for words,” especially, she said, because the president “just doesn’t want negative reporting.” It was “critical reporting,” she insisted. “It is intended to get facts.”
Waltz did not play along.
There is “a big difference,” he told her, “between negative reporting and garbage, gossip journalism.” He said the Biden administration “limited all kinds of journalistic outfits and journalists themselves that they deemed as right-wing.”
Trump, he said, does not believe the banned media outlets are acting in good faith.
Access to a government building, he noted, is not the same thing as the right to speak and publish.
Conservative commentator Eric Daugherty posted the exchange on the social media platform X:
🚨 HOLY CRAP! UN Ambassador Mike Waltz just RAN OVER CNN to their face whining about President Trump removing Fake News from the White House
BASH: “I’m at a loss for words!”
WALTZ: “There’s a BIG DIFFERENCE between negative reporting and GARBAGE, GOSSIP JOURNALISM!” 🔥
“The prior administration limited ALL KINDS of journalistic outfits and journalists THEY deemed RIGHT-WING! Those are now allowed onto the facility, and POTUS DOESN’T believe others are acting in good faith!”
“I just saw one using anonymous sources referencing someone who’s DEAD! Take a good look at itself and ITS practices. It throws things out there then puts a little baby correction NOBODY pays attention to.”
“It is incredible frustrating…meanwhile, the Supreme Court has been VERY clear in multiple cases…there is a right to speak and publish vs having the right to ANY GOVERNMENT FACILITY YOU WANT.”
BOOM!!
@michaelgwaltz is spot-on: If you read the 1st Amendment, you can spew whatever gossip you want (barring defamation/slander), but you do NOT have an unlimited right to government buildings
Let alone the White House.
They act like PLENTY of news outlets are not still allowed inside.
CNN, MSNOW and POLITICO should reflect on how to treat Trump more fairly if they want free access to the White House
Biden did much worse and they were SILENT.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 20, 2026
Then a video from 2021 came back.
After posting Bash’s interview with Waltz, Daugherty used another post to circulate old footage of CNN’s Brian Stelter, the network’s in-house media scold, discussing whether Fox News should even be in the White House press pool under Biden.
“Should it be a part of the White House press pool?” Stelter asked during the March, 14, 2021, episode of “Reliable Sources.” “Should it be afforded the privileges that come with news gathering?”
He called it a privilege. He did not call it a constitutional crisis. That tone arrived only after Trump moved on CNN.
🚨 JUST IN: Footage has resurfaced of CNN’s Brian Stelter FLOATING the removal of Fox News from the White House press pool under Biden in 2021 — same guy who is this morning MELTING DOWN that Trump removed CNN, MSNOW and POLITICO
“Fox should be viewed as a political tool? Should it be part of the White House press pool? The privileges that come with news gathering?”
Note how he framed it? He didn’t say “this is an attack on the 1st Amendment!”
He called access to the White House a “PRIVILEGE” — NOT A RIGHT.
That’s not his tone today, because it’s Donald J. Trump who made the move.
The solution is VERY simple: you are free to lie on your own time. If you want access, STOP THE ENDLESS LIES AND PROPAGANDA!
https://t.co/qUaBNrX1tB
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) September 19, 2026
This is the iron law of the left. Accuse the other side of what you have already tried. Cry bully and demand a privilege you were willing to strip from Fox when the other team held office. They are frauds. The sanctimony is the part that makes it intolerable.
Dana Bash was at a “loss for words”? Bash has more words than anyone needs from her in 10 lifetimes. She had words when Stelter treated Fox’s press badge as optional. She had words when Biden’s White House iced out journalists it didn’t favor. She found the First Amendment again on Sunday because it was her logo on the wrong side of the rope line.
Waltz told her to look at the corrections nobody reads and the anonymous-source “gossip” that hardens into “fact.” That is the product. Trump called it fake news and pulled the pass. CNN has filed with the courts. Bash filed for the fainting couch.
The First Amendment protects the right to publish. It does not guarantee a folding chair in the White House briefing room for any news outlet that has spent years treating the president as a target and the audience as fools.
If the network wants the room back, they can start by telling the truth. Until then, save the speechlessness.
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