Bill Clinton has a confession for Donald Trump’s White House:
He knows exactly what it’s like to be furious with the press.
In fact, during his eight years as president, Clinton says there were plenty of moments when he would have loved to throw White House reporters out.
But he didn’t.
And his explanation for why amounted to a pointed response to Trump’s escalating confrontation with CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
Speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative summit in New York, the former president addressed Trump’s attempt to bar the three news organizations from the White House.
Clinton began with an unusually candid admission.
“There were lots of times when I wanted to ban the White House press corps,” he said.
That probably isn’t difficult to believe.
Clinton spent much of his presidency under relentless media scrutiny, particularly during the investigations and scandals that eventually culminated in his 1998 impeachment.
But Clinton’s point wasn’t that presidents shouldn’t get angry with journalists.
It was that presidents do get angry — and the American system is designed so their anger doesn’t automatically become government policy.
Then came his key line:
“And there’s a reason we have a Constitution. Because none of us are immune from being pissed off.”
In other words, Clinton wasn’t claiming some superior presidential temperament.
Quite the opposite.
He was admitting that he sometimes wanted to retaliate against reporters himself.
The difference, he argued, was recognizing that presidential frustration doesn’t erase constitutional constraints.
“But I’m glad I never did, and I’m glad I couldn’t,” Clinton continued.
“And these people shouldn’t. The law should be what it is.”
The remarks came after Trump dramatically escalated his long-running battle with the news media.
Last week, Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banned from the White House, accusing the organizations of repeatedly reporting what he called “fake news.”
The decision wasn’t merely rhetorical.
Reporters from all three organizations subsequently arrived at the White House and found their credentials disabled or confiscated. Reuters and AP independently documented journalists being denied entry.
The three organizations sued the administration.
They argued that Trump had retaliated against them because of their journalism and that the ban amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
The White House disputed those claims and argued that access to the White House is a privilege rather than an unlimited constitutional right.
Then a federal judge intervened.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order requiring the administration to restore the journalists’ credentials.
Importantly, Kelly’s immediate ruling centered on due process: he found that the organizations had demonstrated a likelihood of succeeding on their claim that the administration deprived them of required procedural protections when their access was revoked.
The journalists regained access Thursday.
That distinction matters.
The broader First Amendment questions raised by the lawsuit have not been finally resolved.
But Trump’s initial attempt to remove the organizations has already triggered a much larger debate about how much power a president should have over the journalists who cover him.
And Clinton’s answer is striking precisely because he has occupied Trump’s chair.
Presidents don’t have to like the reporters covering them.
They don’t have to enjoy hostile questions.
They don’t have to believe coverage is fair.
Clinton’s argument is that those frustrations are exactly why institutional restraints matter.
His presidency certainly gave him opportunities to test that principle.
Few modern presidents experienced a more intense collision between personal scandal, criminal investigation, partisan warfare and nonstop media attention.
Clinton could have responded to that experience by arguing that presidents deserve greater power to retaliate against news organizations they believe treat them unfairly.
Instead, more than two decades after leaving office, he’s arguing the opposite.
Yes, reporters made him furious.
Yes, there were times he wanted them gone.
And that’s precisely why, in Clinton’s telling, the decision shouldn’t simply have been his to make.
“There’s a reason we have a Constitution.”
Sometimes the strongest argument for constitutional restraints comes from someone admitting that he once wished they weren’t there.
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