Barack Obama didn’t need a long speech to make his point about Donald Trump’s escalating fight with the press.
He needed one question.
Speaking about the state of American democracy, the former president turned to Trump’s decision to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.
Obama said some of what he is seeing today would have been difficult for him to imagine when he occupied the Oval Office.
(Watch the video below)
“My imagination could not foresee some of the stuff that’s going on right now,” Obama said.
He then brought up the White House’s decision to shut three news organizations out after Trump accused them of producing “fake news.”
That’s when Obama flipped the situation around.
He asked the audience to imagine what the reaction would have been if, during his own presidency, he had decided to throw Fox News out of the White House.
“I’m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, FOX News, get out of here,” Obama said.
Then came his conclusion:
“It’s unimaginable.”
The audience responded with laughter and applause.
But Obama wasn’t simply looking for a laugh.
He used the comparison to make a broader argument about the norms required for a functioning democracy — particularly when those norms protect institutions or voices that people in power may strongly dislike.
Trump announced Friday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would no longer be permitted access to the White House, accusing the organizations of repeatedly publishing false stories.
The affected organizations dispute Trump’s characterization of their reporting, and the confrontation has since expanded far beyond the original ban.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico have taken the administration to federal court. Major television networks have also suspended White House pool coverage after CNN was prevented from carrying out an assigned pool rotation.
The White House, meanwhile, has defended Trump’s action.
In a statement published Sunday, the administration argued that White House access is “a privilege — not a right” and pointed to previous disputes between presidential administrations and news organizations.
The White House specifically cited the Obama administration’s contentious relationship with Fox News.
There is historical context worth noting.
Obama’s White House did have a serious confrontation with Fox in 2009, and the Treasury Department attempted to exclude a Fox reporter from one round of pooled interviews. Other networks objected, and Fox ultimately participated.
That episode was considerably narrower than an across-the-board ban on an outlet’s journalists from White House grounds.
Which brings the story back to Obama’s question.
What would the reaction have been if his administration had simply declared that Fox News was no longer welcome at the White House?
Obama apparently already knows his answer.
“Unimaginable.”
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