White House ‘committed to a free press,’ says Sanders

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday the Trump administration is “committed to a free press” after the president threatened to strip reporters of their credentials. 

 

Sanders said during her daily press briefing that “this is one of the most accessible White Houses,” a sentiment she insisted other reporters share. 

 

“We are very committed to a free press and I think that we demonstrate that every single day,” she said. 

 

President Trump in an early morning tweet suggested reporters should lose their ability to cover the White House if they write stories he does not like.

Asked if revoking credentials is a line she would be willing to cross, Sanders refused to specifically rule it out but indicated the administration was not moving in that direction. 

“We are here, we are taking questions, we are doing everything we can to provide regular and constant information to the American people,” she told reporters. “We are going to continue to try to work with you.”

{mosads}But Sanders also chastised news organizations for what she said were false reports, saying, “The press has the responsibility to put out accurate information.”

She cited a New York Times report that said new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was “AWOL” during Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, when he was in fact traveling to North Korea to negotiate the release of three American detainees. 

 

The Times article said Pompeo was “thousands of miles away” during the Iran announcement, but did point out he was in North Korea and did not use the term “AWOL.”

Sanders also pointed to a Washington Post report that mentioned a rumor that first lady Melania Trump does not live in the White House, something her staff has strenuously denied. 

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) blasted Trump’s comments in a statement earlier Wednesday.

“Some may excuse the president’s inflammatory rhetoric about the media, but just because the president does not like news coverage does not make it fake,” said WHCA President Margaret Talev, who reports on the White House for Bloomberg.

“A free press must be able to report on the good, the bad, the momentous and the mundane, without fear or favor,” she continued. “And a president preventing a free and independent press from covering the workings of our republic would be an unconscionable assault on the First Amendment.”