White House communications chief Bill Shine on Thursday pushed back at a CNN reporter’s claim that he barred her from attending a press event in the Rose Garden, saying the word “ban” was never used.
“You ask her if we ever used the word ‘ban,'” Shine told reporters outside the White House on Thursday about CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins.
Asked what word he used, he didn’t answer directly, saying: “When you ask her if we ever use the word ‘ban,’ then I will answer that.”
Collins said after she shouted questions to President Donald Trump during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Shine pulled her into his office along with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for a dressing down.
In an interview on her network, she said they told her the questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen were “inappropriate for that venue” and she would be “blocked” from attending a later event in the Rose Garden.
She reacted by saying, “You’re banning me from an event because you didn’t like the questions I asked.”
Banned, blocked, disinvited or unwelcomed, the result was that Collins was unable to attend a news conference with Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
“Our staff informed her she was not welcome to participate in the next event, but made clear that any other journalist from her network could attend,” Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
The White House press corps rallied around her, expressing their solidarity on Twitter, in statements and in interviews with other media outlets.
Even Fox News, where Shine used to be a top executive before resigning over his handling of sexual harassment scandals rocking the network, slapped him down for barring a reporter from doing her job.
“We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press,” Fox News president Jay Wallace said late Wednesday.
The network’s chief political anchor Bret Baier also took the White House to task for banning Collins.
“As a member of the White House press pool, Fox stands firmly with CNN on this issue of access,” Baier said on “Special Report,” where he also read from CNN’s statement on the matter.
”Just because the White House is uncomfortable with a question regarding the news of the day doesn’t mean the question isn’t relevant and shouldn’t be asked,” Baier read from the statement. “This decision to bar a member of the press is retaliatory in nature and not indicative of an open and free press. We demand better.”
NBC correspondent Hallie Jackson wrote that she stands “firmly” with Collins and said she “would have done exactly the same thing in her shoes.”
