Jeff Mason

[crowd chanting] CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks!

So where does this latest ban leave journalists in America? Well, Jeff Mason is senior White House correspondent and Washington correspondent at Bloomberg News, and formerly the president of the White House Correspondents' Association, having that role during President Trump's first term.

I asked him what he makes of the events in recent days.

Well, my reaction is just that this is an escalation by the President of the United States against the media, and it's part of a pattern that began during his first term in, uh, twenty seventeen when I was president of the White House Correspondents' Association and has continued, uh, now.

But it is a story because it's about democracy, and it's about press freedom.

Uh, and those are very important things, not just for those of us who are members of the press, but for the public writ large.

That's Jeff Mason from Bloomberg.

[dramatic music] The war in Iran has an older cousin in Yemen, a conflict between the Houthis backed by Iran and the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia.

An MS Now reporter speaking to the network from a street near the White House said that she and a photographer had their badges confiscated at the gate when they arrived for work, although a producer for the network was allowed to enter.

Bloomberg's Jeff Mason says attacks on journalists started during the first Trump term.

What I can say is that this is part of a pattern with attacks against the First Amendment, uh, by President Trump, uh, to reduce the ability for journalists to be able to do their jobs and to attack their work.

Um, and this is also...

It's certainly not just at the White House.

Our colleagues at the Pentagon, uh, in the mainstream media, were essentially kicked out of the Pentagon for not signing, um, agreements that, that would limit what they would be reporting on.

Bloomberg's Jeff Mason.

Trump's ban will likely face legal challenges, with federal courts having overturned previous efforts by the Trump administration to ban reporters from the White House campus.

An MS Now reporter speaking to the network from a street near the White House said that she and a photographer had their badges confiscated at the gate when they arrived for work, although a producer for the network was allowed to enter.

Bloomberg's Jeff Mason says attacks on journalists started during the first Trump term.

What I can say is that this is part of a pattern with attacks against the First Amendment, uh, by President Trump, uh, to reduce the ability for journalists to be able to do their jobs and to attack their work.

Um, and this is also-- This, this pattern has in- increased during the second term.