Rachel Maddow Lauds ‘Hero’ MS NOW WH Reporter Amid Trump Press Brawl — As Packed Live Audience Roars Its Approval

MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow and audience members at the “Together in Texas” event on Saturday welcomed White House reporter Laura Barrón-López to the stage as a conquering hero in light of President Donald Trump’s press ban.

Trump continues to play fast and loose with who can and can’t cover the White House following the ban he imposed on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, even as a judge has put a temporary restraining order on that ban for two weeks.

“Laura, how we love you. This has been an amazing story to cover,” Maddow said during the live show, which had more than 5,000 attendees in Arlington. “This has been an important constitutional moment in our republic, but it has been a personal thing for you. How are you handling it?”

“I’m okay. Yeah, yeah. I’m exhausted and tired, but I’ll say that I’m not shaken up,” Barrón-López said. “I think that myself and the entire team are more determined than ever to cover this administration, to cover our government. And I’m really grateful to have that right — freedom of the press — to be able to do my job. And it is under threat.”

“And you are a hero to a lot of people here right now,” Maddow said. “Because, I mean, we talk about freedom of the press like it is sacrament, like it is something esoteric, like it is something that is a spiritually important component of who we are as a country. And it is all of those things.But it is also something that goes away if it is not practiced, and you have been practicing it,” Maddow said as the audience applauded.

“And I have to ask, because of that, if you had any inkling that this was coming. From our perspective, it felt like it came out of the blue. But did it feel that way to you with the White House?” Maddow asked.

“When he initially announced the ban last Friday, yes, it felt like it came out of the blue,” Barrón-López said. “I think that we know that this president — all of you here know — that this president, since he came onto the political scene, has attacked the free press. He has called us ‘the enemy of the people.’ He has called us traitors. So we all wondered if this day would come eventually.”

Barrón-López talked about Trump’s earlier ban on The Associated Press, and “the fact that they tried to ban the entire Pentagon press, then were ordered by a judge to be readmitted, but now with escorts. You could argue that maybe the press solidarity should have been there earlier,” Barrón-López said to applause.

Barrón-López reminded the audience that “this isn’t over,” and that it remained unclear whether “the president is going to attempt to take” his First Amendment fight to the Supreme Court.

Watch above.

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