‘Bill O’Reilly Was Absolutely Right’: Jake Tapper Plays Old Fox News Clips To Argue Against Trump’s Press Ban

CNN’s Jake Tapper dug up some old Fox News clips to argue against President Donald Trump’s unprecedented media ban on Tuesday, declaring, “Bill O’Reilly was absolutely right.”

On Friday, Trump announced a ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, promising “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”

Later that day, the president told reporters there was “no reason” for his wild move, citing “cumulative stories over the last two years.” Since then, without proof, he’s cited national security. All three targeted networks have since filed a federal lawsuit.

In a stunning show of solidarity, the five television networks that make up the White House press pool — CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, and CNN — announced Monday that they would join forces to effectively suspend pool coverage.

Tapper, on Tuesday’s edition of The Lead, emphasized, “The White House does not get to dictate who covers the White House.”

His evidence, though, came from an unexpected source — Fox News.

In 2009, former President Barack Obama’s White House attempted to exclude Fox News from interviews with administration official Kenneth Feinberg. CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC protested the move and refused to participate unless Fox was included, prompting the White House to back down.

So, Tapper aired clips, circa 2009, of current Fox News host Sean Hannity and former network personalities Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck to back up his point.

The first showed Hannity arguing, “The administration doesn’t wanna hear what we have to say. They want to silence us. They want us to shut up. They want us to get in line. They don’t want people asking them the tough questions.”

“Amen, brother,” Tapper agreed, remembering that he was an ABC News correspondent at the time and “stood up” with Fox.

The next clip was of O’Reilly, declaring, “You can’t have the most powerful people in the country — the Obama administration — basically dictating who covers the news. President Obama is trying to exercise his power to intimidate, and I think that even the most left-wing journalists understand, ‘Hey, we can’t have this in America if we want to have a free press.'”

“Bill O’Reilly was absolutely right then, although he has the opposite take now,” Tapper stressed. “If you stand for principles only when they benefit you, you’re not actually in possession of those principles… It is disappointing how few voices there are in conservative media who are protesting President Trump on any of this.”

The last piece of archival footage featured Beck saying, “They’ve either become such cowards that they’re willing to play along to get along, or they’re enjoying their new role as lapdogs for this administration rather than watchdogs for the republic.”

“Amen, brother,” Tapper said again.

Notably, plenty of Fox News personalities have spoken out since Trump’s ban on Friday, including Jonathan Turley, Jacqui Heinrich, John Roberts, Ari Fleischer, Brit Hume, and more.

Watch above on CNN.

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