Trump Addresses Media After Mamdani Asks for Press: ‘They Never Boycott Me’

President Donald Trump addressed reporters at Gracie Mansion on Monday after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani requested the media be brought in, quipping, “They never boycott me.”

Trump’s meeting with Mamdani comes just hours after the five television networks that make up the White House press pool — CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, and CNN — announced they would join forces to effectively suspend pool coverage of the president in response to his ban of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.

The three targeted networks have since teamed up to file a federal lawsuit against the unprecedented move.

“What’s your response to President Trump banning outlets from the White House grounds?” a reporter asked Mamdani, who stood next to the president at the podium. “Did you challenge him at all about this in your meeting with him? Historians and legal scholars have called it ‘textbook authoritarianism.'”

The journalist then continued with a question for Trump, asking, “Are you banning outlets like CNN, MS NOW, and Politico in order to distract from the Iran war and high gas prices?”

The mayor responded first, telling the media, “I told the president that we’re gonna have all of the members of the press here on the lawn, and that is something that I believe in.”

Trump then took the microphone, adding, “It’s interesting ’cause they said they were gonna boycott me, but they never boycott me. So, I wasn’t very worried about that. Look at all that press.”

Answering the question at hand, Trump went on:

I’m only doing it because I think the press also has an obligation. And, you know, I won in a landslide. I won the election in a landslide. I’ve done great things. I’ve done a lot of great things. I’ve settled eight wars. We have the best economic numbers for the country in the history of our country. We have $21 trillion pouring in. The biggest number ever — any country — was three.

Nobody’s ever done what we’ve done. I never get anything positive. It’s always negative, even having to do with the war. We’ve done so well. Look, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon — let me put it that way. They’re not doing well. In fact, I have meetings on it today. They’re doing very poorly.

You would think that an outlet would write at least reasonably well, but never. If you look at CNN, that’s fake news. If you look at MS NOW, I don’t even know what MS NOW is. I guess it’s the MSNBC — what it used to be — or “MSDNC,” as some people call it. That’s Democrat National Committee, but it’s just biased news.

I think that these outlets have an obligation to be fair, and if they’re fake news, I really think I have an obligation not to allow them into another very special house. This is a special house — Gracie Mansion. Well, the White House is the most special of all houses, I have to say. I don’t even think the mayor would argue with that, and I think I have an obligation not to let fake news. They’re very bad for the country, very bad for national security. So, I have that obligation. So, we’ll see how it works out.

Watch above on CNN.

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