Donald Trump and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani held a surprise meeting at Gracie Mansion in New York, and it didn’t take long for the question about Trump’s press ban to come up.
Mamdani was asked by reporters, “ Mayor, to you first, what's your response to President Trump banning outlets from the White House grounds? Uh, did you challenge him at all about this in your meeting with him? Historians and legal scholars have called it textbook authoritarianism.”
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The same reporter asked Trump, " And Mr. President, are you banning outlets like MS NOW CNN and Politico in order to distract from the Iran war and high gas prices?”
Mamdani answered, “ Yeah, I told the president, uh, that we're gonna have all of the members of the press here on the lawn, and that is something that I believe in is, is everyone, no matter the opinion or the critique, that we engage.”
Trump then said, “ Yeah. It's interesting because, uh, they said w- they were gonna boycott me, but they never boycott me. So I wasn't very worried about that. Look at all that press. But, uh, no, I'm not... I'm only doing it because I think the press also has an obligation.”
The press did boycott Trump. There was no audio at his White House event on Monday. The president could be seen, but not heard.
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