Trump Official Calls News Outlets That Negatively Report On The President 'Treasonous'

Top advisor to President Donald Trump, Peter Navarro, defended the president’s decision to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.

Appearing on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Saturday, Navarro claimed news outlets that “falsely” report negative things about the economy, Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran are “treasonous.”

“That weighs heavily on sentiment and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They want that to happen; they want a bad economy going into the election,” Navarro said. “And the security thing, these people are treasonous. I mean, this is like, ‘the wars going badly.’ Whatever you feel about the war. You don’t say stuff that’s gonna be repeated instantaneously by the Iranian media.”

Navarro also compared Trump’s actions against the press to those taken by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

White House official Peter Navarro says it’s “treasonous” for White House reporters to accurately report things like the fact that the Iran war is going poorly for the US pic.twitter.com/DFjMAp99Av

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2026

Trump made similar comments when asked by reporters why he had made the decision to ban the three outlets.

“Because they’re fake news,” Trump said. “You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news. When you look at CNN, it’s just fake. That’s why their ratings are no good. When you look at MS NOW … it’s fake news.”

“And when you look at Politico … the stories they wrote are fake. So there’s a lot of news and there may be others to join them, and maybe they can get better. But our country has to have honest news,” he continued.

Reporters for CNN, MS NOW and Politico all reported being turned away at the White House on Saturday after having their press badges deactivated.

All three outlets issued statements following their reporters being denied access.

“We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights,” Politico Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Greenberger said in a statement to the Politico newsroom.

A CNN statement said the network “will not be deflected from our duty to hold the government and other public bodies to account.”

MS NOW said it “intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy.”

Trump has also hinted that The New York Times and The Washington Post could be the next outlets to be banned.