Ben Shapiro: The US attorney's statement on Trump and the AP “sounds rather tyrannical and stupid”
Shapiro on how White House is shutting out the AP: “What they actually should just say is, listen, we're not even gonna give you a reason. ... Distractions are the enemy.”
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From the February 25, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Ben Shapiro Show
BEN SHAPIRO (HOST): The Trump administration is going up against the Associated Press. So the Associated Press has now sued the Trump administration because the administration said that they can't come on Air Force One. And the reason for that is because the Trump administration is mad at the AP for not renaming the Gulf Of Mexico the Gulf Of America. So they've barred AP reporters from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other official White House events. And now the AP is filing a lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against Trump administration officials, including the White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich, the White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt, and the White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. The complaint objects to the White House ordering the wire service to use specific words in its reporting and stated it had filed suit to quote vindicate its rights to the editorial independence guaranteed by The US constitution.
Now the reality is that if the White House said the reason that you're ousted is because you won't say the things we want you to say, probably the White House loses in court on that because that would presumably be a First Amendment violation.
What they actually should just say is, listen, we're not even gonna give you a reason. Right? The White House under Joe Biden didn't include any of the alternative media at all, and we're gonna treat all media equally, which means the AP does not get a leg up on, say, the Daily Wire or Breitbart or Daily Caller or anybody else in the online media.
However, if you want to lose the sort of momentum that Trump has — and this is again, I'm concerned with this because I want to see President Trump victorious. Distractions are the enemy. Yesterday, Edward Martin was the US attorney for the District Of Columbia. He put out a statement, quote, as President Trump's lawyers, we are proud to fight to protect his leadership as our president, and we are vigilant in standing against entities like the AP that refused to put America First. He put that out as like a a full on graphic statement.
That is just conceding the actual legal case. Because if the case that you are making is that the media have to reflect the perspective of the president of the United States to be given access, you're gonna lose in court. Also, it sounds rather tyrannical and stupid. There is no reason to do that sort of stuff.