Trump’s Ban of News Organizations Goes Beyond Obama, Biden Actions

In banning CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House, the Trump administration has argued that the move is similar to actions taken by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. But the ban goes beyond what those presidents did.

In a Sept. 21 press release, three days after President Donald Trump said the news organizations would be barred “effective immediately,” the White House said that “[a]ccess changes are nothing new,” and that “Democrat Administrations have restricted, punished, and locked out the press” for “years.” The release listed several examples of incidents involving the press during the Obama and Biden administrations.

“There’s no basis to suggest that Biden and Obama ‘did it too,'” Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, told us. “Trump’s action is singular and unprecedented,” he said, noting that Trump has instituted a “full ban of multiple news media” and “is targeting news organizations because they are publishing content he finds unflattering.

GOP Ad Attacks Ossoff’s Vote Against Trump Tax Cuts

A Republican TV ad cherry-picks parts of last year’s budget reconciliation law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to overstate the impact of the law or distort Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff’s record. 

The ad from One Nation never mentions the OBBBA – a partisan bill that received no Democratic votes in the House and Senate. The law is only referenced in small print in the ad as “roll call vote #372” – the source of Ossoff’s vote on July 1, 2025, against the bill. 

The One Nation ad says the Democratic senator “doesn’t care about people like us” and makes these claims: 

• Ossoff “supported” a $2,100 “tax increase.” The OBBBA extended the 2017 individual tax cuts that were due to expire. But the amount used in the ad refers to an average that’s skewed by large tax savings for wealthy taxpayers. It also doesn’t account for other changes in the law, such as cuts to Medicaid and food assistance, that will reduce income for low-income Americans.
• Ossoff voted “to gut your child tax credit.” The law increased the maximum tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200 per child. But millions of low-income children aren’t eligible for the full amount. Also, Ossoff has a history of supporting the CTC, including voting in 2021 to raise the maximum to $3,600, even for families who don’t earn enough to pay federal taxes. 
• Ossoff “voted for higher taxes on Social Security recipients earning under $75,000.” The law provided an additional $6,000 tax deduction for taxpayers 65 and older, but not all seniors earning less than $75,000 were eligible for it. 

Lawmakers’ votes are ripe for campaign attack ads from both parties, which can highlight only certain aspects of legislation, leaving out other provisions that may be the basis for lawmakers supporting or opposing the bills.