Trump just banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from White House press briefings.
Barack Obama decided that was his moment to weigh in.
The internet started digging into Obama's past – and what they found left him with nowhere to stand.
Obama Said Banning Fox News Was Unimaginable
Speaking before 4,000 people at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, Barack Obama turned his remarks toward Donald Trump's decision to strip White House access from three media organizations he'd labeled purveyors of fake news.
Obama invoked Fox News.
"I'm trying to think what would have happened if I had said, 'You know what, Fox News, you're out of here,'" Obama said, laughing. "It's unimaginable!"
Within hours, X users were posting the receipts – and they were devastating.
What the Judicial Watch Emails Actually Show
October 2009. Obama's Treasury Department set up a press pool interview with Kenneth Feinberg – the administration's so-called "executive pay czar" – and quietly made plans to exclude one network from the rotation.
Fox News.
A White House official wrote internally that they would "prefer if you skip Fox please."
It wasn't a miscommunication. Documents later pried loose by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request confirmed the exclusion was deliberate.
The other networks stopped it cold.
ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC bureau chiefs told Treasury they wouldn't send a single reporter to the Feinberg interview if Fox was locked out.
The Obama administration folded.
But the scheme was already on paper – and a White House official had already put in writing that the administration had "demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews."
The word Obama used was "unimaginable." His own staff already imagined it, in writing, seventeen years earlier.
The War on Fox News That Obama Forgot He Waged
Obama's White House Communications Director Anita Dunn went on television and called Fox News "the communication arm of the Republican Party."
Senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC News that Fox was "not a real news organization" and that other outlets "ought not to treat them that way."
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel added Fox "is not a news organization so much as it has a perspective."
This was a coordinated strategy from Obama's inner circle – not a rogue comment or a misread moment.
The campaign against Fox News was open, sustained, and it came straight from the top.
How Obama's DOJ Labeled a Fox News Reporter a Criminal
In 2010, Obama's Justice Department secretly obtained search warrants for the personal emails and phone records of Fox News correspondent James Rosen – and named him an "aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator" in a violation of the Espionage Act.
His crime was doing his job: cultivating a source who leaked classified information about North Korea's nuclear program.
Using State Department security badge records, the Obama DOJ tracked Rosen's physical movements through federal buildings, seized his personal emails, and labeled a working journalist a criminal – all without ever charging him.
No administration before Obama had prosecuted more Espionage Act cases against sources than every prior presidency combined.
The man who stood at a podium Friday defending press freedom ran the most aggressive leak prosecution operation in American history.
What Trump Actually Did
On Friday, Trump announced via Truth Social that CNN, MS NOW – the network formerly known as MSNBC, which changed its name amid collapsing viewership – and Politico were banned from the White House.
He cited "FAKE NEWS" and specifically flagged Politico's taxpayer-funded $8 million government subscription under Biden as a reason for the exclusion.
Reporters from the three outlets were denied access to the White House grounds Saturday morning.
CNN reporter Betsy Klein had her press pass confiscated at the security booth.
MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner was told her badge was "disabled" and asked to hand it over.
Trump made clear the ban could extend further.
"There may be others to join them," he said, mentioning the New York Times and the Washington Post.
The Standard That Only Applies to Republicans
Obama stood before 4,000 students and lectured the country on press freedom – then mocked the Americans who think Trump's decision is acceptable.
"We have not developed the type of understanding democracy requires," Obama said.
What Obama's team actually did: cut Fox News out of a press pool interview, named a Fox News reporter a federal criminal under the Espionage Act, seized Associated Press phone records across 20 lines at four offices, and prosecuted more leak sources than every president before him combined.
Trump revoked press credentials for three outlets that called his administration a pack of liars.
One of these men had a press freedom problem.
It was never Trump.
Sources:
- Judicial Watch, "Judicial Watch: New Obama White House Emails Show Deliberate Plot to Exclude Fox News from Media Pool," Judicial Watch, July 2011.
- Fox News Staff, "Administration Loses Bid to Exclude Fox News From Pay Czar Interview," Fox News, October 2009.
- Nick Arama, "Obama Weighs in on the Media Outlets Getting Booted, What He Says Is Unbelievable," RedState, September 20, 2026.
- Cato Institute, "Barack Obama's War on a Free Press," Cato Institute, June 2022.