OTTAWA — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz defended President Donald Trump’s ban on three news organizations by arguing that reports disclosing ammunition levels, military vulnerabilities and deployment orders can threaten national security and should be investigated and prosecuted.CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins challenged Waltz over the administration’s new national-security justification, noting Trump did not cite that concern when he initially barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.“President Trump is now invoking national security with respect to his press ban, which he didn’t do Friday, Saturday or Sunday,” Collins said. “How is reporting on the president a national-security threat?”“When we have outlets that are relying on anonymous sources and talking about the levels of ammunition we have in the middle of conflict, when we’re talking about vulnerabilities that the United States has, when in fact we’re talking about deployment orders for our soldiers, our Navy, our Air Force that are highly classified, that’s absolutely a national-security threat and should be investigated and prosecuted,” Waltz replied.Collins said the information about ammunition shortages had appeared in a public Pentagon inspector general’s report submitted to Congress.“But with respect to munitions, that was in the inspector general’s report from the Pentagon talking about shortages,” Collins said. “They’re legally obligated to get that report to Congress, right?”.Waltz said there was a difference between discussing broader deficiencies in the U.S. defence industrial base and publishing classified information attributed to anonymous sources.“There’s an investigative report, but there’s also been a whole slew of anonymous sources,” he said. “And we know our adversaries pay attention to the headlines.”“When you’re essentially signalling to the world that the United States is out of ammunition, when in fact that’s not true, that’s a legitimate concern and it certainly is a threat to our national security.”Pressed again on whether the inspector general had identified munitions shortages, Waltz acknowledged that it had but said the report dealt with long-term production capacity.“The IG report is talking about shortages in our defence industrial base that, in fact, if you go back to the cuts under the Obama administration and sequestration, have built up to this point in time,” Waltz said.He said the United States had been “overly focused and bogged down in Middle East wars” while failing to stockpile the weapons needed for high-end conflicts.“That’s what the IG report was talking about,” Waltz said. “That’s very different than anonymous sources on Secretary Hegseth’s deployment book.”Trump announced Friday that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ fake news.”Reporters from the three organizations were denied entry to the White House grounds Saturday and had their credentials confiscated.Trump expanded his defence of the decision Monday, claiming publications that use unnamed sources and produce negative coverage could threaten national security.“Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our national security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important office anywhere in the world,” Trump wrote.The three organizations sued the administration Monday, describing the ban as a “direct assault” on the First Amendment and alleging their credentials were revoked because the president objected to their coverage.ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News subsequently declined to replace CNN in the rotating television pool that provides video coverage of the president to other networks.The dispute followed Trump to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, where White House restrictions do not govern press access.“You shouldn’t be here,” Trump told Collins after she questioned him at the UN.Collins was accredited by the United Nations, allowing her to continue covering the president despite the White House ban.
