Panel slaughters GOP pundit on live air for downplaying Trump’s press ban

Lobbyist and Republican strategist David Urban hit a wall on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 after trying to pivot away from President Donald Trump’s abrupt call to ban certain media companies from the White House on Friday.

News was circulating most of the evening after Trump vowed to ban CNN, MS NOW and other organizations for reporting stories he does not like. Urban attempted to pivot from Trump’s announcement, which critics called a First Amendment violation.

“I come on here, you know, every night and say we should be talking about a lot of different things today. For example, instead of talking about banning the media, the president does have good news. There's a report out—the U.S. Census Bureau put a report out that said poverty rates in America are at historic low. As a matter of fact, real wages, real median household income jumped 2.6 percent. … And instead of talking about that, like all day and crowing about that great news, we're talking about this. And nobody in America cares about this.”

But Senior political commentator Ana Navarro blasted Urban for not taking the issue seriously.

“There is something wrong with a country that does not allow for critical things to be written. And I know this because I fled one of those countries,” said Navarro. “I fled communism in Nicaragua, … and let me tell you, I don't make these similarities and comparisons lightly. One of the first things that dictators of any ilk do when they get to power is attack the free press, censor the free press, and try to silence the free press. And what Trump did today, what he's threatening to do today is not coming in a vacuum.”

Navarro then cited Trump’s attempt to ban the Association Press after it refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the banning of reporters from the Pentagon, and Trump’s “constant berating of female reporters.”

“You know, that that line he uses where the press is the enemy of the people. I have heard that line before from [dictator Daniel] Ortega,” said Navarro. “… So people have to be very careful and we have to condemn it. And I would ask Republicans and Trump supporters to think to themselves, ‘how would they feel if Barack Obama had suddenly and capriciously banned Fox News, how would what would they be reacting? We can't make this partisan.”

Urban retorted that “simply banning people from showing up does not mean that the coverage stops.”

“The coverage will continue,” Urban insisted. “The coverage of the Pentagon continued. People are not allowed in the building. And yet the coverage continues.”

“But he wants to he wants to influence that coverage,” Navarro reminded him, “by weaponizing the FCC, by filing frivolous lawsuits, by extorting money out of networks, by threatening them verbally, by berating and attacking journalists.”

To this, Urban conceded that “you don't get that coverage unless you engage with the media ... and tell your story.”

“Oh, he's certainly engaging with the media,” Cooper quipped. “He's calling them piggy and insulting women primarily.”

“You get good stories by being a good president,” Navarro said. “If you are throwing a temper tantrum and wanting to demolish the Kennedy Center because your name is not on it, you're not going to get a good story. If you are calling regular Americans into court and accusing them of vandalism because your pool guy screwed up the repair work of the [Lincoln] Reflecting Pool, you're not going to get a good story. You get good stories by doing good things, behaving like a decent human being, and being a good president.”

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