CNN anchor Jake Tapper sharply criticized President Donald Trump on Friday after Trump announced he was “banning” CNN, MS NOW, and Politico “from the White House, … effective immediately.”

There was no indication the Trump administration had taken steps to enforce the ban. CNN reporters were not escorted from their White House workspace near the briefing room later that day, and the CNN team traveling with Vice President JD Vance on Friday was not removed from the reporters’ pool. The immediate question is therefore whether the announcement will change the outlets’ practical access to the White House or remain a public threat.

Tapper nonetheless showed no leniency toward what he called Trump’s “unconstitutional” ban.

“He wants the news to bend,” Tapper said. “… Let’s remember that earlier he defined ‘fake news’ as purposely negative stories. That’s ‘fake news’ to him. He wasn’t talking about stories that are inaccurate. He started talking about stories that are not positive.”

Tapper noted that Trump said “more [was] to come,” and pointed to the Washington Post and the New York Times, both of which Trump has repeatedly branded “fake news.” He then highlighted instances of media owners who sought to appease the president through settlement payments or other concessions, only to keep drawing his enmity.

“I think it’s interesting, just as an object lesson,” Tapper said. “Jeff Bezos took over the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos made changes to the Washington Post, we believe — although it’s never been established as clear fact — to curry more favor with the president. It doesn’t matter how much you kowtow to the president, whether you’re ABC writing the check for $16 million or CBS (Paramount) writing the check for $16 million or Jeff Bezos doing it. Unless you are 100 percent positive (about Trump) you know the bill is going to come due.”

Tapper did not address, however, the effort by Trump-aligned figures to purchase CNN’s parent company and reshape it along MAGA lines, similar to the recent transformation of Paramount. Trump himself made that intention clear while speaking to Tapper in an earlier call-in interview, conducted during a discussion of the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham.

“Sure,” Trump replied when Tapper invited him to make additional call-in appearances. “We’re trying to have CNN go on a normal path.”

“I’m on the normal path right here, sir,” Tapper answered.

“Good,” Trump said. “You are.”

Political analyst Dan Pfeiffer seized on the exchange, saying: “Trump says ‘WE are trying to get CNN to go down a normal path.’ He is admitting on live television that the FCC’s approval of Paramount Skydance’s acquisition was part of a corrupt plan to make CNN more MAGA-friendly.”

As Pfeiffer explained: “David Ellison, the pro-Trump billionaire who owns Paramount, reportedly made promises to Trump to change CNN’s news coverage on-air lineup. And this is exactly what Ellison did when he acquired CBS News.”

Tapper also invoked history on Friday, citing the Obama White House’s position that Fox News was not a legitimate news organization and its attempt to exclude the network from a pool interview. At the time, “all the networks said, ‘no, you can’t do that. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like what they report.’”

“It’ll be interesting to see if Fox repeats that same kind of affirmation,” Tapper said. That makes the response of other networks, particularly Fox, another point to watch as the dispute over White House access develops.

Watch the segment via YouTube.