Ari Fleischer
Role at the time: Former White House press secretary and Fox News contributor, on his personal X account
Statement summary
Fox News contributor and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer wrote on X that he agrees with President Trump that several media outlets covering the White House are biased and unfair, but that excluding them is not the solution. He urged opening the pool and the briefing room to conservatives to challenge liberal reporters, and warned that conservatives could someday be excluded in the same way.
“Banning them from the WH is not the solution.”
Why we used this label
Fleischer writes "Banning them from the WH is not the solution," an express rejection of the exclusion, and the rest of his post proposes opening the pool and briefing room to conservatives as the alternative. The closest competing label is “Mixed or conditional”, because the same post says he agrees with Trump that several outlets covering the White House are biased and unfair. That loses because the agreement concerns the outlets' coverage, which is outside the conduct under scrutiny, and his rejection of the exclusion carries no condition.