CNN’s Jake Tapper insisted Friday that President Donald Trump’s “unconstitutional tantrum” is meant to distract from the abundance of bad news surrounding his administration, but added that it is “not going to happen.”

Tapper was speaking of the president’s announcement that he intends to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House.

He said:

If there is any strategy to this, and it’s not clear that there is, it is that the president would rather. Today’s focus be about this unconstitutional tantrum than about any of the facts that we cover every day. Prices, polls, the ongoing war. That is not going to happen. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot ban what I’m saying to you right now. Now, faced with coverage, he did not like, Trump’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, took steps to oust any non-sycophantic news media from the Pentagon, and the coverage did not change because the facts are what they are. A stalemate in Iran. At least 18 service members killed in the Iran action, if not more. Depleted munitions. Unanswered questions about Iranian civilians. Most horrifically, children killed. The Pentagon ban did not work. This one will not either. So whether we’re working inside or outside the White House, no matter who is elected and is in that White House, we’re going to keep covering all of it.

Tapper then led into the segment’s top story as an illustration of “how these petulant bans don’t work.”

He continued:

Today on this show, we will detail exclusive CNN reporting that says a U.S. intel report generated by artificial intelligence that turned out to be false nearly led to a military operation against China, one that, thankfully, did not actually happen. That’s a story that the White House doesn’t like. It’s a story the White House doesn’t want you to know. We’re going to tell you all about it in a moment. Now, the president did say that the ban can be lifted if we — CNN, MS NOW, Politico — if we straighten ourselves out. If that means covering the president without adulation, that’s not our job. And straighten, when you think about it, is not really the term he wants. He doesn’t want straighten. He wants the news to bend. He wants the news to warp around his views, his desires, what he wants covered about his desire for everything to be covered positively. Straight’s not what he wants. A term for what he wants in news coverage — well, what’s the opposite of straight? Crooked?