Wow.

Once again, they manage to surprise me. And horrify and frighten. They’ve gone from verbally abusing the news media to shutting them out. The Times, one of the shut out news organizations, reports:

Journalists from The New York Times and several other news organizations were prohibited from attending a briefing by President Trump’s press secretary on Friday, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.

Reporters from The Times, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times and Politico were not allowed to enter the West Wing office of the press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, for the scheduled briefing. Aides to Mr. Spicer only allowed in reporters from a handpicked group of news organizations that, the White House said, had been previously confirmed.

Those organizations included Breitbart News, the One America News Network and The Washington Times, all with conservative leanings. Journalists from ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Fox News also attended.

Reporters from Time magazine and The Associated Press, who were set to be allowed in, chose not to attend the briefing in protest of the White House’s actions.

They think they can do anything they want to. I hope someone makes clear to them that they can’t, very soon. A small minority of eligible voters voted for them, and nobody voted for them to establish a dictatorship.

“Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties,” Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said in a statement. “We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”

Not acceptable.

The White House move came hours after Mr. Trump delivered a slashing attack on the news media in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The president denounced news organizations as “dishonest” purveyors of “fake news” and mocked journalists for claiming free speech rights.

“They always bring up the First Amendment,” Mr. Trump said to cheers.

Yes, they do, you miserable lying cheating assaulting wannabe-dictator pig. They bring it up and it exists, and nobody gave you permission to flout it, let alone demolish it.

It’s a god damn outrage.