Arrested for empty seats
Here is the deal you were sold, and you can check the receipt: the government does not get to punish speech it dislikes. That was the promise. It came with a signature.
On Monday, the man who signed it posted this about a newspaper that counted empty seats at his rally:
“The New York Times, and many other Artificial Media Outlets, should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.”
That is Donald Trump on Truth Social at 1:57 p.m. Eastern, October 5, word for word, per the Truth Social archive. Same day, his White House kept Politico off Air Force One. Same day, his former press secretary, the one who once explained who gets to ride on that plane, signed on with Fox News. And the reporter leading the fight to get banned outlets back in the building? She works for Fox News too.
You could not write this as satire. Nobody would believe the casting.
The crime scene is a high school gym
The scene of the alleged crime was a 4,500-capacity high school gymnasium in Vandalia, Ohio, last Saturday, per The New Republic. The Times reported that by the time he finished speaking, several areas of an upper deck had emptied out. Photographs backed it up.
The president’s defense, in order: there were no empty seats. Thousands were turned away. And the empty seats were there because fans in the upper sections “tend to migrate down to the Main Floor.” He called it the “migration” process. First the seats were full. Then the seats were empty because everybody moved closer. Pick one.
It gets better. Mediaite noticed that in a follow-up post, the Times line he blamed on Ohio, “Some upper sections were almost completely empty,” actually came from a report about his Friday rally in Mobile, Alabama. He wants reporters arrested, and he pinned the quote on the wrong state. He also announced he has “cinematographers shooting the various Arenas.” You know who else films crowds for a living? Reporters. Whom he would like arrested.
Even Fox did not escape. On Sunday he griped that Fox & Friends skipped the Ohio rally, closing with, “It’s the old undercurrent at FoxNews!” Mediaite counted: Fox aired one of his last five rallies live.
To this White House, free speech means the right to be covered live, in full, with no seat count.
Grounded: Politico and the empty seat on the plane
Politico was scheduled to be Monday’s print pool reporter on Air Force One, the outlet that files updates for everyone else. The White House said no, per Mediaite and TheWrap.
Then something rare happened in Washington. Solidarity. The White House offered the seat to the other outlets in the rotation, and they “uniformly declined,” per CNN’s Brian Stelter. A Washington Post reporter told colleagues the White House “was unable to find a replacement,” so “there is no primary print pooler on this trip.” The Washington Post called it the first time in recent memory a president has traveled without one.
So a Nebraska campaign trip ended up with the one thing this White House says never happens: a seat nobody would fill. Somebody alert the Times.
The official line: “traveling with the President of the United States aboard Air Force One is a privilege not a right.” The same spokesperson promised Trump “will continue to grant an unprecedented level of access to the press.” Unprecedented is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Backstory, which we covered in Ban the Free Press and Made for Television: on September 18, Trump announced he was banning Politico, CNN and MS NOW from the White House. Judge Timothy J. Kelly ordered their press badges restored. Since then the White House has repeatedly kept CNN off the plane on its TV-pool days, and per Mediaite, recent flights got LindellTV and Real America’s Voice instead. When the referee says let them back in the stadium, you lock the bus.
Communications director Steven Cheung explained the loophole himself: the judge ordered access to the White House, “but that’s different than allowing the pool into the events in the Oval Office or on Air Force One.” Kelly holds a hearing Thursday on a longer injunction.
The revolving door has a Fox logo
Now the plot twist. Monday morning, Fox News Media announced it signed Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary from January 2025 until August 2026, as a contributor starting November 1. She promised viewers “the same energy and candor that defined my tenure.”
Let’s talk about that tenure.
In February 2025, the White House blocked AP reporters from Oval Office events because the AP would not adopt “Gulf of America,” and Leavitt defended it, per AP. Her line: “We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office.” Two weeks later she went bigger, per AP: “The White House press team, in this administration, will determine who gets to enjoy the very privileged and limited access in spaces such as Air Force One and the Oval Office.”
Air Force One. She named it. In 2025. Monday was just the sequel.
And on the day the plane flew without a print pooler, the woman who announced that policy got hired by a news network. AP notes she is not the first: Kayleigh McEnany made the same jump in 2021, and Trump hired Fox personalities like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Fox to the Pentagon. The podium to Fox. It’s not a revolving door if it only spins one way.
Meanwhile, at Fox, an actual reporter
Here is the part that should embarrass everyone in a red hat. The person leading the press-freedom fight at the White House is Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News senior White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, per the Los Angeles Times.
Trump’s review of her work: “She can be so nasty.” Of her husband, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Pennsylvania Republican: “Her husband votes against me all the time. Can you imagine?” Yes, sir. That’s the job description for Congress.
In 2020, per the LA Times, her reporting on Trump’s false voter-fraud claims led Tucker Carlson to text Fox’s CEO that she should be fired. She has been promoted four times since.
Her case for the banned outlets is the cleanest argument you will read this week: “When you empower the president to select who is allowed to ask them questions, it shrinks the room.” And it “hands over that same authority to the next administration.” A Fox correspondent had to explain to the free-speech party that the precedent comes back around.
The free-speech order, signed and framed
Day one, January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship. It says the First Amendment protects your right “to speak freely in the public square without Government interference.” It says, “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.”
Hold that sentence up next to this summer. In July, the Justice Department sought phone records of several New York Times reporters over stories about security on the Qatari-gifted Air Force One, including records for one reporter’s mother and two spouses, per AP via PBS. In court, a federal prosecutor called the family subpoenas an “error” and a “mistake,” and the government withdrew them, per CBS News. Judge Arun Subramanian declared them “null and void.”
Subpoena the reporter’s mom in July. Call for arrests in October. Sign the free-speech order in between and frame it.
The blue costume: Fox was the enemy when it was their turn
Before Democrats take a victory lap, look at the tape. Neither party gets a free pass here.
In October 2009, the Obama Treasury Department tried to make pay czar Kenneth Feinberg available to every network in the pool except Fox. The other bureau chiefs refused unless Fox was included, per Fox News. Treasury called it a mix-up. White House spokesman Josh Earnest did not help: “This White House has demonstrated our willingness to exclude Fox News from newsmaking interviews, but yesterday we did not,” per Talking Points Memo. Days earlier, David Axelrod said Fox was not a real news organization.
Sound familiar? Rival outlets refusing to cover without the excluded one is exactly what happened Monday. Same play. Different jerseys.
It got worse. In 2013 it came out that an FBI agent had told a judge there was probable cause Fox’s James Rosen was an “aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator” in a leak case, and had pulled his State Department badge records and two days of his personal email, per Wired. In a separate case, investigators seized records for 20 AP phone lines with Justice Department approval. Grabbing reporters’ phone records was not a Trump invention. His Justice Department just added the relatives, then called it a mistake.
And the Biden years? Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan in 2024 that “senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire,” per CNN. The White House said it encouraged “responsible actions to protect public health,” and in June 2024 the Supreme Court tossed a censorship case against the government 6 to 3 on standing. Fine. But leaning on a platform over humor and satire is not a great look for the party now selling itself as the press’s bodyguard.
Both costumes
Fair is fair. Space on Air Force One really is tight, which is the White House’s whole argument. Presidents of both parties have fought with their press corps. And nothing in the record shows anyone has been arrested over the rally coverage. A post is not a warrant.
But look at the costumes side by side. The red costume is a free-speech executive order over a president who wants reporters arrested for counting chairs, a White House deciding who rides the plane, and a former press secretary cashing in at the network whose own correspondent is fighting her old policy. The blue costume is a party that iced Fox when it held the keys, chased a Fox reporter’s email in a leak case, and leaned on platforms over posts it did not like, now discovering the First Amendment works for everybody.
Here’s the test for you. If you would be furious about it with the other party in charge, it is wrong with yours in charge. Heinrich said it best: the room shrinks for the next guy too. The press pool did more for free speech Monday by leaving one seat empty than the free-speech order has done all year.
Receipts
• Truth Social archive, October 5, 2026. Trump’s 1:57 p.m. post: “should be arrested for their dishonesty and disservice to our Country.”
• The New Republic, October 5, 2026. The 4,500-capacity Vandalia gym, the emptied upper deck, photos, the “migration” post, the print pool declining to replace Politico.
• The Hill, October 5, 2026. Drudge’s lead on the “arrested” post and the Times reporting it targeted.
• MS NOW, October 5, 2026. Full text of the post and the follow-up “I never have empty seats.”
• Mediaite, crowd-size post, October 5, 2026. The quoted line came from the Alabama report; the “cinematographers” post.
• Mediaite, Fox rally count, October 5, 2026. The Fox & Friends complaint and one of five rallies aired live.
• Mediaite, Politico barred, October 5, 2026. Politico barred; CNN replaced by LindellTV and Real America’s Voice; the September 18 ban; Thursday’s hearing.
• CNN via KQ2, October 5, 2026. Outlets “uniformly declined,” no primary print pooler, the “privilege not a right” statement, Cheung’s quote.
• TheWrap, October 5, 2026. Politico’s confirmation, the Nebraska trip, the limits of the court order.
• The Washington Post, October 5, 2026. First trip in recent memory without a primary print pool reporter.
• Fox News Media, October 5, 2026. Leavitt signed as contributor from November 1, her tenure dates, her “energy and candor” quote.
• AP via ABC News, October 5, 2026. McEnany’s 2021 move and Hegseth.
• AP, February 2025. AP barred over “Gulf of America”; Leavitt’s “We reserve the right” quote.
• AP, February 25, 2025. Leavitt: the White House “will determine” access to Air Force One and the Oval Office.
• Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2026. Heinrich’s WHCA role, Trump’s “so nasty” and husband quotes, Carlson’s text, her “shrinks the room” quote.
• White House, January 20, 2025. The free-speech executive order and its “intolerable” line.
• AP via PBS, July 2026. DOJ sought Times reporters’ phone records, including a mother and two spouses.
• CBS News, July 2026. The “error” and “mistake” admission, the withdrawal, “null and void.”
• Fox News, October 23, 2009. Treasury’s attempt to exclude Fox from the Feinberg interview; the pool’s refusal; Axelrod.
• Talking Points Memo, October 23, 2009. Treasury’s mix-up account and Earnest’s quote.
• Wired, May 20, 2013. The Rosen affidavit, badge records and email, the 20 AP phone lines.
• CNN, August 27, 2024. Zuckerberg’s letter, the White House response, the 6 to 3 standing ruling.
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Originally published on Substack.