What to Know
Things got pretty awkward on Fox News recently. While Lara Trump praised her father-in-law’s transparency on the show, he was actually in the midst of kicking reporters out of a meeting. Yikes. Lara, who is married to President Donald Trump’s son Eric, spoke about how Trump is supposedly more transparent compared to previous presidents. However, live footage from the president’s breakfast with governors didn’t exactly help her prove this point.
Lara spoke highly of her father-in-law before being cut off.
“People feel you know more in line with this president, and more like they can trust our federal government, where, for so long, for so many decades, it felt like there was something kind of being held back,” she said, per The Daily Beast. “This president’s saying, ‘Let’s put it all out there.'” Of course, many critics would disagree with Lara’s interpretation, considering how Trump has repeatedly attacked reporters and news outlets that he disagrees with.
But the moment was especially embarrassing because even Fox News anchor Dana Perino did not seem particularly interested in hearing Lara praise her father-in-law. She interjected with, “Lara, speaking of your father-in-law, President Trump, let’s go to him now.”
Footage from Trump’s breakfast with governors showed him kicking reporters out at that moment.
At the breakfast with governors, Trump told reporters to leave, which is pretty awkward given that Lara was just praising him for being super transparent. “He’s in the State Dining Room as he has the governors there for a breakfast. I think we could have him here,” Perino said on Fox News. Trump’s aides appeared to be trying to get the reporters out of the meeting at that moment. Perino added, “Lara, I don’t know what happened there. Looks like the [press] pool was in, and he said he would take some questions.”
Fox cuts away from Lara Trump bragging about how transparent the Trump admin is to Trump kicking them out of the governors breakfast before they even have their cameras set up. pic.twitter.com/hYMQTOO0jX
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 20, 2026
Fill-in anchor Bill Melugin added, “And now the switch around.” Then, Perino questioned, “Do we still have Lara? There we do. Okay, great.”
Per Mediaite, CNN showed Trump saying, “We’re going to be asking the press to leave. That way, we’re going to talk very candidly and take questions…Thank you very much for being here. It’s a great honor. And the media — thank you, you can leave now.” The White House press team said, “Thank you, press,” meaning that they were no longer welcome there.
The Situation Room’s Wolf Blitzer described the situation as highly unusual. “I spent seven years as a White House correspondent for CNN,” he said. “I don’t remember a time when the White House officially opens up a meeting like this to the news media, invites reporters, camera crews to come in, but then the president of the United States goes ahead and kicks them all out.”
