One America News Network’s Chanel Rion got her Trump-friendly TV network kicked out of the White House briefing room after crashing two back-to-back pressers with President Trump.
The White House Correspondents’ Association sent an email to its membership Wednesday evening saying the board had voted to remove a news network from rotating into a seat in the briefing room, which are limited due to the current social distancing guidelines in order to combat coronavirus.
‘We did this because a reporter for this outlet twice attended press briefings in contravention of this policy,’ the WHCA board wrote. ‘We do not take this action lightly. This is a matter of public safety.’
CREEPIN’ IN THE BACK: One America News Network’s Chanel Rion lost her network a briefing room seat after she crashed back-to-back White House briefings this week. Seating is limited and reporters are rotating in as they try to stay spaced apart from their colleagues
Rion can be seen Wednesday standing at the back of the briefing room and waving her hand after she was warned Tuesday by a representative of the White House Correspondents’ Association that she needed to leave, as she didn’t have a briefing room seat that day
Previously, Rion made waves when she asked President Trump if he thought Chinese food was ‘racist.’ She was trying to defend him from those who thought using the term ‘Chinese virus’ was racist
Just 14 reporters are to be utilizing the White House briefing room seats during President Trump’s coronavirus briefings. The White House Correspondents’ Association said the reason for OAN’s ouster was that Rion wasn’t abiding by those precautions by showing up
The WHCA’s membership includes journalists who pay dues and then elect a board, which makes decisions like the one regarding OAN.
DailyMail.com confirmed that the reporter in question was Rion, who was seen standing at the back of the briefing room on Tuesday and Wednesday in order to get a question in to the president.
Earlier Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times had reported that Rion had been asked by a representative of the WHCA on Tuesday to leave the room because she wasn’t one of the 14 reporters who were allowed to take a seat that day.
She refused and claimed she was there ‘as a guest of Stephanie Grisham,’ the White House press secretary, reporters familiar with the exchanage told the LA Times.
Grisham has yet to respond to a request for comment on Rion’s removal and the reporter’s statement that she was the press secretary’s guest.
Another tip-off that it was Rion who had gotten expelled for not practicing proper social distancing, was that she was standing while asking her questions, whereas most reporters sit through the duration of the briefing, even when they’re called on by the president.
Rion has quickly made a name for herself by asking questions that would please a conservative audience.
Her first attention-getter started with her asking the president if Chinese food was ‘racist.’ She then accused members of the White House press corps of spouting off pro-communist Chinese talking points when questioning whether the president calling the coronavirus the ‘Chinese virus’ was racist.
On Sunday, at a press briefing in the White House Rose Garden, where additional seats were made available to outlets, Rion compared the number of coronavirus fatalities to the ‘children killed by their mothers through elective abortions every day.’
Rion (left) teamed up with President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani (right) and took a reporting trip to Ukraine and Turkey late last year
Members of the Trump family adorn Rion’s Instagram including this picture in which she says she and Donald Trump Jr. (left) are ‘Decimating the deep state one MAGA strategy session at a time’
Rion (left) also got access to President Trump’s (center) Mar-a-Lago estate – when most reporters are kept outside in vans. Here she looks to be meeting first lady Melania Trump
In another Instagram post, she’s posing with Ivanka Trump (right) who works as a top White House official
Rion also attracted controversy when she had Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani – a central figure in the Ukaine scandal that led to the president’s impeachment – tag along with her on a reporting trip to Ukraine and Budapest, Turkey, late last year.
‘His hundreds of hours and months of research into what he calls the great political scandal of our time made him the only person to go with us on this trip,’ Rion said of the ex-New York City mayor, according to Politico.
She also teased that he findings would ‘both astound and enrage’ her viewership, as they’ve been kept hidden from the American people thanks to a ‘complacent media.’
On her personal website, she describes herself as an author and a ‘political illustrator,’ along with a White House correspondent.
She’s also been a conservative since childhood.
She said she left the United States as a child because of the election of Democratic President Bill Clinton.
‘Clinton was the last straw, so dad picked up stakes and moved us out of the country,’ she wrote in her bio. ‘I think he wanted us to see what a debauched idea socialism was and that socialism was what the Clintons stood for. He wanted us to see what socialism did in the real world – how it destroyed people and human happiness in practice.’
And her Instagram account features her mugging at Mar-a-Lago alongside President Trump – access normal White House reporters don’t get. She’s also seen with Donald Trump Jr. in a picture captioned, ‘Decimating the deep state one MAGA strategy session at a time.’