By Daanyal Saeed

Copyright crikey

The ABC has been barred from a UK press conference with Donald Trump, just a day after a testy exchange between the US president and journalist John Lyons, where Trump furiously accused the reporter of “hurting Australia” for asking a question about his business interests.

The phenomenon of American reporters going soft on the Trump administration (at least in press conferences) for fear of restricted access to the White House is well-documented, with no outlet wanting to end up on the outer, like our colleagues at the Associated Press.

Now, for the first time, an Australian reporter has found themselves in the crosshairs of the American leader. ABC Americas correspondent Lyons, a decorated doyen of Australian journalism, asked President Trump about his business deals while in office.

“You are generally regarded as the wealthiest man who has ever occupied the White House,” Lyons began. “How much wealthier are you now than when you returned to the White House?”

Trump said his kids were responsible for running his business, and that “most of the deals that I’ve made, I made before [he returned to the presidency]”.

Asked if it was “appropriate, President Trump, that a president in office should be engaged in so much business activity”, the president replied: “Well, I’m really not, my kids are running the business — I’m here. Where are you from?”

When Lyons identified he was from Australia, Trump replied: “In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now, and they want to get along with me.

“Your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell him about you, you set a very bad tone.”

Trump then told Lyons to be “quiet”, pointing a finger at him.

The White House’s “Rapid Response 47” social media account, which was set up by the Trump administration in January to “support POTUS’ America First agenda and hold the Fake News accountable” later labelled Lyons a “foreign fake news loser”.

“Many such cases”.

A day later, the ABC was barred from Trump’s UK press conference as part of his state visit, Guardian Australia first reported, with the London bureau of the Australian national broadcaster informed its accreditation had been withdrawn for “capacity reasons”.

A spokesperson for the ABC told Crikey: “The ABC’s London bureau is still accredited to attend Chequers, however Downing Street Media has said it no longer has a spot at the joint press conference due to logistical reasons. We have been given no indication this is connected to the questions put to President Trump by ABC Americas Editor John Lyons earlier this week.”

Head of journalism at the University of Technology Sydney and former ABC Media Watch host Monica Attard told Crikey that it was “absolutely, perfectly legitimate for him to be asking the president of the United States [those questions].”

“It’s a perfectly legitimate question to be asked in the public interest.”

On Trump’s apparent threat to bring up Lyons in front of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (in the process appearing to confirm a highly anticipated meeting between the two leaders), Attard said it was standard fare for Trump.

“But that’s Donald Trump. I mean, that’s what he does. I mean, he’s a child, and that’s the way he behaves. I didn’t find that unusual … and nor did I take it particularly seriously.

“If he does a sit down with Albanese … Albanese, presumably, and hopefully, is going to say ‘well, that’s what journalists do.’”

On whether there may be diplomatic fallout from Trump’s threat to bring up Lyons with Albanese, Attard said she didn’t think it would, unless Four Corners and Lyons came up “with something that was devastatingly good and picks up international interest and definitively proves that the president of the United States has acted in some kind of corrupt capacity whilst occupying the White House”.

It’s by no means the first time Trump has targeted a journalist for asking questions he didn’t like, or even having an editorial line he didn’t like. Earlier this week, Trump filed a $22 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, four of its reporters, and publisher Penguin Random House, over editorials by the company that said he was unfit for office.

In July, Trump reached a $24 million settlement with Paramount after filing a suit against the company over the edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, one which he claimed gave her favourable coverage. In the same month, he filed another $15 billion lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and his newspaper The Wall Street Journal over reporting relating to Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. In August, his administration cut $1.6 billion of funds from public broadcasters NPR and PBS. In 2023, his social media company Truth Social filed a $5.7 billion lawsuit against The Washington Post over reporting relating to the company’s accounts.

During his first term, Trump infamously banned CNN’s Jim Acosta from the White House after berating the veteran reporter in a press conference over the 2018 midterm elections; at the beginning of his second term, he evicted a number of news organisations from their workspaces at the Pentagon in order to accommodate politically friendlier organisations.

Asked whether she got a sense of fear from the American press gallery in relation to questioning Trump directly, Attard said there was “a justifiable fear from some American journalists that they need to tread a little bit more carefully [around Trump]”.

“He’s vindictive and capricious, and he could, you know, issue some kind of executive order to impact the businesses of their employers.”

Prior to the announcement that the ABC had been barred by the White House, director of news director of news Justin Stevens said in a statement that Lyons was “a highly awarded journalist and one of the most experienced and respected reporters in Australia. His job is to ask questions. He has the ABC’s full support.”

Stevens’ statement came amid calls for the ABC to explain the line of questioning from former journalist and Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson, who did not elaborate on her remarks when contacted by Crikey but simply said on social media that “Australians should expect the highest standards of our publicly-funded national broadcaster.”

The journalists’ union MEAA said that “given John’s track record of holding the powerful to account, we know he won’t be intimidated [by President Trump]”.