Rick Rosner On, 45: White House Press Access, Trump Polling, Midterm Politics, and Harvey Weinstein
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Personal SubStack
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2026/09/26
In this interview, Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner discuss White House press-access litigation, Donald Trump’s approval ratings, historical midterm comparisons, inflation and cost-of-living politics, and Harvey Weinstein’s criminal cases. Rosner reflects on judicial enforcement, polling shifts, presidential unpopularity, and Weinstein’s convictions, appeals, resentencing, and continued imprisonment in both jurisdictions.
White House Press Access
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were initially denied access to the White House even after a federal judge ordered the administration to restore their press credentials. Their access was restored later that day.
Under D.C. Circuit precedent governing established White House press access, the government cannot revoke a reporter’s established access for constitutionally impermissible reasons without due process. Trump publicly attacked the coverage from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico and banned them from the White House. They sued. They went to Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge, by the way, not some liberal. Kelly had also handled the 2018 fight over CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s credentials and ordered the White House to restore Acosta’s pass.
The White House argued in court that the restrictions involved national security. The judge said that did not float because the record did not support national security as the reason for the revocations. The outlets argued that the national-security justification emerged after the lawsuit was filed.
So the judge said, “You have to let them back in.” He issued a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to restore their access immediately. The order was for 14 days while the case continued. The next morning, reporters were initially still denied entry for several hours. Their credentials were then restored, and reporters from the three outlets returned to the White House later that day.
Rick Rosner: Before their access was restored, I was trying to guess what would happen next. I did not think they were going to show up with cops who would pull guns on the Secret Service and say, “Let them in.” My wild guess was that they would continue to be locked out, go back to court, and the judge would yell at Trump’s lawyers and say, “Okay, sanctions. For every day that you continue to lock out the reporters, I am going to fine you guys $25,000.”
Then they keep locking out the reporters. This is my wild guess. This is what Carole and I do when we watch TV all the time: “What is the next thing this person is going to say?” We have seen so much TV and so many fucking movies that the way to impress us, the way to get us not to turn off a show, is to have plot twists and shit come out of people’s mouths that we cannot guess.
Carole and I, and I am sure a zillion other people who have all the streaming services- Netflix, Prime- are in the guessing game, whether they know it or not. You are going to turn off a movie if you have seen everything before.
Anyway, I was playing the guessing game with fucking Trump. I guessed that the $25,000-a-day fines wouldn’t work; Trump would keep saying, “Fuck you,” they would go back to court, and it would get kicked up to $50,000 or $100,000 a day. Then we would see what happens. At some point, maybe the judge starts sanctioning Trump’s lawyers personally so they cannot use White House money and it comes out of their own pockets. If that does not work because Trump says, “Do not worry about it,” then maybe the judge starts throwing Trump’s lawyers in prison for contempt. I do not know.
Trump Approval and Polling
We did not get to Trump’s polling. His approval has taken a substantial step downward lately. According to Silver Bulletin, his net approval reached an all-time low of minus 22.4 on September 23. RealClearPolitics reported on September 25 that its average had him at 38.8 percent approval and 59.7 percent disapproval, a net approval of minus 20.9.
Even though Trump has been acting like an asshole and doing dumb shit all summer and in the spring too, with the war, the trade conflict with Canada, the fucking ballroom, and the Kennedy Center controversies, his approval had been fairly stable for a while. But over the past several days, the polling averages have moved downward.
A full percentage point, which is unusual over such a short amount of time with Trump. If you look at a chart of his approval, it looks like bunting. When you hang bunting on the Fourth of July, or whatever you guys do in Canada, you hang up Tim Hortons banners or whatever. You attach the banner at the ends, and in the middle it sags. Then you do a bunch of them. That is bunting.
Anchor point, sag, anchor point, sag. That is what Trump’s approval looks like. It starts high, drops, levels out, inches up, then gradually drops and gradually rises. So it goes doi, doi, doi.
Trump had roughly a two-and-a-half-month bunting deal where it dropped gradually, then levelled out. We may be looking at another anchor point where it will drop again from here. Silver Bulletin reported on September 23 that Trump’s net approval had reached an all-time low in its average, at minus 22.4. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released September 21 put his approval at 32 percent.
Historically, Harry Truman had 33 percent Gallup approval around the 1946 midterms. George W. Bush was at 38 percent before the 2006 midterms. So approval in the upper 30s is historically very low for a president approaching a midterm election.
Truman’s approval dropped to around 33 percent in 1946. That was a year after World War II. The shift away from wartime price controls contributed to sharp inflation, along with labour unrest and other postwar economic disruptions. People got super pissed off. It is somewhat similar to what happens politically when people are angry about the cost of living. What pisses people off is the price of gas, diesel, and groceries.
Harvey Weinstein Sentencing and Appeals
Jacobsen: Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 15 years for the 2006 sexual assault of former production assistant Miriam Haley in New York. He is 74. He was convicted again in 2025 after New York’s highest court overturned his original 2020 conviction and 23-year sentence and ordered a new trial.
Rosner: Weinstein is not getting out anytime soon. He also has a California rape and sexual-assault conviction. He was originally sentenced there to 16 years, but in June 2026 a California appeals court upheld the convictions, vacated the sentence, and ordered him resentenced. So the California sentence is still being litigated.
He has appealed repeatedly. Sometimes he has succeeded. In New York, his 2020 conviction was overturned because the state’s highest court found errors in how the trial was conducted, which led to a retrial. He was then convicted again on the Miriam Haley charge and has now received this 15-year sentence.
It is probably at least a change of scenery for Harvey Weinstein when he has to go to court. He gets transported out of prison, puts on courtroom clothes, and spends the day in court. I assume his lawyers are there taking care of him. He has had substantial resources to continue fighting these cases.
Jacobsen: Thank you very much for the opportunity and your time, Rick.
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