CNN anchor Jake Tapper has hit out at the White House after media outlets were banned from attending an off-camera briefing on Friday.

Tapper took the opportunity to condemn the White House on CNN's The Lead, ahead of his a report on President Donald Trump's speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

'It's not acceptable, in fact it's petulant,' he fumed. 'And indicative of a lack of basic understanding of how an adult White House functions.'

CNN anchor Jake Tapper took the opportunity to condemn the White House on CNN's The Lead

.@jaketapper: This White House does not value an independent press. There is a word for that: Un-American. https://t.co/Ks7fCmAwl0 pic.twitter.com/Az3TcXomkg — CNN (@CNN) February 25, 2017

Tapper used press Secretary Sean Spicer's words against him, when he said on December 16 the White House would not ban any media organization.

Spicer had said: 'We have a respect for the press when it comes to the government. That is something you can't ban an entity from - Conservative, Liberal or otherwise.

'I think that's what makes a democracy, a democracy versus a dictatorship.'

Tapper continued: 'This White House does not seem to respect the idea of accountability, this White House does not seem to value an independent press.

'There is a word for that line of thinking. The word is un-American.'

The White House blocked most of the media from attending the briefing on Friday several hours after the president called some of them 'fake news.'

Spicer canceled a planned, on-camera briefing and held a private briefing inside his office that was open to only certain reporters.

Among the outlets allowed in were Breitbart News, the previous employer of chief strategist Steve Bannon. Others to be allowed access were Fox News.

The ones banned included DailyMail.com, the BBC, the New York Times, Politico, and CNN - which hours earlier President Trump had called the Clinton News Network.

Banned - and boycotting: From left, the Associated Press's Ken Thomas and Julie Pace boycotted the briefing over the ban, the New York Times's Glenn Thrush (seen in a hat) was banned

We were allowed in: Sean Spicer decided to speak only to a handful of outlets. Those who were allowed were (from left) Gabby Morrongiello, Washington Examiner; Justin Sink, Bloomberg News; Trey Yingst, One America News Network ; Charlie Spiering, Breitbart News

'Fake news': Trump received a raucous reception at the Conservative Political Action Conference as he called CNN the Clinton News Network and doubled down on his 'enemy of the people' description for 'fake news media'

WHO WAS ALLOWED IN AND WHO WAS OUT News outlets in the meeting: Franco Ordonez, McClatchy CBS, Margaret Brennan (pool) Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones (pool) Washington Times Washington Examiner, Gabby Morrongiello One America News Network, Trey Yingst NBC, Hallie Jackson ABC, Cecilia Vega Fox News, John Roberts AFP, Andrew Beatty (pool) Reuters Hearst (pool) Bloomberg, Justin Sink (pool) Fox News, John Roberts Emel Bayrak, TRT-TURK (pool) News outlets kept out of the meeting: DailyMail.com Buzzfeed Roll Call New York Times Politico The Hill Real Clear Politics CNN BBC Al Jazeera New York Daily News Advertisement

The ban is the latest round in Spicer and his boss's war with the media - dubbed the 'opposition party' by Bannon.

'The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!' Trump tweeted last week.

He doubled down Friday morning at CPAC, mocking the 'Clinton News Network' and continuing to call the 'fake news media' the 'enemy'.

'They're very dishonest people,' he said. 'They're very smart, they're very cunning and they're very dishonest.'

And Friday evening Trump tweeted: 'FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn't tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!'

Spicer allowed in what is known as the White House 'pool', a rotation of reporters who report on behalf of all outlets, and then hand-picked who else he let in .

CBS was the news network that was assigned to represent all the major networks today as part of what is known at the television pool.

ABC, NBC and Fox News were all allowed in. So was One America News Network.

That left CNN banned. Other broadcasters from abroad also kept out, including BBC and Al Jazeera.

CNN issued a defiant statement saying: 'This is an unacceptable development by the White House. This is how they retaliate when you report facts they don't like.

'We'll keep reporting regardless.'

The news network was already involved in a confrontation with the White House on Friday morning after it reported Thursday night White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus had tried unsuccessfully to have the FBI deny there had been contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The report led to the White House conducting a briefing with two officials who it asked reporters not to name, to contest elements of the CNN story.

Shortly after the White House's briefing with anonymous officials, Trump told the CPAC crowd of the media generally: 'They shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name.

'Let their name be put out there. Let their name be put out.'

'"A source says that Donald Trump is a horrible, horrible human being," he mocked, reading an imaginary story.

'Let 'em say it to my face!'

Trump said some reporters are 'great' and 'talented,' but declared that 'we are fighting the fake news. It's fake! Phony! Fake!'

'A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people. And they are. They are the enemy of the people,' he insisted Friday.

Friday evening Trump tweeted: 'FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn't tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!'

But in the resulting media coverage, he said, 'the dishonest media did not explain that I called the "fake" news the enemy of the people, the "fake news." They dropped off the word fake.'

'And all of the sudden the story became, "the 'media' is the enemy." They take the word "fake" out. So I'm saying, "Oh no, this is not good".'

'That's the way they are,' he said.

Spicer later told reporters allowed into his office 'there’s a big difference' between the White House's background briefings and news outlets' anonymous sourcing.

'We wanted to have a free-flowing exchange with reporters. At the end of the conversation several reporters said "can we use some of this on the record?" We said yes...I think there’s an opportunity, there’s a way to use background sourcing to to be able to have a much more robust discussion about some things.'

I'm not speaking to you: Sean Spicer (who had been at the CPAC conservative get-together earlier in the day) decided to hand pick who would be allowed to ask questions - and refused to be filmed

Trump's spokesman said that 'generally speaking' the White House has been open to putting officials' statements on the record.

In addition to the television networks, several news outlets and the radio pooler, CBS, were let in. The print outlets, radio networks and wire services also have their own pools.

But Spicer's invite system led to a split between those who decided to boycott and those who decided to go anyway.

The Associated Press boycotted the off-camera invitation-only briefing but AFP was invited and attended, as did Reuters.

Hearst newspapers was the print pool representative - or 'pooler' and went to the briefing.

In addition to the print pooler, several conservative print or web outlets were let in, including Breitbart, The Washington Examiner and The Washington Times. The Wall Street Journal and McClatchy newspapers were also allowed in.

He no-platformed himself: Sean Spicer should have been at the podium in the White House briefing room. Instead he hand-picked who he would speak to in his office off camera

The New York Times' Glenn Thrush was banned. A reporter called 'Glenn' had been part of the parody of a Sean Spicer briefing on Saturday Night Live, which culminated in Melissa McCarthy, playing the press secretary, using a super soaker on reporters.

The New York Times' executive editor Dean Baquet told his paper's reporter that '[n]othing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties', the Washington Post reported.

Time magazine's White House reporter was invited in but joined AP in participating in the boycott.

Buzzfeed News was also left out.

Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith said in a statement, 'While we strongly object to the White House's apparent attempt to punish news outlets whose coverage it does not like, we won't let these latest antics distract us from continuing to cover this administration fairly and aggressively.'

CNN reported that Spicer told reporters who were in his office that it was only supposed to be open to the pool but he expanded it to other reporters 'as he saw fit.'

It also noted that Spicer suggested yesterday that today's briefing might not be on camera.

Fox News, which was allowed in, reported that he words he used were: 'We have 3,000 credentialed people.

'We invited the people that we thought we wanted to have in the room.'

Laughing stock: Spicer's briefings have been parodied by Saturday Night Live with Melissa McCarthy playing the press secretary - and using a super soaker on the reporters

Spicer also said, according to a recording, 'The president spoke today. As you know we don’t generally do—we haven’t done briefings when the president’s had a major event or an event with a world leader.'

He also said, 'Our job is to make sure that we’re responsive to folks in the media. We’re here all day. We’ve got a big staff. And we want to make sure we answer you questions, but we don’t need to do everything on camera every day.'

The organization that represents all of the outlets that cover the White House said it was was taking the issue up with the building's press office.

'The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today's gaggle is being handled by the White House.

'We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not. The board will be discussing this further with White House staff,' White House Correspondents' Association President Jeff Mason said.

He called into CNN a little later and warned viewers not to 'rush' to conclusions about what happened today.

Fox News, which was invited in, said it was supporting the complaint.

The kerfuffle over the press briefing was a convenient distraction from the CNN story about Priebus - a topic that came up repeatedly in Spicer's off-camera gaggle.

'When you see the chyrons on CNN and the headlines in their story making it appear as if we did something wrong or nefarious, we wanted to make sure that we set the record straight,' he said of the morning briefing the White House did on background.

The kerfuffle over the press briefing was a convenient distraction from the CNN story about Priebus - a topic that came up repeatedly in Spicer's off-camera gaggle

'And I think that that this morning was an opportunity to push back on what actually happened and why it happened.'

CNN reported that Priebus pressured Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI ,to tell reporters that a New York Time article claiming the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia was not true. The FBI refused to get involved.

Officials said this morning that it was McCabe who approached Priebus after an event to tell him that the Times article was 'BS.'

'They said literally the story in the New York Times is not accurate,' Spicer later said.

Priebus wanted the FBI to go on the record, but McCabe called him to say it wouldn't. FBI Director James Comey called him after that to say the same thing, per the White House's version of the story.

'This notion I see on CNN about, we pushed back or we applied pressure. Pressure by definition is applying force,' Spicer said. 'We literally responded when presented with information and said, "Could you let the media know that? What you’re informing us of?" And the answer was, "Well, we don’t want to get in the middle of starting a practice of doing this."

'So our answer is, "Well why are you — why did you come to us with this information?" I don’t know what else you do except for say, "Gosh could you clear the record?" '

Spicer insisted that his contemporary did nothing wrong.

'Had we not done anything and just sat there, it would have been irresponsible and frankly malpractice.'