CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins talks during a live shot in front of the White House, Wednesday, July 25, 2018, in Washington. Collins says the White House denied her access to President Donald Trump's Rose Garden statement with the European Union Commission president because officials found her earlier questions "inappropriate." (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins talks during a live shot in front of the White House, Wednesday, July 25, 2018, in Washington. Collins says the White House denied her access to President Donald Trump's Rose Garden statement with the European Union Commission president because officials found her earlier questions "inappropriate." (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on a CNN correspondent being barred from an open press event (all times local):

8:05 p.m.

The White House is defending its decision to bar a CNN reporter from attending an open press event.

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told reporters aboard Air Force One on Thursday that Kaitlan Collins was barred not because of the questions she asked but because of her refusal to leave the Oval Office during an earlier pool spray.

Gidley says, “It had nothing to do with the content of the question.”

He says Collins “was told repeatedly to leave the Oval Office.” He says she refused to do that and stayed “despite staff, Secret Service, everyone trying to usher everyone out of the room. And that can’t happen.”

Other reporters who were in the room dispute the White House’s account.

Collins has said officials had found her questions “inappropriate.”

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8:20 a.m.

A CNN correspondent says she was barred from attending an open press event at the White House because of questions she asked the president earlier in the day.

Kaitlan Collins says the White House denied her access to President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden statement with the European Union Commission president on Wednesday because officials found her earlier questions “inappropriate.”

Collins’ questions had focused on Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen.

CNN says, “Just because the White House is uncomfortable with a question regarding the news of the day doesn’t mean the question isn’t relevant and shouldn’t be asked.”

The network calls the decision “retaliatory in nature” and “not indicative of an open and free press.”

White House communications chief Bill Shine quibbled with the use of the word “ban” in describing the action taken against Collins.