It is "indicative of a lack of basic understanding of how an adult White House functions," he added.

Tapper noted that in December, Spicer said the White House would not ban media organizations as the Trump campaign had done.

CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin also responded on air Friday after learning the White House had blocked the news outlets from press gaggle, saying the move was unacceptable.

When Baldwin asked Murray why CNN wasn't at the briefing, the White House correspondent detailed the chain of events that led to the exclusion of the news organizations.

The White House was "handpicking the outlets they wanted in for this briefing, so Breitbart, The Washington Times, One America News Network, news outlets that maybe the White House feels are more favorable, were all allowed in," Murray said.

Murray and Baldwin also surmised that the White House likely was responding to recent CNN reporting on the conversation between the White House and FBI and the previous stories on Trump campaign contact with Russians.

"The White House is clearly incensed over this excellent CNN reporting about conversations between the White House chief of staff [Reince Priebus] and senior officials in the FBI," Murray said.

Following news of the White House's move to block the news organizations, CNN's public relations department expressed dissatisfaction via Twitter, also calling the maneuver "unacceptable."

In a brief statement defending the move, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the White House "had the pool there so everyone would be represented and get an update from us today."

The pool usually includes a representative from one television network and one print outlet. In this case, four of the five major television networks -- NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News -- were invited and attended the meeting, while only CNN was blocked.

Dylan Byers, Sara Murray and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.