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CNN, MS NOW, and Politico have sued President Trump over his ban keeping their journalists off White House grounds, calling it a direct violation of the First Amendment.
Getting into it: Trump announced the ban Friday on Truth Social, saying the three outlets keep publishing made-up stories about him and warning that other outlets could follow. He told reporters there was no specific trigger, just “cumulative stories over the last two years,” adding, “You get sick of it.” When MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner, CNN’s Betsy Klein, and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett showed up Saturday, the Secret Service blocked them from the grounds and kept their press passes. The outlets filed their complaint Monday in federal court in Washington and asked for a temporary restraining order and their credentials back, with a hearing set for Wednesday. Besides Trump, the defendants include White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, communications aide Steven Cheung, and Secret Service Director Sean Curran.
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the outlets said in a joint statement. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
Trump responded, saying, “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!” Trump has not explained what national security threat the outlets pose.
The fallout hit fast. CNN was pulled from its scheduled turn running the White House television pool, which was set to travel with Trump to the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday. In response, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC suspended pool coverage altogether, cutting off most video of the president days before he hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping. The White House promoted its own livestream of a South Lawn ribbon-cutting as an alternative, but the audio could not be heard. Monday night, it also launched “Trump TV,” a 24/7 YouTube stream of the administration’s “biggest moments.”
Vice President JD Vance defended the ban, arguing nobody’s speech is being shut down because the outlets can still cover Trump, use publicly released information, and reach administration officials. “What the president has said is, ‘We’re not going to give you special access inside the White House,'” he said, claiming about 92% of their coverage of Trump is negative and that a Republican White House has no reason to grant access to what he called far-left propaganda. The White House told Reuters the outlets are “completely capable of reporting from directly outside.”
This all comes as courts have repeatedly sided with journalists in similar fights, including over Jim Acosta in 2018 and the Associated Press last year, relying on a 1977 ruling that the White House cannot revoke a press pass based on the content of a reporter’s speech. The case landed with US District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee who ruled against the administration in the Acosta case, and CNN has brought back Ted Boutrous, the attorney who argued that one.
