Sept. 21 (UPI) — CNN, MS Now and Politico announced Monday they filed a lawsuit and other news organizations declined to participate in White House coverage after President Donald Trump banned the three outlets.
CNN, MS Now and Politico filed the emergency request seeking to restore their access to the White House in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In a joint statement, they said the government should not be allowed to decide what the press reports.
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement read. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
The lawsuit said Trump’s ban threatened the Constitution’s due process and First Amendment protections.
CNN had been scheduled to serve as the White House press pool representative for television Monday. Multiple news outlets take part in a rotating schedule to share television, radio and written coverage of the president each day.
Instead of replacing CNN, the White House press corps decided to decline television coverage of presidential events Monday, The New York Times reported.
“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the president,” a pool note from Bryan Boughton, Fox News Washington bureau chief, said.
“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place. All other pool coverage will continue as normal.
“We will provide updates as this situation develops.”
The five networks that share television coverage — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC — issued a separate statement.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
In a post on Truth Social on Monday morning, Trump denied the allegation that the ban was “an assault on the Free Press.”
“It is instituting an assault on the FAKE News, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America,” he wrote. “It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”
Trump on Friday announced he was banning reporters from the three outlets from the White House “effective immediately,” citing allegations of “fake news.”
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”
CNN, MS Now and Politico aren’t the first news organizations to face a ban at the White House. In 2025, the administration banned the Associated Press from multiple events after it refused to stop using the term “Gulf of Mexico” despite Trump’s efforts to rename the body of water the “Gulf of America.”
Source: U.S. News
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