Trump-press feud escalates as news outlets sue White House over access ban, networks suspend pool coverage 

The mainstream media is pushing back after President Donald Trump blocked CNN, Politico and MS NOW from White House access on Friday, calling them “fake news” and demanding an “honest press.”

The three blocked outlets filed a lawsuit Monday on First Amendment grounds, while the five major television networks suspended their regular pool coverage in a show of solidarity with CNN. The outlets argue the ban has major implications for the First Amendment and the public’s access to information, while the Trump administration argues outlets will still have plenty of opportunity to report on it – just not from within the White House grounds.

Lawsuit filed

CNN, Politico and MS NOW’s lawsuit argues the White House access ban – which blocked reporters’ access to the White House grounds and deactivated their press passes – “could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment.”

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the outlets said in a statement. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

In the lawsuit, the outlets argue Trump was “expressly clear about his viewpoint-discriminatory motive” for targeting them when he called the ban “‘the result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!’ – a term he routinely applies not to reporting that is false, but to any reporting he dislikes.”

A White House official doubled down on the ban when reached by Heartlander News, saying “the Fake News has no place demanding a spot in the President’s Oval Office.”

“The lies they smear are a disservice to the American public and tear at the very fabric of our Democracy,” the official said. “They’re completely capable of reporting from directly outside.”

Major networks suspend TV pool coverage

In addition to the lawsuit, Trump is facing pushback from the nation’s five major television networks. The White House press pool covers the president’s daily activities both in the White House and as he travels across the world, but the five networks that make up the television portion of the pool – ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News – are halting coverage in a show of solidarity after the White House prevented CNN from carrying out its scheduled pool duties on Monday.

“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Bryan Boughton, the Washington bureau chief at Fox News, wrote in an email obtained by multiple news outlets Monday. “This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties,” he wrote, adding, “There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

In a joint statement, the White House television pool members of the five networks criticized the administration for the ban.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” they said. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

White House defends ban, pointing to Obama, Biden press restrictions

The White House has argued that while the First Amendment protects a news outlet’s right to publish, it “does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool.”

“Access changes are nothing new,” the White House said in a statement Monday afternoon. “What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never ‘every outlet gets in.’ It was always ‘our side stays in.’”

The White House pointed out that former President Barack Obama targeted Fox News: his communications director, Anita Dunn, said Fox operates “as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” Obama skipped Fox News while appearing on a round of other Sunday news shows and surveilled Fox News correspondent James Rosen, secretly tracking his phone calls and emails, sparking outrage that was dubbed “Obama’s war on journalism,” as CBS reported at the time.

Obama also refused access for the Boston Herald after it ran a front-page opinion essay by Mitt Romney and seized two months of phone records from the Associated Press, the White House noted, while the Biden administration modified press pass rules that led to more than 400 reporters losing access.

Trump began his term by restoring 440 passes revoked under Biden. At the time, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump would be “the most transparent and accessible president in American history.”

Trump himself recently doubled down on that categorization at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in July. “I hope all of you know that I believe in the free press more than anyone,” Trump said. “That is why I’m proud to be the most open and transparent president in history.”