CNN, MS NOW and Politico Sue Over White House Ban; Networks Halt Shared Camera Coverage After CNN Is Cut From Trump’s U.N. Trip

CNN, MS NOW and Politico filed a First Amendment and due-process lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, asking a judge to restore White House access three days after President Donald Trump barred the outlets from the grounds. The plaintiffs include the three companies and White House reporters Betsy Klein of CNN, Akayla Gardner of MS NOW, and Cheyenne Haslett of Politico. They named Trump and senior administration officials as defendants and sought a temporary restraining order. The case was assigned to Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee who in 2018 ordered the first Trump White House to restore CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s pass for lack of due process. Kelly set a TRO hearing for Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. The Justice Department was given until Tuesday night to respond.

The complaint said the ban “could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment” and that Trump “was expressly clear about his viewpoint discriminatory motive.” It argued the White House revoked credentials “without notice or process” because it objected to coverage he called “fake,” “sick,” and “purposely negative.” The outlets cited the 1977 D.C. Circuit decision in Sherrill v. Knight, which held that once the White House opens press facilities it cannot arbitrarily deny a pass without process. In a joint statement they said, “The government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”

On Saturday, Secret Service turned away Klein, Gardner, and Haslett and seized or deactivated their badges when they tried to enter. CNN had been scheduled as Monday’s shared television camera crew for Trump’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The White House Sunday-night guidance listed no primary TV pool. Hearst was listed as a secondary crew in Washington. Real America’s Voice was listed as a secondary crew for the New York trip.

ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News then suspended that shared camera coverage for events designated as presidential pool events. Fox Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, the current TV pool chair, emailed subscribers that “effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” that CNN had been blocked from its assigned duty, and that “there will be no replacement pool put in place.” Print, radio, wire, and still-photo pool work was to continue. The five networks said in a joint statement that “no administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Trump posted Monday that the White House was “not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which he called “corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated,” “a threat to our National Security,” and something that “must be stopped, NOW.”

Vice President JD Vance, speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews, said Trump was “not banning media outlets.” “What he’s doing is saying we’re not going to give you special access to the White House if you engage in what is effectively propaganda,” Vance said. He said the three outlets remain free to report from public materials and interviews. “They’re just not going to get an office in the White House anymore, and I think it’s totally appropriate, unless of course they start to behave like real news organizations.” He compared Politico’s coverage of Trump to Breitbart’s coverage of Obama and Biden and asked why a Republican White House should give Politico “special access” the prior administrations did not give Breitbart. He said “about 92%” of those three outlets’ stories on the president and the administration are negative.

The White House Correspondents’ Association condemned the credential pull. Trump’s Friday Truth Social post had said CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were banned “effective immediately” for “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS.” Other outlets, he said then, would follow.