White House Leaves CNN Off Air Force One for Tennessee Trip, Puts Real America’s Voice in the Seat

The White House left CNN off Air Force One for President Trump’s Saturday trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, according to Friday night guidance to the press corps. The network had been slated to fly as the rotating television pooler for a University of Tennessee–University of Texas football game. That slot went instead to Real America’s Voice, a conservative outlet. The Washington Post first reported the exclusion. A CNN spokeswoman confirmed the network would not be on the plane. The administration did not list CNN as primary television pool in the Saturday schedule. Some accounts said no primary TV pooler was named at all.

The move came hours after CNN had been allowed to work the White House television pool again. On Friday the network covered Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the National Archives with first lady Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan. That was the first day the five-network pool — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC — had operated normally since Trump banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House grounds on Sept. 18. The other four networks had refused to pool until CNN’s access was restored. CNN had already been kept off Air Force One for Trump’s United Nations trip to New York.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House early Thursday to restore “hard passes” for reporters from the three banned outlets for 14 days, finding the credential revocations likely violated due process. His order addressed entry to the complex. It did not expressly decide Air Force One seats or who holds television-pool duty. Since February 2025 the White House, not the White House Correspondents’ Association, has selected pool members. Travel seats on the president’s aircraft are limited. The administration has treated those seats as an assignment it controls. Trump announced the original ban as targeting “FICTION and LIES.” Vice President JD Vance said the White House was not stopping outlets from reporting, only withholding “special access.” The outlets’ lawsuit asked the court to restore the access they had before the ban. Briefs on a longer injunction are due next week. Saturday’s plane left without CNN.