A federal judge has set a hearing this week in a lawsuit by media outlets President Donald Trump banned from White House coverage as the action is causing a ripple effect for coverage of the president’s trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
Major television networks are halting their shared video coverage from the White House following Trump’s ban on CNN and other networks, the chair of the TV pool announced earlier Monday.
CNN was slated to provide pool coverage — the video feed shared with other outlets when there’s limited space for full access — on Monday, but was removed from the list on Sunday evening.
In response, chair Bryan Boughton, the Fox News Washington bureau chief, announced in a memo that “effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President.”
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“There will be no replacement pool put in place,” Boughton wrote in a memo, reported by The Washington Post. “All other pool coverage will continue as normal, including Congress, VIPs, and selected events in Washington and around the country.”
On Friday, Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would be barred from the White House due to what he described as unfavorable coverage and “fake news” reporting.
The three outlets are suing to overturn the ban, and U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, set a hearing for Wednesday afternoon. The administration has until Tuesday to respond to the lawsuit.
“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.”
The lawsuit argues the “ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.”
But the president doubled down Monday on his previous statements and downplayed the outlets’ concerns, describing the networks’ coverage as “corrupt” and a threat to national security that needed to be stopped.
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.”
On Monday afternoon, the administration reiterated its reasoning for banning the outlets.
“No President is required to host a hostile operation on the grounds. Access has always been
a privilege — and President Trump is applying that rule,” the White House said in a press release.
In a separate Truth Social post, the president said the media outlets had drawn a “great” judge for them that he “sadly” appointed in his first term. If the outlets prevail, he said his administration would appeal.
Vice President JD Vance defended the president’s actions Monday, saying there would not be “special” access to the White House if the outlets engage in “propaganda.”
“Ninety-two percent of the stories that they have on the president of the United States [and] on the administration are negative. That’s not representative of the American people,” Vance told reporters. “They can still report on the Trump White House. They can still get the public reports. They can still, of course, talk to people in the administration and outside the administration.”
To show support for the banned outlets, The Washington Post announced Monday afternoon it would not publish any photographs of the day’s presidential events, “including Trump’s departure from the White House and his events at the United Nations in New York.”
This story has been updated with new information.
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