Major television networks are halting their video coverage from the White House following President Donald Trump’s ban on CNN and other networks, the chair of the TV pool announced 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.”
“There will be no replacement pool put in place,” Boughton wrote in the 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.”
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On Friday, President Trump announced 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, they said on Monday morning.
“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 on his previous statements and downplayed the outlet’s 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.”
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