CNN, MS NOW, and Politico are taking President Trump to court over his decision to ban their journalists from the White House.
As reported on Tuesday’s AM Update, the three news organizations filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday morning after their reporters were denied entry to the White House over the weekend and had their credentials confiscated by the Secret Service.
The president announced the ban late last week, accusing the outlets of repeatedly publishing what he described as fiction and lies. The media organizations, meanwhile, argue the White House retaliated against them because of their reporting–revoking their access without warning or an opportunity to appeal.
The Lawsuit
MS NOW legal affairs reporter Fallon Gallagher broke down those two claims on the air Monday. “We’ve filed this lawsuit on two big grounds. The first is due process, saying that our reporters were not given appropriate due process before the president implemented this ban. There was no notice. There was no hearing period,” she explained.
“The other part of this is, of course, the First Amendment argument,” Gallagher continued. “This is saying our lawyers are arguing that this is viewpoint discrimination and it is retaliatory because the president doesn’t like our coverage. You cannot do that under the First Amendment. There is abundant case law that says you cannot arbitrarily bar reporters from the White House once you’ve decided to let them in.”
According to the White House, the First Amendment protects the outlets’ right to publish but does not guarantee a White House credential, briefing-room seat, or place in the press pool.
The case has landed before U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointee who ordered the White House to restore CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta’s credential during a similar dispute in 2018.
The administration’s response is due Tuesday ahead of a hearing on the outlets’ request for an emergency order tomorrow at 3:30pm.
The Fallout
In the meantime, the ban immediately disrupted television coverage of the president. CNN had been scheduled to handle Monday’s White House television pool duties as part of a rotation involving CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News. The networks take turns covering events where space is limited and then share their footage with other news organizations.
After the White House prevented CNN from taking its turn, the remaining networks declined to step in, thus suspending TV pool coverage of President Trump. That meant there was no pool coverage of President Trump marking the opening of a new granite helicopter pad on the White House lawn.
The White House carried the ceremony on its own social media channels, but the sound of Marine One drowned out Trump’s remarks without broadcast microphones present. Newsmax, which attempted to broadcast the White House feed, noted the problem in real time.
But the absence of the White House pool did not preventing every appearance from receiving live television coverage. Local New York affiliates, which are not part of the pool, carried a news conference outside Gracie Mansion in Manhattan Monday afternoon following a meeting between the president and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
The issue was raised when Mamdani said he told Trump the media would be present because “that is something that I believe in is everyone, no matter the opinion or the critique that we engage.”
The president, on the other hand, used the presser as an opportunity to double down. “It’s interesting because they said they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me, so I wasn’t very worried about that. Look at all that press,” he said of those in attendance.
“I never get anything positive. It’s always negative… If you look at CNN, it’s fake news. If you look at MS Now, I don’t even know what MS Now is… but it’s just biased news,” Trump continued. “And I think that these outlets have an obligation to be fair. And if they’re fake news, I really think I have an obligation not to allow them into another very special house. This is a special house, Gracie Mansion. Well, the White House is the most special of all houses.”
Introducing ‘Trump TV’
In an apparent effort to further counter the effect of the bans, the White House announced the creation of its own round-the-clock streaming channel Monday night called “Trump TV.” The administration described the channel as a continuously updated collection of the president’s major remarks, videos, and other White House highlights.
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