Major television networks agreed on Monday to suspend a rotation of broadcast journalists who cover President Trump after the White House removed CNN from a planned assignment covering the president’s trip to New York.
“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Bryan Boughton , the Washington bureau chief at Fox News, who currently serves as TV pool chair, wrote in an email to pool members. “This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties.”
The White House press pool is a rotation of reporters, videographers, photographers and technicians who cover the president when he travels or when he conducts events in spaces that are too small for the entire press corps. Monday’s decision suspends—for now—the television press pool, which distributes video footage and reporting about the president to TV networks and other broadcast outlets.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” White House television pool members Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News said in a statement. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
Print and photo journalists haven’t suspended their pool coverage of the president, and conservative television news outlet Real America’s Voice was scheduled to travel with the president on Monday to New York ahead of the United Nations General Assembly.
The decision marks an escalation of tensions between the press and the Trump administration after the president announced last week that he would ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.
The three news outlets said earlier Monday that they were suing the Trump administration over the ban. In a joint statement, the outlets said they were filing the suit to “protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. , a lawyer representing the outlets, called the ban “a direct assault on the First Amendment and a blatant violation of due process.”
“The president has been explicit that this ban is intended to punish reporting he doesn’t like and to intimidate journalists and news organizations covering him and his administration,” he said in a statement.
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., has been assigned to Judge Timothy Kelly , a Trump appointee. The outlets have asked the judge to temporarily block the administration from enforcing the ban and order the White House to reinstate their reporters’ permanent, or “hard pass,” credentials.
In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump noted the same judge had in 2018 granted an emergency motion to restore the press credential of Jim Acosta , then a reporter with CNN, during litigation over the White House’s move to suspend it.
Trump signaled he was prepared to appeal any ruling in the outlets’ favor. “Virtually every story about me, or anything having to do with me, is negative, wrong and, in many cases, DANGEROUS for our Country! No matter how GREAT my Achievements, they trivialize and demean,” he wrote.
On Sunday, journalists from CNN were removed from a planned pool assignment at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. CNN was scheduled to travel to the U.N. with Trump on Monday, but a scheduling email from the White House on Sunday night didn’t list a primary TV pool representative. The Wall Street Journal viewed a copy of the email.
The White House carried on its website and YouTube channel a live feed of an event Trump hosted on Monday afternoon. The live feed didn’t pick up audio of Trump’s remarks as he cut a ribbon to commemorate the opening of a new helipad on the White House’s South Lawn. Channels including CNN, Fox News and CSPAN didn’t carry the event live.
A spokeswoman for the Washington Post said on Monday that it wouldn’t publish photographs of the day’s presidential events until midnight Eastern time to show support for the banned outlets.
The developments come after representatives for CNN, MS NOW and Politico said their reporters were denied entry to the White House grounds early Saturday. Trump said Friday that he was banning reporters from the White House while criticizing their coverage of his administration. He said he intended to bar other outlets from entry in the future.
The White House on its website Monday wrote that access “is a privilege—not a right,” and said Democratic administrations had restricted and punished the press.
Trump has sued several news organizations— including the Journal —for defamation, barred Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and subpoenaed journalists. His administration has also tightened media access at the Pentagon, which last year introduced new rules restricting reporters’ ability to gather information. Several major news organizations rejected the policy and surrendered their Pentagon press credentials rather than comply.
First Amendment lawyers and newsroom leaders have said the administration’s actions during Trump’s second term amount to an attempt to chill journalists and their sources.
The administration and the Justice Department have subpoenaed journalists at various news outlets on at least three occasions this year, a step that was generally considered a last resort used only after federal officials exhausted other avenues to probe unauthorized national-security disclosures.
