Journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were denied entry to the White House on Saturday morning in a stark escalation of President Trump’s long battle with the mainstream news media that sets up a legal and constitutional clash.
First Amendment experts condemned Mr. Trump’s ban as unconstitutional and said that it was unlikely to survive a court challenge. Affected outlets pledged to defend their legal rights.
Akayla Gardner, a correspondent for MS NOW, said that her White House-issued access badge failed to work on Saturday at the security entrance where reporters usually enter near the West Wing. “The officer asked me to hand over my badge,” she said. A reporter for CNN had a similar experience.
Mr. Trump has sued, subpoenaed and threatened the press corps before over what he sees as negative coverage, but his abrupt decision to bar the three news outlets, announced in a Truth Social post on Friday, caught some administration officials off guard, including aides in his press office, according to three people who were told about the conversations.
Here’s what else to know:
Television: The major television networks were discussing how to respond if CNN were still banned next week, when it is scheduled to provide pool coverage to all networks about Mr. Trump’s visit to the United Nations General Assembly. The other networks could refuse to substitute for CNN, leaving Mr. Trump without a mainstream television crew to cover his U.N. appearances. In 2009, the major networks balked when the Obama administration tried to bar Fox News from participating in a Treasury Department event, and the White House backed down.
Trump’s rationale: Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Friday, Mr. Trump attributed the ban to his displeasure with the outlets’ coverage of his administration. “There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” Mr. Trump said. He added, “Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine, but I don’t have to let them into my — into the people’s house.”
Viewpoint discrimination: Legal experts said that Mr. Trump’s media ban was unlikely to survive a court challenge, because the president explicitly connected his decision to bar CNN, Politico and MS NOW to the content of their reporting. That’s “textbook viewpoint discrimination,” said Bruce D. Brown, the president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The White House lost a similar legal battle during Mr. Trump’s first term after it revoked the press pass for the CNN reporter Jim Acosta.
Widespread criticism: Many mainstream media outlets and press freedom groups condemned the president’s ban. MS NOW vowed to “take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights,” and Politico’s chief editor made a similar pledge. CNN called the ban “illegal.” Even some Fox News contributors and journalists took issue with the ban. “Challenge liberal reporters,” one Fox contributor, Ari Fleischer, said. “Argue and defeat them. Don’t ban them. Or one day they’ll ban us.”
- Credits: The New York Times
- Authors: Michael M. Grynbaum, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Benjamin Mullin
- Photo: Andrew Leyden
