Five networks refuse to distribute footage of Trump’s events after CNN, MS NOW and Politico reporters booted from WH grounds — craft rewrite

Voice: Devine 101 (craft) Original: Five networks refuse to distribute footage of Trump’s events after CNN, MS NOW and Politico reporters booted from WH grounds

Monday was CNN’s turn to staff the television pool. The five networks that move footage of presidential events to the rest of the press—CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News—said the service was suspended until further notice.

Bryan Boughton, senior vice president of Fox News’s Washington bureau and the current TV pool chair, wrote the White House press corps: “Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President.” He said the decision followed the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. “There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

That turn would have supplied video of President Trump’s trip to New York for meetings with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. Print, radio and wire journalists, and still photographers, will still cover the travel. The White House also has an in-house camera that follows the president and posts footage on social media.

The halt came after a weekend in which the Secret Service refused entry to CNN’s Betsy Klein, MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner—MS NOW formerly MSNBC—and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett, and confiscated their press passes. Klein was pictured on the sidewalk outside the White House with an empty credential holder. Gardner reported from 17th and Pennsylvania Avenue. Reporters and producers from all three organizations cannot reach their workspace beside the briefing room. CNN and MS NOW cannot use their equipment and broadcast position on the North Lawn.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued Monday to restore access, naming Trump, White House communications director Steven Cheung, Secret Service Director Sean Curran and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. The 27-page filing said Friday’s announcement that the outlets were barred from the executive mansion “could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.” It said the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests news organizations and White House reporters have in their credentials, and that no official can take those interests “on a whim—with no notice, no process, and no warning.”

In a joint statement the outlets said they had notified the government they were filing “to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.” “Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement continued. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”

At an Oval Office event Friday, Trump said the edict followed “cumulative stories over the last two years,” not any single report. “You get sick of it.” “I don’t want them in my office. I don’t want them here.” “I would say the ban would go as far as you can, and if they could straighten themselves out, I’d love it.”

After the lawsuit was announced, he posted on Truth Social that the White House “is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” but “an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which “has grown like Cancer,” is “corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control,” and “is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that he decided to announce the ban after his executive assistant, Natalie Harp, showed him a montage of MS NOW anchors critiquing the administration.

The same Monday, first lady Melania Trump’s office approved Klein’s credential request to cover an event featuring the president’s wife on the UNGA sidelines.

Friday’s announcement was his most aggressive move against the press so far in the second term, after the Associated Press was removed last year from pooled access for refusing to adopt his rebrand of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” The AP sued and was later allowed into the daily print pool, more than 30 outlets, but its previous access to all presidential events has not been restored. That fight is ongoing.

— Desk