CNN, MS NOW and Politico will sue the Trump administration Monday to restore their White House access after reporters for all three outlets were turned away from the property over the weekend.
“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the outlets said in a joint statement.
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement went on. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
President Trump announced Friday afternoon that all three outlets were barred “effective immediately” for allegedly reporting “Fake News.”
During a subsequent Oval Office event, the president claimed his edict was the result of “cumulative stories over the last two years” rather than any single story, adding: “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.”
On Saturday, Akayla Gardner of MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), CNN reporter Betsy Klein and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett were refused entry to the White House grounds by the Secret Service, which also confiscated their press passes.
As a result, reporters and producers from all three organizations are prevented from accessing their workspace adjacent to the White House briefing room. CNN and MS NOW also cannot use their equipment and broadcast position on the North Lawn, while the former was also removed from television pool duty for 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.
“The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference. That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask,” White House Correspondents’ Association President Jacqui Heinrich, a Fox News reporter, said in a statement Friday. “This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office.
“The WHCA stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MSNOW, and Politico who are being singled out for doing their jobs.”
Friday’s announcement was Trump’s most aggressive move against the press so far in his second term after the Associated Press was removed last year from pooled access after the wire service refused to go along with his rebrand of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
The AP sued and was later allowed into the daily print pool rotation, made up of more than 30 outlets, but its previous access to all presidential events has yet to be restored. That legal fight is ongoing.
Additional reporting by Steven Nelson
