Trump getting sued after banning MS NOW, Politico, CNN from White House

President Trump is catching a ton of heat over his Truth Social post Friday announcing that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House .

He wrote: “I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW and Politico …. from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS! Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States.” He continued, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”

No president, nor any government official, should be using access as a consequence for coverage it doesn’t like.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump has told associates he believes he doesn’t have enough political allies defending him on television. The report says the ban came just hours after executive aide Natalie Harp showed him a clip of MS NOW criticizing his administration.

Then, on Saturday, journalists from the three organizations were actually turned away from the White House. Reporters said their credentials had been deactivated, then confiscated.

And listen to how President Trump explained it : “There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories. 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.”

That’s the thing. It is not the president’s house at all, it belongs to federal government on behalf of the public.

The First Amendment protects the press from government retaliation based on viewpoint. Period. Legal experts told The New York Times the ban is “textbook viewpoint discrimination,” particularly because Trump explicitly tied the restrictions to the outlets’ reporting.

Not to mention, the president has tried this tired playbook before.

During Trump’s first term, CNN reporter Jim Acosta lost his White House credentials and the administration ultimately restored them after a court challenge . More recently, in 2025, the Trump administration restricted Associated Press access after the organization refused to use the administration’s preferred term “Gulf of America.”

This is part of a broader, documented pattern of conflict between this administration and news organizations over access, reporting and editorial independence.

If a news organization gets something wrong, challenge it. Correct the record. Make the case publicly. But government access to the president should not become a reward for favorable coverage. The job of the White House press corps isn’t to make the president look good. It is to report what the president says and does. Ultimately, Americans can decide for themselves what they believe about this administration by having access to the reporting, the facts and the competing arguments made.

Shutting the reporters out won’t change the fact that the president’s approval rating has hit a second-term low or that 55 percent of voters say they think his policies have hurt the economy . All of these tactics — the over-the-top midterm convention, the consistent attacks on the press — it’s all a distraction from the fact that halfway through his second term, the president has not fulfilled his promises to the American people, and many Americans feel worse off today than they did before he took office.

Lindsey Granger is a NewsNation contributor and co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising.” This column is an edited transcription of her on-air commentary.