Trump says CNN, MS NOW, Politico banned from White House

President Trump said Friday he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, a move sure to draw fierce pushback from D.C.’s press corps.

Trump said in a Truth Social post the ban would be “effective immediately” for those outlets, “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” He suggested more outlets would be banned in the future.

He called CNN “fake news” and targeted MS NOW, saying the outlet changed its name over “lack of viewership and credibility.”

He also railed against the $8 million the government pays for Politico Pro subscriptions, calling it “illegal and ridiculous.”

“An All Time Record, directly from the United States Government, under Crooked Joe Biden, in order to keep them ‘alive,’ Seems like corruption to me!),” he wrote.

The Hill reached out to all three outlets for comment.

Trump said there was no particular reason for the timing of the ban, when asked about it in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon.

“It’s really just cumulative stories over the last two years. You get sick of it,” he told reporters during an event focused on health care.

Trump said more outlets could be banned in the future.

Asked if the move was likely to survive a legal challenge, Trump said it depends on the judge handling the case.

“I don’t think that a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day. I think that somebody has a right to keep them away if they’re going to write false stories all the time,” he said.

The president has long criticized CNN over its coverage of him and spoken openly about his desire to see the network’s parent company sell the cable channel to ally media mogul Larry Ellison.

He has sued the network in the past and specifically targeted Kaitlan Collins, one of the network’s top journalists, over her questioning of him in the Oval Office.

Trump also has a history of attacking conservative media outlets he feels are not sufficiently loyal to him.

He sued the Wall Street Journal last year over its reporting on his alleged ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and regularly blasts polls and political commentary on Fox News, also owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

It was unclear on Friday what Trump’s “ban” on the three outlets would look like in practice, but such an attempt is likely to spark pushback from press freedom groups and potential legal challenges.

The Associated Press sued the administration after the president attempted to ban the wire service from certain White House spaces over its refusal to change its stylebook on “Gulf of America.”

Trump’s statement was criticized by the Knight Foundation First Amendment Institute.

“With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now,” said Jameel Jaffer, the group’s executive director. “If President Trump means to expel these news organizations from the White House press pool, his action is doubly unconstitutional because the press pool is a ‘public forum’ under the First Amendment, which means the president can’t exclude journalists from it on the basis of their viewpoints.”