Trump move to ban news outlets blows up at White House

President Trump’s abrupt move to withdraw White House press credentials for three news organizations triggered a rare moment of unity among television networks, with several media outlets announcing Monday they would not cover the president’s daily activities while the ban on the trio remains in place.

Both Trump and the White House have shown no signs of backing down on the president’s decision to keep CNN, MS NOW and Politico out of the White House. The trio on Monday sued to have their access reinstated on First Amendment grounds.

Most media and legal observers say the news organizations are likely to succeed in court this week, and their journalists will soon be back on White House grounds.

The episode is perhaps the sharpest and biggest fight yet between the press and Trump, whose battles with the media have been a long-running feature of both of his presidential terms.

The decision to block Politico, MS NOW and CNN from the White House drew criticism not only from the media and Democrats, but from Trump supporters who back the president’s view that the press is biased but disagree with blocking their access.

“I don’t disagree with the president’s concern about some of these outlets, I just think there’s more effective ways to do this,” Sean Spicer, Trump’s first-ever press secretary, told The Hill on Monday.

“And the other thing is the timing of this. On Friday he was having an amazing announcement on prescription drugs that gets to the affordability issue head on, and this obviously just stepped all over that,” Spicer said.

Trump’s Friday Truth Social post banning the media groups “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” caught White House staffers by surprise.

It came with Susie Wiles, the White House’s chief of staff, reportedly not in the West Wing and after top aide Natalie Harp had been showing the president critical news clips and stories from the three outlets he targeted.

The White House Correspondents’ Association and several press freedom groups condemned the move, as did top reporters and anchors at media outlets typically more friendly to the administration.

“I just don’t think this is something we do in this country,” right-leaning CNBC host Joe Kernen said while pressing Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent over the president’s ban. “You can’t control the press. The press is going to press, the media is going to media.”

Fox News pundit Brit Hume cast doubt on the president’s political calculus, writing on social media that “if he thinks this will lead to more favorable coverage, I think he’s dreaming.”

In an unprecedented move Monday morning, the current chair of the White House TV pool — a group of networks that rotates duties traveling with the president and covering his daily activities — said the pool would not be covering the president during the ban.

The networks — including Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and CNN — hours later issued a statement pushing back more forcefully on Trump’s decision saying, “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government.”

“No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” the outlets said in a firm showing of solidarity.

The back and forth is leading to a standoff that is widely seen by political observers as an attempt by the president to distract from other issues such as the Iran war and the economy, which have both been drags on his approval ratings ahead of the midterms.

Republicans are in danger of losing their House and Senate majorities in the fall elections, which would provide Democrats with oversight powers to use on Trump.

It is also happening as Trump lacks a press secretary following Karoline Leavitt’s resignation from her post over the summer to spend more time with her family.

“To me this really gets to the fact he doesn’t have a press secretary and so he’s just unliterally doing this to media outlets he doesn’t like. He needs to hire somebody for that job like yesterday,” said one national Republican strategist. “Eventually, he’s going to have to let those networks back in because the courts won’t allow this.”

In their lawsuit filed on Monday, the three outlets argued the ban “could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.”

A hearing in the case, seeking a temporary injunction allowing the outlets back on White House grounds, is slated for Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s a pretty damn strong lawsuit. My bigger concern is whether the White House will abide by any ruling. A court can say whatever it wants but are journalists going to push past Secret Service to film at the White House?” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Trump in a Truth Social post Monday insisted he is “not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” saying he is instead overseeing “an assault on the FAKE NEWS” which he called a “threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

A White House official echoed that sentiment, telling The Hill: “Fake News has no place demanding a spot in the President’s Oval Office.”

“The lies they smear are a disservice to the American public and tear at the very fabric of our Democracy,” the official said. “They’re completely capable of reporting from directly outside.”

The ban has led to a tenser-than-usual feeling at the White House among reporters and press staff, those there say.

“Everybody hopes this is over very soon, and there are signs that there might actually be a rapid resolution here,” one White House reporter told The Hill. “I can definitely say there is a fear here that such an attempt to toss all of them out together like he did gives license to lesser forms of discrimination in the future, both under Trump and future administrations.”

The short-term consequences of Trump’s decision to ban the three outlets — and the ensuing coverage boycott by the TV networks — were apparent on Monday.

As the president spoke at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the South Lawn helipad, he was completely inaudible because a pool microphone was not there to capture his statements.

“So maybe this is one example of it backfiring just a little bit,” Newsmax anchor Bianca de la Garza said as the right-leaning cable channel attempted to cover the event.

“Obviously the ramifications are right here … you can’t hear the president.”