CNN, MS NOW, and Politico sued President Donald Trump on Monday after the administration barred their journalists from the White House, setting up one of the largest legal confrontations between the press and the executive branch in recent memory.
The three outlets filed a joint lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking a temporary restraining order that would immediately lift the ban and restore their reporters’ hard pass credentials while the case proceeds. The suit names Trump, his assistant for communications Steven Cheung, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, and Sean Curran as defendants. According to CNBC, the named plaintiffs include three White House reporters: Akayla Gardner of MS NOW, Betsy Klein of CNN, and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett. All three were denied entry on Saturday and had their badges disabled and taken.
Trump announced the ban Friday on Truth Social. He accused the outlets of writing fiction and lies. He gave no specific examples. When asked by reporters at the White House what prompted the move, Trump cited what he called cumulative stories over the last two years. “You get sick of it,” he said. He also warned that other outlets could follow, naming the New York Times and the Washington Post as “fake news.”
Outlets cite constitutional violations
The lawsuit argues that the ban violates the First Amendment by retaliating against protected newsgathering and speech, and that it violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause by stripping credentials without notice, warning, or any opportunity to challenge the decision. “This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the complaint says. The lead attorney for the outlets, Theodore J. Boutrous of Gibson Dunn, said in a statement that the president has been explicit about his intent to punish reporting he dislikes and intimidate news organizations covering his administration.
In their joint statement Monday, the three organizations said they were pursuing legal action to protect their 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 said. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
Trump responded on Truth Social shortly after the lawsuit was announced, writing that the White House was not instituting an assault on the free press, “something which I cherish,” but on what he called “FAKE NEWS,” which he described as corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. He called it a threat to national security that must be stopped. He had not previously cited national security in justifying the ban, and gave no examples to support the claim. The White House pointed NPR to the Truth Social post when asked for comment.
Case law heavily favors the plaintiffs. Courts have held that once journalists are admitted, they cannot be prevented from returning simply because an administration dislikes their coverage, a practice known as viewpoint discrimination. Trump lost similar legal challenges during his first term, including the revocation of credentials for Jim Acosta, then a CNN correspondent, and Brian Karem, then of Playboy magazine. Boutrous told NPR that legal precedents overwhelmingly support the outlets’ case, citing a ruling he secured as attorney for NPR and three Colorado public radio stations in which a federal judge found a White House executive order barring federal funds to public media outlets was unconstitutional.
Pool coverage collapses
The ban’s immediate effects rippled through the White House press pool, the system by which a small group of networks shares coverage of presidential events with the broader press corps. CNN, one of five networks in the White House video pool alongside ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, was scheduled to provide pool coverage of Trump’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday. The White House removed CNN from the rotation Sunday night. No other network stepped in. Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton said in a memo obtained by NPR that the TV pool would not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the president, and that there would be no replacement pool put in place. The staunchly conservative outlet Real America’s Voice was listed as a secondary crew on the trip, according to the BBC.
The White House Correspondents’ Association called on the administration to immediately restore the three outlets’ access. WHCA president Jacqui Heinrich said in a statement on X that a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future. NPR’s editor in chief, Tommy Evans, condemned the ban without qualification, saying the American public has a right to know what its government is doing, not only the coverage a president finds flattering.
The Guardian reports that the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University said it would support the outlets in court. “We’re glad to see that these news organizations are suing,” Jameel Jaffer, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “The president’s decision to bar them from the White House for the content of their reporting is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. It’s an attack both on press freedom and the public’s right to independent information about the government.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, asked about the ban on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said he did not know much about it but suggested it was justified, saying legacy media is unpopular with the public because of perceived bias. When asked about a possible off-ramp, Bessent said, “Maybe it’s a change in coverage at the White House.” According to CNBC, Trump told reporters Friday that the ban was worth implementing even if a judge overturns it. “I think it’s good to point it out, whether it survives or doesn’t,” he said. The case is being filed in the same court where the Associated Press has a pending lawsuit over the White House’s decision to bar its journalists from restricted spaces after the wire service refused to adopt Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The administration has also filed lawsuits against several outlets, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC, some of which have resulted in multimillion-dollar settlements.