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Trump bars reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico from entering White House grounds
September 19, 2026
Trump announced on Friday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico are barred from the White House, and press freedom groups said the courts will void the move.
The White House press pool is a rotation in which one outlet or reporter shares material from a presidential event with other media, and access to it has been restricted before during Trump's second term.
Key facts
- Two more Trump appointees, Judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, shaped a 2-1 appeals panel vote that undid most of what McFadden had ordered.
- Two judges on the three-member appeals panel, also Trump appointees, overturned that ruling by a 2-1 vote.
- The move widened a pattern of Trump limiting which reporters may cover him, and it puts First Amendment guarantees in the United States under fresh examination.
- The Knight First Amendment Institute, based at Columbia University, said on Friday afternoon that "with so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you'd think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now".
- Pressed on which other organizations he had in mind, Trump replied: "Others to come in terms of fake news? Well, you know, the New York Times is fake news, the Washington Post is fake news."
AP News reports that Trump used his social media site on Friday to declare the ban effective at once, covering CNN, MS NOW and Politico, and that minutes later, in the Oval Office, he was asked to explain himself. BBC reports he accused the three of writing or broadcasting fiction and lies while offering no examples, and that he named no other outlets when he said more could join them. USA Today reports he pointed to no single incident behind the move, said it leaves the three free to keep reporting on him, and told a reporter who asked whether he was trying to intimidate the press, "I dislike dishonest press, like you." Axios carries the same account of the announcement.
The response gathered fast. BBC reports CNN called it an illegal assault on the freedom of the American press and rested its case on a constitutional right to report free of government interference, that the Reporters Committee expected judges to void the ban quickly as plainly unconstitutional, and that Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute pointed to courts that have already ruled against Trump on this question. USA Today reports the National Press Club's president, Mark Schoeff Jr, said blocking access weakens one of the country's strongest checks on power. The accounts split on MS NOW, since one carries a network statement standing behind its journalists and promising every step needed to defend its First Amendment rights, while another has its representatives declining to comment.
USA Today supplies the precedent the legal fight runs through, reporting that a judge Trump himself appointed temporarily blocked the earlier action against AP News, and that an appeals panel including Neomi Rao and Gregory G. Katsas, both Trump appointees, largely reversed that order 2-1. Al Jazeera frames its coverage around whether a president holds the power to shut out outlets he dislikes at all. The announcement, the three outlets it names and the constitutional objections lodged within hours are corroborated. How the ban works day to day, and what a court makes of it, is unresolved.
He said what Politico wrote was fake, and he added, “So there’s a lot of news and there may be others to join them, and maybe they can get better.”
Privacy Policy
Still developing
MS NOW said access to the White House grounds was denied to its journalists, and Trump did not name a specific incident behind the ban.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- AP News — MS NOW says its journalists were denied access to the White House grounds - AP News
- BBC — Trump says he is banning CNN and Politico from White House - BBC
- USA Today — Is Trump's latest White House media ban legal? It could get complicated - USA Today
- Axios — Trump bans CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House
- aljazeera.com — Can Trump ban CNN, news outlets he doesn’t like from the White House? - aljazeera.com
Toggle read the full reports of 4 of the 5 outlets counted on this event. The other 1 are counted from their headlines and opening sentences.