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White House turns away reporters from three outlets after Trump announces a ban
September 20, 2026
On Saturday morning, reporters from three news organizations were turned away at the White House, a day after Trump announced the ban on Truth Social.
Trump has fought for years with the news media he calls fake news, and earlier in his term the White House pulled a wire service's access to the Oval Office and Air Force One over the name Gulf of America.
Key facts
- Friday’s action feels unlike February 2025, when the administration ended its POLITICO Pro policy news subscriptions after inaccurately saying that the Biden administration had funded the publication.
- Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday that he was barring CNN, MSNOW and POLITICO, saying they report “LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States,” and adding that he expected “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”
- Trump discussed the bans from the Oval Office on Friday and attributed the new approach to coverage that had built up in recent years, and a White House spokesperson directed NBC News to those remarks.
- Former President Barack Obama said during a Friday appearance at Colgate University: “I’m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, ‘You know what? Fox News, you’re out of here.’ It’s unimaginable.”
Trump announced the ban on Truth Social on Friday, and NBC News reports that the restrictions reached the gates on Saturday morning, when reporters from the three named organizations were turned away. In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump tied the new policy to years of coverage he objects to, and NBC News reports that a White House spokesperson pointed reporters to those spoken comments. Politico reports that Trump pointed on Friday to two more papers, The Washington Post and The New York Times, as outlets that could be added, and NBC News reports he warned other outlets would follow without saying which.
A senior White House official defended the move to NBC News, saying, "Nobody close to the President was surprised at his action to hold the fake news accountable." NBC News also reports that Trump called the money Politico received from the government "a illegal and ridiculous $8 Million Dollar subscription, an All Time Record, directly from the United States Government." Jameel Jaffer told NBC News the move was "pretty clearly unconstitutional" and predicted that a challenge in court would succeed. He directs Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute. The New York Times reports that news organizations closed ranks behind the three that lost access, and it carries the view of one of its own contributors, Jonathan Turley, who said: "I have often joined in the criticism over the bias of these outlets, but barring disfavored media from the White House is a terrible precedent and practice." Politico reports that Trump had tried to move the press out of the building before and was talked down, and that the administration canceled policy subscriptions in February 2025.
The announcement on Friday, the denials of entry on Saturday and the warning to other outlets appear in every account of the event. Two points sit apart from that agreement. One account presents the morning as an escalation heading for a constitutional and legal clash, and another account carries the same denials without that framing. On the access given to a network's photographer and one of its producers, one account has the photographer kept out while a producer reached the grounds, and another account does not carry it that way. Which other outlets face the same action is not on the record.
Trump said that Politico had been handed “a illegal and ridiculous $8 Million Dollar subscription, an All Time Record, directly from the United States Government.”
Trump
Still developing
The White House access for a network's photographer and one of its producers is held differently from one account to the next.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- NBC News — White House faces mounting legal backlash after barring journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico
- The New York Times — Trump Administration Updates: CNN, Politico and MS NOW Reporters Barred From White House - The New York Times
- Politico — Inside the White House media ban - POLITICO
Toggle read the full reports of all 4 outlets counted on this event.