Topline
MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, and CNN on Saturday morning said its journalists were denied access to the White House grounds after President Donald Trump said he would ban reporters from the news outlet, CNN and Politico “effective immediately.”
President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on August 27 in Washington, DC.
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Key Facts
MS NOW White House correspondent Akayla Garnder said her White House badge didn’t work when she arrived Saturday morning and she was asked to hand it over to security, and an MS NOW photographer was also reportedly denied entry and had their badge taken.
CNN later said its reporters were also denied entry and called it an “illegal assault” on its “fundamental right” to a free press.
Trump said on Truth Social on Friday that journalists from the three outlets would be banned “effective immediately,” claiming the move was “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”
The president suggested more news outlet bans will soon “follow,” writing, “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”
Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office shortly after announcing the ban and said the move was the result of “cumulative stories over the last few years.”
Trump’s announcement Friday comes after the administration previously barred Associated Press journalists from the White House for not adopting Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”
The president has also targeted outlets’ access in more limited ways, such as barring a Wall Street Journal reporter from traveling on Air Force One after the publication reported on Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump’s post immediately came under widespread criticism Friday for allegedly violating the First Amendment, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of a speaker’s viewpoint and beliefs, with Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, calling Trump’s ban “flatly unconstitutional.”
Crucial Quote
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Friday that his decision to ban the outlets was “cumulative” and not based on any one story, justifying the decision by saying, “You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news.” The president also said he wanted “honesty” from the media and told reporters the U.S. “need[s] a fair press.”
Chief Critic
CNN responded to Trump’s ban in a statement Friday, saying it stands behind its reporters’ “fair and accurate reporting” and the outlet has “a right to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government.” Should the ban take effect and reporters be forced to leave the White House, CNN said, “it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”
What to Watch for
Trump’s ban is all but certain to be challenged in court as a violation of the First Amendment. The AP is still litigating its ban from the White House, which it argued in court was impermissible discrimination based on the publication’s viewpoint. A federal judge sided with the AP and ordered the White House to give its journalists access while the litigation moves forward, but a federal appeals court then largely reinstated the ban, ruling journalists must be allowed in larger White House spaces but can be barred from more “restricted presidential spaces” like the Oval Office. “The White House … retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted” to those areas, Judge Neomi Rao wrote for the court.
Big Number
44%. That’s the share of U.S. adults who believe the press has become “less free” during the second Trump administration, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in June, while 26% say there’s been no change and only 12% think the press has become more free. Responses were sharply divided along party lines, with only 15% of Republicans believing press freedoms had decreased versus 72% of Democrats.”
Key Background
Trump has long attacked the press, railing against the “fake news” since his first term and increasingly taking actions against publications who publish reporting that’s unflattering to the president. In addition to targeting reporters’ White House access, the president has also sought to defund NPR and PBS and sued numerous publications for alleged defamation, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC News, the BBC and CBS News. Some of those lawsuits remain pending, while others have been controversially resolved through media companies paying eight-figure settlements to the president. Other executive branch agencies have also pursued attacks on the media in line with Trump’s rhetoric, with the Federal Communications Commission targeting ABC’s broadcasting licenses, a move the broadcaster has decried as a “retaliatory campaign,” and the Pentagon banning journalists from its press office, sharply breaking from longstanding practices at the Department of Defense.
Further Reading
ABC Sues Trump Administration Over Alleged ‘Retaliatory Campaign’ (Forbes)
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