Helen Thomas’s empty chair is seen in the front row(C) of the briefing room at the White House in Washington, DC on June 7, 2010. Thomas retired on Monday after coming under fire for controversial remarks about Israel. The retirement of the 89-year-old Thomas, the longest-serving reporter in the White House press corps, was announced by Hearst Corp., where she worked as a newspaper columnist. “Helen Thomas announced Monday that she is retiring, effective immediately,” Hearst News Service said. AFP PHOTO/YURI GRIPAS (Photo credit should read YURI GRIPAS/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued the Trump administration Monday over their exclusion from the White House, as the five major television networks separately suspended their participation in the presidential TV pool after the White House prevented CNN from carrying out its scheduled pool duties.
The lawsuit, filed by the three news organizations, seeks to restore access for their reporters after the administration barred them from the White House and their press credentials were confiscated over the weekend. The outlets argue that the restrictions violate the First Amendment and improperly discriminate against them based on their reporting.
The legal action came as ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC News issued a joint statement defending the importance of independent news coverage and saying that administrations should not restrict news organizations because of objections to their reporting.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” the networks said. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
The networks then took the unusual step of suspending coverage through the presidential television pool. Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, who is serving as chair of the pool, told subscribers Monday that the pool would not cover events designated for presidential pool coverage and that no replacement pool would be established.
“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties,” Boughton wrote.
The decision means that, at least for the time being, there will be no television network serving as the primary provider of pooled footage of President Donald Trump’s activities. CNN had been scheduled to serve as the pool’s primary television network beginning Monday.
The television pool is designed to provide coverage when logistical constraints make it impractical for every news organization to send its own crew. The five major networks rotate responsibility for supplying video and audio from presidential events, including appearances in the Oval Office and presidential travel. That footage is then distributed to other broadcasters and news organizations.
CNN’s scheduled pool assignment coincides with Trump’s trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, potentially limiting the availability of pooled television footage from presidential events there. Other television crews may still cover Trump independently, but those operations are not subject to the same obligation to distribute their footage throughout the broader press corps.
The White House had listed Hearst Television and the pro-Trump Real America’s Voice as secondary television crews rather than naming a replacement for CNN in the primary pool. It was not immediately clear how broadly footage from those crews would be distributed.
The administration’s decision to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico followed Trump’s announcement Friday that the three organizations would no longer be permitted to cover the White House. Trump accused the outlets of publishing what he described as “FAKE NEWS” and suggested that other news organizations could eventually face similar restrictions.
The restrictions were enforced Saturday, when reporters from the three organizations were denied entry to the White House and had their credentials disabled or confiscated.
In a Truth Social post Monday, Trump said he was targeting what he called an “assault” by the “FAKE NEWS” media, describing unfavorable coverage as a threat to the country. The White House referred questions about the ban to Trump’s post.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking to reporters Monday, characterized the dispute as a question of access rather than press freedom, saying the organizations remained free to report but would no longer receive the same access to the White House.
The lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee who previously handled litigation involving former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s White House press access. The case adds to a series of legal disputes between the Trump administration and news organizations over access and press credentials.
The three outlets’ attorneys argue that the administration cannot selectively deny access to journalists because officials object to their coverage. First Amendment attorney Ted Boutrous, who represents the news organizations, said the ban was intended to punish reporting the administration dislikes and intimidate news organizations covering the president.
The television networks’ decision to suspend presidential pool coverage recalls an earlier instance in which the five-network pool acted collectively. In 2009, the networks refused to participate in interviews with Treasury officials unless Fox News was included after the Obama administration sought to exclude the network from a series of interviews involving the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
That dispute was resolved after the administration allowed Fox News to participate.
The current dispute, however, comes at a moment when the president’s access to television coverage is particularly consequential. The presidential pool has long provided a shared visual record of White House activity, allowing broadcasters across the country and around the world to show the president’s public appearances without maintaining their own crews at every event.
For now, the five networks have indicated that they will continue other forms of White House coverage while withholding their participation in the presidential television pool. The White House ban and the resulting dispute over pool coverage are now headed simultaneously toward the courts and a potentially consequential test of how the administration and the news organizations will handle presidential press access going forward.
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