America’s biggest television networks have mounted an unusually public show of defiance against President Donald Trump, effectively refusing to cover him after the White House barred three prominent news outlets.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico have also taken the fight to court following Mr Trump’s order on Friday that they be shut out.
In a rare coordinated step, the five largest US broadcasters said they would stop “pool” coverage of the White House — the rotating arrangement in which one network films on behalf of all TV outlets for the day — in a gesture of solidarity with CNN.
CNN had been slated to serve as today’s White House TV pool.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organisation because it objects to its reporting,” ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox and NBC said in a statement.
The decision means there will be no television coverage of Mr Trump’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he was expected to meet a series of foreign leaders.
US President Donald Trump has filed a number of lawsuits against news organisations
In their lawsuit, CNN, MS NOW are asking a court to immediately overturn the ban and to declare it a violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects free speech.
“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 organisations said in a court filing.
Mr Trump showed no sign of retreat, describing the media as a “cancer” and a risk to national security.
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
“It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.”
Vice President JD Vance — once a CNN commentator before entering politics — accused the outlets of pushing “left-wing propaganda”.
“They can still report. They still have the access to free speech. They’re just not going to get an office in the White House anymore,” he told reporters.
Press passes confiscated
Mr Trump’s abrupt ban announcement on Friday jolted the press corps — and reportedly caught many inside his own administration off guard.
On Saturday, journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were turned away from the White House grounds and had their passes confiscated.
Journalists work on a street corner near the White House in Washington, DC
The outlets said the White House pulled their journalists’ credentials “without notice or process” because it “objected to our reporting”.
“Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” they said in their joint statement.
Mr Trump has not spelled out precisely what triggered the crackdown, but he told an AFP reporter in the Oval Office on Friday that it was “really just cumulative stories over the last two years.”
“They want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration,” Trump added.
He also warned on Friday that other outlets could be targeted in the same way, without naming which organisations might be next.
CNN reported that Mr Trump’s close aide Natalie Harp had recently shown him clips of media coverage — including a graphic from Politico — before he announced the ban.
Mr Trump has for years attacked news organisations that air coverage critical of his campaigns and administrations, repeatedly labelling the press the “enemy of the people.”
White House launces ‘Trump TV’ on YouTube
The White House launched a “Trump TV” stream last night.
The White House said the stream will run videos and highlights of what it calls the Trump administration’s achievements but a press freedom advocate said it amounted to “a steady diet of government propaganda.”
A 60-second trailer displayed the Republican leader’s 2024 presidential win and the first video streamed after the platform went live was Trump’s remarks on 3 July at Mount Rushmore.
The stream had only about 8,000 live views 15 minutes after it was launched on YouTube.
“This just makes it even clearer that the real goal here is to ensure that the American public is fed a steady diet of government propaganda,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said.
