CNN, MS NOW and Politico Sued Trump Over the White House Ban

The three outlets asked a federal judge in Washington to restore their reporters' credentials immediately, before the case is argued.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued the Trump administration on Monday over the White House credentials their reporters lost over the weekend. The three news organizations filed jointly in U.S. federal court in Washington, D.C., and asked for a temporary restraining order that would restore access while the case is heard, the Los Angeles Times reported.

CNN was down to supply Monday's pool video of the president's trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

That's the feed every other outlet takes and rebroadcasts. The assignment wasn't on the press schedule the White House put out Sunday, the Times reported.

The suit alleges the ban is retaliation for coverage the president didn't like. That punishes protected newsgathering and violates the First Amendment, the complaint claims, and it shuts reporters out of a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons.

The outlets lean on Sherrill v. Knight, a 1977 ruling that the White House can't pull a reporter's pass arbitrarily or as payback for viewpoint.

Trump announced the ban Friday in a Truth Social post that called the three outlets fake news. He didn't cite any particular story. He said instead that they'd long been unfair to him and never gave him positive coverage.

Asked Friday how the ban would survive a court challenge, he said: “I don't think a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day.” Those remarks are likely to be used against him in the case, the Times reported.

The outlets said in a joint statement that the credentials were pulled without notice or due process because the White House objected to their reporting. “The government does not decide what the press reports and publishes,” the statement said.

Reporters from the three newsrooms were stopped at the White House grounds on Saturday and told their passes had been revoked, the Times reported. Secret Service officers collected some of the badges.

This is the third fight of its kind in eight years. In 2018 the White House moved to bar Jim Acosta, then a CNN correspondent, and a court ordered his credential reinstated.

Last year it barred the Associated Press after the wire declined to adopt the president's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. A federal judge ordered the wire's access restored, holding that the government can't punish an outlet over the content of its speech. A divided appeals panel later paused that order as to the Oval Office, Air Force One and other restricted spaces while the case proceeds.

The pressure hasn't stayed inside the briefing room. Trump has called on the Federal Communications Commission to pull broadcast licenses, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has sought a review of ABC's licenses. The Walt Disney Co. network is fighting that review in court.

The Department of Defense, meanwhile, tried to narrow journalists' access to the Pentagon. Three journalists at the military paper Stars and Stripes were fired for insubordination after appearing in a CBS News report about those restrictions, the Times reported.

What a judge takes up first is the restraining order: whether the three newsrooms' reporters get back through the gates while the constitutional question waits its turn.

Source: latimes.com, retrieved September 21, 2026.