NEW YORK — CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday sued President Donald Trump’s administration after they were barred from covering the White House over the weekend, saying the selective ban was “a blatant violation” of the First Amendment.
The administration's announcement of the bans Friday and the White House's subsequent actions over the weekend represented a clear escalation of Trump's long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage he finds objectionable or, in his words, "fake news." They were also the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States, where the government is constitutionally forbidden from restricting the press.
The Constitution, the banned news outlets said in their lawsuit, “does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting.”
The three outlets filed the joint lawsuit two days after their reporters were blocked from the White House and prevented from doing their jobs. The reporters' entry badges were disabled on Saturday, a day after Trump had suddenly announced he was barring the outlets because of reporting he found to be “fake news.”
On Monday morning, the banned TV networks were reporting from an intersection just outside the White House complex. Also Monday, CNN was removed from its pool duties, which are shared by the major networks. It had been scheduled to cover the president's trip to New York. In an email, the TV pool, which consists of the five major networks, wrote that there would be no replacement coverage following the White House actions.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. But on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote Monday morning that he “cherished” what he called a free press.
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” the president said in his post. “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”
Trump has been more aggressive toward the media in his second term
In his second term, Trump and his Republican administration have upped the ante and punished certain media outlets. Trump has also lashed out at individual reporters in person or over social media, sometimes in strikingly personal terms — insulting them in briefings or in his recent speech at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
“This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,” the outlets said in a joint statement posted early Monday on X.
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists' credentials because it objected to our reporting," they said. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public's right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
In the joint complaint, the outlets said: “This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.”
They say they're being banned from doing their jobs at the White House “for one simple reason: (Trump) dislikes the content of the coverage of him and his administration.”
“President Trump has said in no uncertain terms that he would prefer only to be covered by news organizations and reporters who praise his administration," says the complaint, filed in the name of the three outlets and three correspondents who were denied access Saturday.
It went on: “But the Constitution does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting.”
In legal terms, that's known as "viewpoint discrimination" — the government singling out specific media outlets for the content of what they say or publish. That legal principle is at issue in many of the court cases around Trump's treatment of the media and would likely be at play this time.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump nominated during his first term in the White House.
Reporters were barred Saturday
On Saturday, White House reporters from the two cable networks — Betsy Klein of CNN and Akayla Gardner of MS NOW — went live to report they’d been turned away, their press badges deactivated, when arriving for their jobs at the White House. Soon after, Politico said its White House reporter Cheyenne Haslett was also denied entry and had her badge confiscated.
All three organizations that were banned covered the White House's actions extensively during the weekend.
The WHCA’s president, Jacqui Heinrich, called on the Trump administration to immediately restore the three outlets’ access.
“The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future,” Heinrich said. “The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.”
The move follows the president's decision last year to bar AP reporters from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other events in retaliation for the news outlet's decision not to follow his lead in changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, which lies partially in Mexican and other waters. The AP said it would note when appropriate that Trump had ordered it renamed the "Gulf of America."
The AP filed suit and the case is ongoing. Since returning to office, Trump has pursued other legal action against a variety of different outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC. His administration is also involved in a long-simmering confrontation involving ABC over renewal of its broadcast licenses.
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Associated Press reporter Michael Kunzelman contributed to this story.