4 minNews
CNN, MS NOW and Politico Sue Trump Administration Over White House Access
The three news organizations notified the government Monday that they are filing a lawsuit after their White House press credentials were revoked without notice, escalating a First Amendment fight over government control of press access.
Three major news organizations are taking the Trump administration to court over the revocation of their White House press credentials, setting up a direct First Amendment confrontation over whether the government can bar journalists because it objects to their reporting.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico said Monday they had notified the administration that they were filing a lawsuit to restore access for their reporters, whose entry badges were deactivated over the weekend. The three outlets announced the move in a joint statement, two days after their White House correspondents were blocked from entering the building and prevented from doing their jobs.
The dispute began Friday, when President Donald Trump abruptly declared he was barring the three outlets because of coverage he described as «fake news.» By Saturday, the badges of the affected reporters had stopped working. CNN's Betsy Klein and Akayla Gardner of MS NOW went live from the White House grounds to report that they had been turned away when they arrived for their shifts. Politico said its White House reporter, Cheyenne Haslett, was also denied entry and had her badge confiscated.
In their joint statement, the outlets framed the lawsuit as a defense of constitutional protections that extend beyond their own newsrooms. «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 statement said. «Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists' credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public's right to independent journalism free from government interference.»
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Monday.
The credential revocations mark a sharp escalation of Trump's long-running efforts — pursued both in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict coverage by journalists he considers objectionable. In his second term, the president and his Republican administration have moved aggressively to punish certain media outlets, using both litigation and regulatory pressure. Trump has also attacked individual reporters in person and on social media, including in strikingly personal terms during briefings and in a recent speech at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.
The White House Correspondents' Association, which represents journalists assigned to cover the president, called on the administration to immediately restore the three outlets' access. Its president, Jacqui Heinrich, warned that the precedent reaches far beyond the organizations named in the dispute.
«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 case now moves to the courts, where it will test how far the executive branch can go in controlling which journalists are permitted to cover the White House. The three outlets argue that credentialing decisions made in retaliation for coverage amount to government interference with the press, a principle at the core of First Amendment protections. The administration has not yet publicly detailed its legal justification for the ban.
For now, the reporters involved remain unable to work from the White House, and the lawsuit is expected to become a closely watched test of press access under the current administration.
