Three major news organizations are taking President Trump’s administration to court. CNN, Politico and MS NOW filed suit Monday in federal court in Washington, days after the White House pulled their press credentials.
The trouble started Friday, when Trump announced he was banning the outlets, accusing them of what he called “fiction or lies” about his administration. By Saturday, their reporters couldn’t get through the door.
The three companies say that’s not how this is supposed to work. In a joint statement, they argued the government has no business deciding what the press does and doesn’t report — and that letting this slide would set a dangerous precedent for press freedom.
Trump wasn’t having it. He fired back on Truth Social, branding the outlets “Third Rate Clowns” and a “Crooked and Corrupt Press,” and said reporters who traffic in unnamed sources and “false and defamatory stories” don’t deserve access to the Oval Office. An appeal, he added, is all but certain.
Then things escalated. Monday morning, the five networks that normally handle pooled White House coverage — ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC — walked away from the arrangement entirely, leaving Trump’s UN trip to New York without standard live coverage. In a rare show of unity, the networks said no administration should get to punish outlets for reporting it doesn’t like.
It’s the latest flashpoint in a long-running feud between Trump and the press, following earlier restrictions on the Associated Press over its refusal to adopt “Gulf of America.”