The White House has removed CNN from the television press pool covering President Donald Trump's Thursday trip to a truck manufacturing facility in Denton, Texas, followed by remarks in Durant, Oklahoma, according to multiple outlets. It marks the second time in less than a week that the network has been pulled from pool duty.
CNN had been listed as the primary television pooler for Thursday's events in a rotation document the White House released Sunday, NBC News reported. But when the daily guidance for the trip went out Wednesday night, CNN's name was gone. The conservative outlet Real America's Voice was left as the sole pooler, according to The Guardian.
The move comes after a federal judge blocked the administration's effort to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House access. The judge's restraining order, however, was limited to media access on White House grounds — not presidential travel. CNN was also barred from flying on Air Force One last Saturday when Trump traveled to the Tennessee-Texas college football matchup, despite having been scheduled for that pool assignment as well.
"As we explain in our latest brief, the White House is persisting in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing the President's unconstitutional 'ban on the free press' by barring CNN from fulfilling its role as a designated television network pooler — to the detriment of CNN, its fellow pool members and, ultimately, the American public," Theodore J. Boutrous, an attorney representing the networks, said in a statement Thursday.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico have asked the judge to extend his ruling overturning the White House ban for 14 days, alleging the administration has refused to comply in spirit. In a Tuesday filing, the networks' attorneys argued the White House continues issuing access to the president "unpredictably and inconsistently," causing the outlets irreparable harm, according to The Hill. The Trump administration must submit its response by Friday, October 2.
The White House press pool is the shared rotation system through which a small group of outlets covers the president on behalf of the entire press corps, passing along video, quotes and editorial information to networks that cannot be in the room. Under normal operations, the five major television networks rotate through the primary pooler role and share the resulting footage. None of the other four networks stepped in to take CNN's place Thursday, NBC News reported — meaning there was no primary pool footage of the president's trip at all.
MS NOW and Politico remain sidelined from White House grounds under the administration's restrictions. The White House did not immediately respond to The Hill's request for comment on CNN's removal.
CNN's attorneys renewed their emergency filing Tuesday, arguing the network is being singled out while the administration hands pool slots to outlets it prefers. The dispute has now stretched across three court filings in under two weeks: the original ban on September 18, the judge's restraining order, and this week's escalation over presidential travel.
Our Take
Here's the part the legacy media won't say out loud: the president of the United States gets to decide who rides on his plane.
For eight years, CNN and its allies in the press corps have treated White House access as a property right — as if a cable network that spent the Trump years peddling Russia collusion hoaxes, doctored headlines and anonymous smear pieces were entitled to a seat on Air Force One in perpetuity. It isn't. Pool access is a privilege extended by the administration, and this administration has decided it will no longer reward a network that treats every Trump trip as an opportunity to manufacture the next scandal.
Notice what the judge actually said. His restraining order covered White House grounds. It said nothing about Air Force One. CNN's lawyers know this, which is why they're back in court begging for an expanded order — and why their brief reads less like a legal argument and more like a tantrum.
And notice what CNN's "irreparable harm" actually is. The other four networks didn't take CNN's slot Thursday. Real America's Voice — a conservative outlet that the big networks have spent years pretending doesn't exist — did the job instead. The footage exists. The public was informed. What CNN lost was a captive audience, not a constitutional right.
Liberals spent four years telling Americans that a president pressuring social media companies to censor speech was fine, that a government working hand-in-glove with the press to shape narratives was normal. Now they want a federal judge to force a Republican president to fly their favorite network on his plane.
Trump won. He appoints the press shop. He sets the pool. CNN can sue until the lawyers' fees bankrupt the parent company, and the White House has shown it will not blink.
Patriots, the lesson here is simple: elections have consequences, and one of them is that the press no longer gets to write its own rules. Contact your representatives and remind them that the First Amendment protects CNN's right to publish — not its right to a boarding pass.
