NEW YORK (AP) — CNN, MS NOW and Politico today (Sept. 21) sued President Donald Trump’s administration after they were barred from covering the White House, 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. 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 announced their intent to sue in a joint statement posted on X, 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.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment early today.
The actions were a clear escalation of Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage by journalists he finds objectionable, and were the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States.
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.
“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. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
In his second term, Trump and his Republican administration have upped the ante and punished certain news outlets, both in the courtroom and through regulatory action. 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.
The WHCA’s president, Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News, called on the Trump administration to restore the three outlets’ access immediately.
“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.”
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