Trump bans three outlets from White House access, citing ‘fake news’

Reporters from CNN, Politico and MS NOW were denied access to the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 19, 2026, following the announcement of a ban by President Donald Trump a day earlier. The outlets subsequently filed a First Amendment legal challenge to the ban.

Trump said on Truth Social on Sept. 18 that he was barring the outlets from the White House as “a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” The announcement was met with widespread criticism by press freedom advocates and others.

Then, on the morning of Sept. 19, the press badges of journalists from the three outlets were deactivated and confiscated by security personnel as they attempted to enter the White House grounds.

In an interview, MS NOW’s White House correspondent Akayla Gardner said that her badge had been disabled at a checkpoint inside the complex and a security officer then asked her to hand it over, saying that “it was above his head” when asked to explain why.

Gardner added that an MS NOW photographer was also denied access, but that a producer for the network was allowed entry.

CNN reporter Betsy Klein reported a similar experience. When she tried to enter the White House, she was informed by a security officer that her badge had been deactivated and was referred to the White House press office for more information.

Politico reporter Cheyenne Haslett was also denied entry and had her badge taken, according to an internal email by Politico’s Global Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Greenberger published shortly afterward. He added that Politico “will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights.”

The three outlets condemned the denials of access in Sept. 19 statements and indicated that they would fight the ban.

“CNN’s mission to report on the U.S. government will continue regardless of any attempts to restrict physical access to the White House and other government buildings, or any other attempts to impede our journalism,” CNN said in a statement.

MS NOW said that it intended “to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association’s president, Jacqui Heinrich, said on the social platform X, “Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment.”

“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,” she added.

Previous attempts to deny individual journalists’ access to the White House by Trump have been overturned in court, including for CNN reporter Jim Acosta, whose 2018 suspension was reversed after a federal judge ordered a temporary reinstatement of his press badge.

The affected outlets announced a suit opposing the ban Sept. 21. In a joint statement saying that they had notified the administration of an imminent filing, the outlets characterized the ban as an assault on press freedom.

“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,” they said.

The complaint itself asks the judge to immediately block the ban and reinstate credentials for the affected outlets.

Meanwhile, CNN, as part of its duties in the White House pool that rotates responsibility for TV coverage with other networks, was scheduled to take on TV coverage of the president Sept. 21.

However, the network was removed from the assignment by the White House, prompting the rest of the pool to announce that it would suspend its TV pool reporting in solidarity.

Bryan Boughton, the Washington bureau chief at Fox News and acting chair of the television pool consortium, wrote to the other stations in a note obtained by The New York Times: “Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President. There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

The TV pool, which includes NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and CNN, released a joint statement, saying, “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Trump returned to Truth Social on Sept. 21 to defend the ban. “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America,” he wrote.

Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker is a project, condemned the ban in a statement, saying, “It’s difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment than Trump banning news outlets from the People’s House for criticizing the government.”

Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee, echoed Stern’s concerns, adding: “The First Amendment is clear that once the White House invites in some journalists, it can’t ban others because it doesn’t like their reporting. This is textbook viewpoint discrimination and will be quickly struck down by the courts if challenged.”