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News Outlets Sue Trump Over WH Access 09/22 06:13
CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday sued President Donald Trump's
administration days after they were barred from White House grounds, calling
the selective ban -- based on the content of their coverage -- a "blatant
violation" of the First Amendment. Trump said on social media that he
"cherished" a free press but not "FAKE NEWS."
NEW YORK (AP) -- CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday sued President Donald
Trump's administration days after they were barred from White House grounds,
calling the selective ban -- based on the content of their coverage -- a
"blatant violation" of the First Amendment. Trump said on social media that he
"cherished" a free press but not "FAKE NEWS."
"White House access is a privilege -- not a right," the administration
posted on X.
The extraordinary
https://apnews.com/article/trump-ban-ms-now-media-d160e253453229600ce54f8e913515
23 which began 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 filed the joint lawsuit two days after their reporters
were blocked from the White House and prevented from doing their jobs. The
reporters' entry badges were disabled Saturday, a day after Trump had suddenly
announced he was barring the outlets because of reporting he considered "fake
news."
CNN is removed from pool duties, and other outlets take a stand in
solidarity
On Monday morning, the banned TV networks were reporting from an
intersection just outside the White House complex. CNN, meanwhile, was removed
from its
https://apnews.com/article/trump-pool-ban-cnn-msnow-politico-dc1a144d37a5d2e9048
8eec110ca9835 which are shared by the five major networks. It had been
scheduled to cover the president's trip to New York for the United Nations
General Assembly. In an email to members, the TV pool said there would be no
replacement coverage -- and other networks would suspend their own pool
coverage indefinitely.
"Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool
coverage of the President," said the email, seen by The Associated Press, from
the current chair of the pool, Fox's Washington bureau chief, Bryan Boughton.
"This follows the White House's position preventing CNN from fulfilling its
assigned pool duties."
Other news outlets also took steps in solidarity. The AP joined a number of
news organizations, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, in a
decision not to publish photographs of presidential events on Monday.
The White House did not respond directly to a request for comment on
Monday's lawsuit. But in a news release posted on X, it said of the three
banned outlets, "The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does
not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press
pool."
On his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that he was not attacking the
First Amendment.
"The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something
which I cherish," the president said in his post. "It is instituting an assault
on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United
States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and
totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be
stopped, NOW!"
Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, told reporters that the journalism of
the three outlets is "effectively far-left propaganda," and said they were
still allowed to report -- just not to have offices in the White House.
The lawsuit claims a 'direct assault' on the First Amendment
In his second term, Trump and his Republican administration have upped the
ante and punished certain media outlets. 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
https://apnews.com/article/correspondents-dinner-trump-shooting-white-house-dfa0
ecdbe3552910903d5c23a8e96a35.
"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 banned
outlets said in a joint statement posted early Monday on X. "Left unchallenged,
this threatens press freedom and the public's right to independent journalism
free from government interference."
In the joint complaint, accompanied by a separate request for a temporary
restraining order blocking enforcement of the bans, the outlets said, "This ban
could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant
violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles."
In legal terms, it's known as
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/viewpoint-discrimination/ -- the
government singling out specific media outlets for the content of what they say
or publish. That legal principle is at issue in many of the court cases around
Trump's treatment of the media and would likely be at play this time.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at
Columbia University, called the White House move "an attack both on press
freedom and the public's right to independent information about the government."
"The president's decision to bar news organizations from the White House for
the content of their reporting is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment,"
said Jaffer, whose institute is filing a brief to support the lawsuit. The case
has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, whom Trump nominated
during his first term in the White House.
Reporters were barred Saturday from their White House offices
On Saturday, 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.
The WHCA's president, Jacqui Heinrich, called on the Trump administration to
immediately restore the three outlets' access.
"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 current showdown follows the president's decision last year to bar AP
reporters from the Oval Office, Air Force One and some events in retaliation
for the news outlet's decision not to follow his lead in changing the name of
the Gulf of Mexico, which lies partially in Mexican and other waters.
https://www.ap.org/the-definitive-source/announcements/ap-style-guidance-on-gulf
-of-mexico-mount-mckinley/ it would note when appropriate that Trump had
ordered it renamed the "Gulf of America."
https://apnews.com/article/ap-trump-media-access-pool-gulf-mexico-america-9a6667
aae9743032c51c42c5e4f7dedc and the case is ongoing. Since returning to office,
Trump has pursued other legal action against a variety of different outlets,
including
https://apnews.com/article/trump-lawsuit-new-york-times-3141806904f4f70e9a986b78
7599c6a8 The Wall Street Journal and
https://apnews.com/article/bbc-trump-defamation-lawsuit-subpoenas-ivanka-kushner
-4608c3cf959b3ce30f59966ade0435d8 His administration is also involved in a
long-simmering confrontation involving ABC over renewal of its broadcast
licenses.
It was not known how long the standoff between the White House and some
members of the media would continue. But the effects of missing pool coverage
were clear later Monday as Trump showed off a new White House
https://apnews.com/article/trump-helipad-cnn-ban-press-xi-61667fb3faaa9a7e9cfc9f
fb4f7dc90e -- with no TV cameras to record the moment or catch what he was
saying.
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