Trump White House Ban Targets CNN, MS NOW, Politico

The White House revoked the press credentials of CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists Saturday, enforcing President Donald Trump’s immediate ban against the three controversial news organizations he accuses of repeatedly publishing false and unfair coverage.

CNN correspondent Betsy Klein, MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner and Politico reporter Cheyenne Haslett were turned away and had their badges confiscated, according to reports from the White House.

Trump announced the ban Friday on Truth Social, accusing the outlets of “reporting FAKE NEWS.”

“They shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States,” Trump wrote. He warned that “other Fake News Media Outlets” could follow.

Trump is not the first president to ban outlets or individual reporters. Barack Obama regularly banned Fox News from pool reports and interviews. Joe Biden pulled the press passes from more than 430 reporters and Franklin Roosevelt denied the Chicago Tribune access to government agencies, exploring ways to prosecute the newspaper under the Espionage Act.

For supporters, Trump’s action represents overdue accountability for powerful news organizations that have faced and settled lawsuits challenging the accuracy of their reporting. As Metro Voice has reported in the past 10 years, several cases involving CNN and NBCUniversal, which owned MSNBC before its transformation into MS NOW, ended in confidential settlements believed to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The most damaging result came in January 2025, when a Florida jury found CNN liable for defaming Navy veteran Zachary Young. Jurors awarded Young $5 million after concluding that CNN falsely portrayed his Afghan evacuation business as operating in a “black market.” CNN settled before jurors considered punitive damages.

CNN also settled an earlier lawsuit brought by Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann. The Washington Post, another outlet Trump has been critical of, settled Sandmann’s lawsuit for $250 million. NBCUniversal later settled with Sandmann as well. The financial terms were never disclosed, and neither settlement produced a final judicial finding of defamation.

NBCUniversal reached another confidential settlement in 2025 with Georgia physician Mahendra Amin. A federal judge had determined that multiple MSNBC statements were lies, including reports that Amin performed “mass hysterectomies” on immigration detainees.

Politico has faced defamation litigation, although its major completed cases ended in its favor. The Delaware Supreme Court upheld dismissal of computer repairman John Paul Mac Isaac’s lawsuit concerning Politico’s Hunter Biden laptop headline, despite a dissenting justice’s conclusion that the headline could reasonably be considered false and defamatory.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s decision, noting that reporters were questioning the president inside the Oval Office as the controversy unfolded.

The three organizations called the ban unconstitutional and indicated they may sue. Federal judges previously ordered the Trump White House to restore credentials belonging to CNN correspondent Jim Acosta before he later quit, and journalist Brian Karem, creating a significant legal obstacle if the latest dispute reaches court.

Recent polling finds that the news media is the least trusted institution in the nation. Seventy percent of Americans in a Gallup poll say they have very little or no trust in the media. Surprisingly, just half of Democrats trust the media, while a minuscule 8% of Republicans do.

–Metro Voice and The Epoch Times