Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
One press freedom advocate said it was “difficult to imagine a more blatant violation of the First Amendment.”
In one of his most direct assaults on the First Amendment, President Donald Trump announced in a Friday afternoon tirade that he would ban CNN, MSNOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico from the White House.
“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW… and Politico from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” the president wrote in a rambling Truth Social post.
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“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America,” he added, though he did not specify any particular reports he objected to. He added that bans on “Other Fake News Media Outlets” would soon follow.
Trump, who has long portrayed himself as a defender of free speech, has taken unprecedented actions to censor news outlets during his second term, including threatening networks’ broadcast licenses through the Federal Communications Commission over unfavorable programming.
As of Friday afternoon, it’s unclear whether Trump actually plans to follow through on his White House ban.
Reacting to the news on the air, CNN anchor Brian Stelter said that the network’s reporting team “remains at the White House working just like a usual normal Friday afternoon.” He added that “right now, there is no indication that the administration is taking any steps to actually follow through on his threat.”
“Certainly, if there is an attempt to remove journalists from the White House, well, our cameras are rolling. I think viewers will see it happen,” he said.
“CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting,” the network said in a statement following news of the ban. “We have a right under the US Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government.”
Bruce D. Brown, the president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Common Dreams in an email Friday that simply banning news organizations from the White House over the content of their reporting “would be flatly unconstitutional.”
“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,” he said. “This is textbook viewpoint discrimination and will be quickly struck down by the courts if challenged.”
Federal courts have previously struck down attempts by Trump to bar certain press outlets on First Amendment grounds. Last year, a judge ruled that Trump’s removal of the Associated Press from the White House press pool for its refusal to adopt the name “Gulf of America” for the Gulf of Mexico was an unconstitutional form of viewpoint discrimination.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s rule banning reporters from obtaining information not authorized by the Pentagon, which led dozens of journalists to turn over their press badges and walk out of the building in protest, was also struck down as a violation of press freedom.
In light of these previous failures, Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, expressed bewilderment that Trump was once again trying to ban news outlets from the White House.
“With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now,” he said in a statement.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, agreed it was “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.”
“It’s also hard to imagine a dumber move,” he said. “The historically unpopular president has been retaliating against the press for years, but it hasn’t helped him. The press keeps exposing his corruption and his failures. These outrageous attacks only demonstrate how scared he is of an informed public.”
He added that the press must “fight back to protect their rights, not only to access the White House but to access the public records and whistleblowers this administration so desperately wants to keep from them.
Trump’s announcement was met with outrage from Democrats in Congress, who described it as an assault on a basic constitutional freedom.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) responded to the news simply by posting the full text of the First Amendment on X.
“Fascist and communist governments limit press access to only favorable outlets, persecute journalists, and suppress truthful reporting,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) in a post to social media. “Trump’s administration is doing all of that.”
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) agreed the move was “straight out of the authoritarian playbook.”
Article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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