Major U.S. television networks halted their shared video coverage of President Donald Trump on Monday after the White House prevented CNN from carrying out its scheduled presidential pool duties.
ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC make up the primary White House television pool, which rotates responsibility for filming presidential events and distributing that footage to other news organizations.
Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton, who chairs the TV pool, told members Monday that the group would no longer provide coverage of events designated as presidential pool coverage.
“This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Boughton wrote, according to reports.
He said the decision followed the White House preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool responsibilities and added that no replacement network would be provided.
The Washington Post independently reported that ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC joined CNN in suspending the presidential pool arrangement. Other types of pooled television coverage, including Congress and selected events elsewhere in Washington, were expected to continue normally.
The dispute stems from Trump’s decision Friday to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House grounds.
Trump said the outlets were being excluded because of reporting he considered “fake news.” Journalists from the three organizations were subsequently denied access to the White House, and some had their credentials confiscated.
CNN had been scheduled to handle Monday’s television pool duties, including coverage connected to Trump’s trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly. The White House’s Sunday guidance did not list CNN as the primary television pooler.
The suspension does not mean Trump will receive no television coverage.
Conservative network Real America’s Voice was expected to provide coverage from the U.N., while Hearst television stations were assigned to certain White House events. Individual news organizations may also obtain their own footage where access permits.
The rotating television pool normally provides a central live video feed that can be used by broadcasters and other news organizations that do not have their own camera crews positioned near the president. Without that pool feed, the amount of independently produced video from some presidential events could be significantly reduced.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico also filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging the White House ban.
The organizations said the restrictions violated their First Amendment rights and asked a federal judge for a temporary restraining order restoring their access. Reuters reported that the outlets also raised free-speech and free-press claims in the case, per the Daily Mail.
The lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee who in 2018 ordered the White House to temporarily restore CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s credentials after they had been revoked.
The five television pool networks said in a joint statement that the public has an interest in receiving independent information about the government and argued that an administration should not restrict an organization because it objects to its reporting.
Trump defended his decision Monday, writing that the administration was not targeting the free press but what he described as “FAKE NEWS.” Vice President JD Vance separately argued that the outlets retained the ability to report but were no longer entitled to special White House access.
It was not immediately clear how long the television pool’s suspension of presidential coverage would remain in effect.
