WASHINGTON—A major constitutional crisis, pitting the pro-censorship GOP Donald Trump regime against the nation’s top news organizations, involving freedom of the press and due process of law, will, as news networks across the country show solidarity. end up in a D.C. courtroom on September 22.
And if past is prologue, Trump will lose his attempt to summarily bar CNN, Politico and MSNBC—renamed MSNOW—from even entering the White House to cover him, much less actually doing so.
The last time Trump threw out a reporter and yanked his press credentials, during his first term, Trump lost in court, and on the same First Amendment grounds, and before the same Trump-named judge, Timothy F. Kelly.
“The First Amendment includes a free press so that tyrants wouldn’t be allowed to control what the public sees or hears,” NewsGuild President Jon Schleuss said of Trump’s latest censorship try.
During his first term. Trump banned Fox’s then-White House reporter Jim Acosta. The same uproar over the Constitution’s First Amendment ensued, the same journalistic solidarity ensued, and Judge Kelly ruled for freedom of the press and Acosta and against Trump.
And just three days before this latest Trump ban, his Department of Homeland Security instituted its own censorship try. That prompted a lawsuit, too, from the NewsGuild, the Teachers/AFT, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other organizations. That case is pending.
This time, Fox, the White House Correspondents Association, the NewsGuild/CWA and the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, which represents Politico’s staff, all sided with the banned journalists and the First Amendment and sued Trump in federal court in D.C.
After Trump banned the three news organizations and yanked their credentials, the five major networks—CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN and even Fox, a frequent Trump megaphone—denounced the ban.
They also refused to cover Trump’s White House ceremony inaugurating a helipad on the South Lawn, and didn’t fly with him to New York on Air Force One, either.
Newsmax tried to cover the helipad opening, but the noise from the rotating copter blades drowned Trump out. Print publications didn’t run White House-supplied photos of the rite.
“I applaud these news organizations for pushing back immediately against Trump’s illegal behavior,” said NewsGuild President Schleuss. “This is yet again another shameful moment for our country. Trump doesn’t get to decide who covers the ‘people’s house.’”
“This morning, Secret Service barred our own PEN Guild member Cheyenne Haslett from the White House simply for doing her job,” the Washington-Baltimore News Guild and its sector representing Politico tweeted on BlueSky.
“Press access cannot be weaponized against journalists for their reporting. An attack on one outlet’s ability to cover the White House is an attack on a free press for all of us. We stand with our members and every journalist targeted for doing their job.”
Trump justified this ban by declaring his predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama, tried to ban Fox, too. Speaking on CBS, where he works now, Major Garrett, then the Obama “victim” while Fox White House Bureau Chief, explained what happened.
“Then, as now, other news organizations rallied and refused to participate in one particular high-profile interview if Fox—meaning me—was excluded. Back then there were those in the Obama White House who described the animosity against Fox as ‘a war.’
“Take my word for it: Coming to work every day at a White House which describes itself as at ‘war’ with your network is stressful. At no time, though, was my White House press credential seized…Eventually things got back to something resembling normal.”
MS NOW said in a statement that it “intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our 1ST Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy.”
CNN called Trump’s ban “illegal” and pledged to continue reporting on Trump’s government “regardless of any attempts to restrict physical access to the White House and other government buildings, or any other attempts to impede our journalism.”
Jonathan Greenberger, Politico’s editor-in-chief, said the outlet “will vigorously defend our 1st Amendment rights.”
“As far as I know, there is no precedent either for a president to ban cameras or networks—or for networks to boycott an event in solidarity with their banned colleagues,” presidential historian Harold Holzer told The New York Times, forgetting the joint defense of Acosta.
“I was waiting for that to happen but honestly despaired of it. Thrilled to see it.”
Trump was still covered the day of the copter ceremony, but in New York, at a meeting at Gracie Mansion with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and for meetings scheduled with leaders in town for the United Nations General Assembly session.
In a brief televised appearance on Trump TV, Trump said he banned all three news outlets because they consistently broadcast “lies” and “fake news” about him.
“Virtually every story about me, or anything having to do with me, is negative, wrong and, in many cases, DANGEROUS for our Country!” he later complained on social media. “No matter how GREAT my Achievements, they trivialize and demean.”
This latest confrontation between Trump and the media is another chapter in his long war, sometimes successful, to slant or censor coverage of himself and his activities.
The war includes public pressure, featuring expensive lawsuits, against major networks that refuse to bend the knee and uncritically run his statements and press conferences.
It also includes insults and intimidation of individual reporters. And it includes pressure for federal approval of a $111 billion media merger between Warner Brothers-Paramount and Discovery.
The Writers Guild of America joined Attorneys General from 12 states in federal court in Rhode Island in opposing that merger. It would put pro-Trump media mogul David Ellison in charge of the combined firm, including CBS and CNN.
On September 21, Ellison won out of court, letting the merger go ahead, with an independent board to control CBS and CNN.
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