WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House due to what he called unfavorable coverage and threatened that more such media prohibitions could be coming — offering his administration’s latest test of constitutional First Amendment protections guaranteeing the freedom of the press.
“There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” the president said Friday, answering a reporter’s question after a news conference about drug pricing. “If they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into the people’s house.”
Trump said there wasn’t any particular story that caused him to announce the ban Friday.
“It’s really just cumulative stories over the last few years. You get sick of it,” Trump said.
Trump has long bristled at news coverage he maintains casts him in a negative light and has a history of filing lawsuits against news organizations, while lashing out at individual reporters in person or over social media.
“The National Press Club condemns President Trump’s declaration on Truth Social that he plans to immediately ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House,” National Press Club President Mark Schoeff Jr. said in a statement. “Banning news organizations from the White House based on the administration’s disapproval of their coverage is a clear attempt to control which voices are allowed to witness and report on the exercise of presidential power. Every American should understand what is at stake. If implemented, this ban would mark an unprecedented assault on press freedom.”
Friday’s move follows the president’s decision, in February 2025, to keep Associated Press journalists out of the Oval Office, Air Force One and other events too small for a full press corps, in retaliation for the news outlet’s decision not to follow his lead in changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name.
The AP filed suit and the case is ongoing. Since returning to office, however, Trump has pursued other legal action against a variety of different outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC.
“I don’t think a court should allow fake news to be written day after day after day,” the president said Friday. “I think somebody has a right to keep them away if they’re going to write false stories all the time.”
Speaking with reporters, Trump reiterated part of the Truth Social post he wrote earlier in the day that said, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”
Asked for examples, he cited The New York Times, which he called “so fake,” and The Washington Post, which he described as “disgusting,” but said, “we haven’t taken the step of throwing them out.”
He said he gets fair press from the conservative news outlet Breitbart and “a little bit from Fox.”
“It’s hard for you to argue against you’re [being] free press when you’re literally standing in the Oval Office asking questions,” GOP Arkansas Gov., and former White House press secretary during Trump’s first term, Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday, defending Trump in response to a reporter’s question. “He’s been more accessible and easier to talk to than any president in history.”
Trump seeking to block White House access for CNN is especially notable, as it could upend the traditional five-network television pool that travels with the president and tracks his every move — meant to provide independent coverage of his actions and interactions for the Americans who elected him and the world.
In the social media announcement, Trump did not provide details on how the ban would be implemented. When asked to elaborate by a reporter during Friday’s press conference, he said the ban is “very simple. I don’t want them in my office. I don’t want them here. I would say the ban would go as far as you can.”
Following the news conference, Trump planned to take the press pool to his golf club in Virginia for a meeting and dinner sponsored by his Super PAC before spending the weekend at Camp David — one of the few places reporters don’t follow him.