The White House kept CNN off the list of journalists traveling with President Trump to Tennessee on Saturday, a network spokeswoman said, extending a dispute with reporters that has stretched through the week even after a judge intervened.
A Friday evening email outlining logistics for the trip left out any mention of a lead television pool reporter, leaving open the question of whether the rotating group of networks that typically films the president's public activities would show up at all. The White House had not responded to requests for comment as of Friday night.
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| The White House's decision to leave CNN off Saturday's travel roster raised new questions about press access following this week's legal dispute. |
How the Standoff Started
The conflict traces back a week, when Trump said on social media that he was cutting off CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House access. Reporters from those three outlets were turned away from White House grounds the following Saturday. Two days later, the outlets sued in federal court, arguing the ban violated their access rights.
Other news organizations responded by pulling back from their own coverage duties in support of the banned outlets. The television pool, which rotates responsibility for filming Trump's daily schedule, stopped covering most of his activities this week, including large portions of his meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The Court Steps In
A federal judge ordered the White House on Thursday to restore the credentials of the affected journalists right away. The following day, the White House allowed CNN to film an event at the National Archives in Washington involving Trump and Xi. Once that happened, the television pool resumed its regular coverage.
The lawsuit filed by the news organizations asked the court to put them back on equal footing with the access they had before the ban took effect. The judge's order required the White House to reissue the journalists' hard passes for entering the complex, but it did not specifically address how pool rotations should be handled going forward — a gap that appears to be at the center of Friday's decision to leave CNN off the Tennessee trip roster.
What's Unclear
It remains uncertain whether the television pool will cover Saturday's trip at all, given CNN's exclusion, or whether another outlet will step in to fill that role. The White House has not explained why CNN was left off the list despite the court order, and it is not yet known whether the news organizations plan to seek further legal action over the pool rotation issue.
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