WASHINGTON, D.C. — Several major media organizations are suing the Trump administration after their reporters were barred from the White House.
President Donald Trump announced Friday he would restrict access for the outlets, which he calls “fake news,” but not for other outlets.
Now, CNN, MS NOW and Politico are taking the Trump administration to court. The outlets say barring their reporters from the White House violates the First Amendment and the Constitutions due process protections.
“This is very clearly a violation of the First Amendment,” said Emily Berman, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Berman said the government cannot discriminate against speakers on the basis of the content of their speech.
“So just because you don’t like what someone has to say, that doesn’t permit you to treat them differently than you treat the rest of the media, and that’s pretty much as open and shut a case as you can get in the First Amendment,” said Berman.
The issue prompted major media outlets to take the administration to court. The outlets have asked a federal judge to temporarily restore their access in the meantime.
“I imagine that they will ask the court to move in an expedited fashion. I imagine that the court will issue an order instructing the White House to permit them to take up their usual reporting activities. It could come really any time, depending on how urgent the court seems to think the situation is,” said Berman.
The dispute began Friday, when President Trump announced the three outlets would lose White House access, referring to them as “fake news.”
“It’s one-sided. It’s never good,” said President Trump on Friday. “Our country has to have honest news.”
On Saturday, reporters from the outlets were turned away. The outlets were also removed from scheduled White House press pool duties.
“The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference. That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask. This is about more than the rights of journalists. It is about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office. The WHCA stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MSNOW, and POLITICO who are being singled out for doing their jobs,” said Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News, who serves as the current president of the White House Correspondents Association.
President Trump addressed the issue again Monday on Truth Social.
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” the president wrote.
On a typical day, the major networks- ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC- will rotate coverage of the president and share footage with other outlets. This is known as the White House TV pool.
But on Monday, there was no TV pool because all networks have banded together to essentially hold the line until the White House reverses the ban. As long as this continues, there will likely be limited, if any, White House pool footage from the president’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York City this week.
Trump is also scheduled to meet with China’s Xi Jinping on Thursday. Jinping is traveling to Washington for a summit with President Trump.
