White House blocks CNN from traveling with Trump on Air Force One
White House blocks CNN from Air Force One travel after judge ordered access restored. The trip to Tennessee will lack independent TV coverage as the dispute continues.
The White House blocked CNN from traveling aboard Air Force One with President Donald Trump on Saturday, a CNN spokesperson confirmed. The move came days after a federal judge ordered the administration to restore the network's White House access along with POLITICO and MS NOW.
CNN had been scheduled to travel with Trump to Knoxville, Tennessee, where the president planned to attend a college football game. The trip was part of the rotating television press pool that covers the president in settings with limited space. The pool's reporting and video are shared across television networks.
The network was left off White House guidance for Saturday's trip, preventing it from carrying out its scheduled pool duties. Such interventions in the television rotation have historically been rare. Typically the five networks decide who rotates.
A Saturday pool report noted there would be no TV pool for the Tennessee trip, "meaning there won't be widely available independent video of events." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The block is the latest in the Trump administration's dispute with CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO over press access. Trump announced last week he was barring all three from the White House, accusing them of reporting "FAKE NEWS."
CNN was also prevented from traveling on Air Force One when Trump went to New York for the United Nations General Assembly earlier this week. The four other members of the five-network television pool, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News, declined to take CNN's place.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the White House to immediately restore the three news organizations' press credentials. On Saturday morning, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "FAKE NEWS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!! IT HAS GONE ON FAR TOO LONG, AT A TREMENDOUS COST TO OUR COUNTRY."
This story originally appeared on POLITICO and is courtesy of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.
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