Shut out.

He posted that, “effective immediately,” he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” He added: “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”

He named no story. CNN reported that he did not “identify any specific reporting that prompted his social media declaration.”

Asked what the ban would look like, he said, per the Roll Call Factbase transcript: “Oh, the ban on the free press, right? Uh, a very simple ban. 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.”

Asked how it squared with his oath: “Uh, because they’re fake news. Uh, you get so tired of reading and seeing fake news.” Asked what set it off: “it’s really just cumulative stories over the last two years. You get sick of it.” He said the ban could be lifted if the outlets “could straighten themselves out.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association, whose president, Jacqui Heinrich, is Fox News’s senior White House correspondent, said: “The WHCA stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MSNOW, and POLITICO who are being singled out for doing their jobs.”

Ari Fleischer, George W. Bush’s press secretary, wrote that he agreed several outlets were biased and unfair, and then rejected the remedy: “Banning them from the WH is not the solution... Don’t ban them. Or one day they’ll ban us.”

Hard passes were deactivated and physically confiscated at the security kiosk. MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner: “officer asked me to hand over my badge. He said that it was disabled. I asked why I was not able to get inside. He said it was above him.”

“I asked him if he could provide an explanation as to why it had been deactivated,” CNN’s Betsy Klein said. “He said he had no further information.” Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett had her pass taken as well. None of them received written notice or a reason.

U.N. Ambassador Mike Waltz told CNN that “the president is absolutely within his rights to limit journalists to government facilities.”

Sen. John Barrasso, asked on NBC whether the ban violated the Constitution: “No. I believe the press has an obligation to report fairly.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told ABC: “Well, I don’t know why he did it. I don’t know what the background is.”

The daily guidance removed CNN from the next day’s schedule. CNN had been the assigned pool network for Monday and Tuesday, including Trump’s address to the U.N. General Assembly. Pool footage goes to the other networks and to “the more than 1,000 local affiliate television stations across the United States that receive the pool feed through CNN.”

Trump posted: “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... It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!” CNBC noted that he had not cited national security before.

Fox News’s Washington bureau chief, Bryan Boughton, who chairs the television pool, told subscribers that “effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” and that “There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

Fox News, ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC said jointly: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Cable News Network, Inc. v. Trump was filed in federal court in Washington, pleading Fifth Amendment due process, First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination. The complaint opens: “This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.”

It was assigned to Judge Timothy J. Kelly, whom Trump appointed in 2017. In 2018 Kelly heard CNN’s suit over Jim Acosta’s revoked pass and, as ABC reported, “ruled in Acosta’s favor after finding that the Trump White House did not afford him proper due process.”

He posted that the judge “was, sadly, appointed by ‘TRUMP.’ In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal.”

The White House published a defense titled “White House Access Is a Privilege, Not a Right,” which says: “The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool.”

The Washington Post said it would “not publish any photographs of today’s presidential events... until midnight Eastern Time,” and Mediaite reported that the New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Images and AFP joined. NPR, a member of the White House radio pool, declined to broadcast audio of Trump.

Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, a senior appropriator: “You should never ban the press. The press is what keeps us honest.”

It launched “Trump TV,” a 24-hour stream of past official clips on the White House’s YouTube channel and app. NOTUS reported that its first livestream was a two-month-old clip of the president at Mount Rushmore.

Covering him on U.N. credentials, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was told: “You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me.” Collins said on air that CNN had never said that.

Asked whether he would let the outlets back in if he lost in court, he said the judge would probably rule against him, and: “I think we have a right to clean out fake news.”

“We’re not closing CNN,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on NBC. “There aren’t a bunch of police officers or soldiers kicking down the doors of MSNBC or MS NOW, whatever it’s called, and arresting people and unplugging it from the grid. They’re just not allowed to work from the workspace at the White House.”

The government’s opposition opens: “After all, access to the White House is a privilege—not a right.” On the 1977 case that governs press credentials it does not argue compliance. It argues “that decision is wrong and should be overruled,” and says the same of the 2020 appeals-court decision that built on it.

It adds: “At the very least, no injunction may run against the President.”

The White House emailed each outlet a letter dated that day, one day after the lawsuit. CNN’s arrived at 10:30 p.m. Each says: “This letter is to provide notice that the President has made the determination to revoke hard passes for members of your organization,” and sets a deadline: “please submit a written response to us in writing via email by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 25, 2026.”

No individual signed them. They close “White House Press Office,” and they are addressed to the organizations, not to the reporters whose passes were taken. The government’s brief calls this “sufficient post-deprivation process.”

He posted that the outlets are “sick, treasonous, and demented” and that they have “a great, for them, and totally disloyal Judge.” Judge Kelly is a Trump appointee.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents’ Association and 49 news organizations asked the court to restore access. Fox News Network is among them. The brief calls the stated reasons “transparently viewpoint discriminatory” and says “unassailable First Amendment law makes any viewpoint-based decision to bar reporters from a nonpublic forum constitutionally repugnant.”

Judge Kelly told the government he is bound by the cases it wanted discarded: “Maybe they were, maybe they weren’t, but currently as a district judge I have to apply them.” On the record before him, due process “wasn’t followed here.” On the letters: “I don’t know [that] a letter they got after the pass was revoked could provide them with the kind of standards that they’d have to conform their conduct to.”

He did not rule from the bench, and said he would decide “as soon as I can.”

The Associated Press reported that an anonymous-source story cited against Politico “appeared to reference a background briefing set up by the White House, where an official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House itself.” The Washington Post, which reviewed a recording of the call, reported: “The Associated Press, Bloomberg and CNBC were among several outlets who reported on the call, citing a senior administration official, but were not banned from the White House.”

MS NOW’s Washington bureau chief swore that of the three MS NOW articles the letter cites, only one was written by a journalist who held a White House hard pass, and that pass was renewed a week after the story now cited against the network.

Judge Kelly granted the temporary restraining order and directed that the passes be restored immediately. To the argument that Sherrill and Karem were wrongly decided, the order answers: “Maybe—but this Court is bound by D.C. Circuit precedent, full stop.”

He found the government’s only standard “is so vague it hardly does the trick,” and that “[N]othing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns.” The order runs fourteen days, binds the defendants “except for President Trump,” and was not stayed.

Journalists from all three outlets were refused entry. Betsy Klein was denied at 9 a.m., and her request to have her pass back was refused. The outlets filed an emergency notice: “Defendants have already repeatedly violated the Court’s Order,” adding that the government’s lawyers had not responded to a request to call the judge together.

Kelly ordered the government to answer by 12:30 p.m. The White House’s press operations director, Micah Stopperich, filed a sworn timeline: her team was told shortly after 7 a.m. to turn the badges back on, and the Secret Service indicated shortly after 9 a.m. that the passes were “back on.” CNN and MS NOW journalists were admitted at noon. Politico said its access came that afternoon.

The judge accepted the explanation and declined to hold an emergency hearing. He set the next stage, with a motion for a preliminary injunction due September 28, and said the court “intends to rule expeditiously.”

The meeting with Xi Jinping had been scheduled as closed press. At the last minute the White House admitted still photographers only and “denied requests from the rest of the pool, including reporters who would be asking questions, to join.” In front of the photographers, Trump remarked that Xi has the friendliest press corps in the world. The Associated Press added: “China is one of the most oppressive environments for journalists in the world.”

Trump posted that CNN and “MSDNC” “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years,” Xi’s morning arrival. CNN called the claim false. Xi arrived at about 10 a.m.; CNN’s Betsy Klein was not let back onto the grounds until around noon, and both networks covered the arrival on their digital platforms. The television pool, CNN included, did not film it because the networks were still waiting for the White House to confirm that CNN could take its turn.

Xi’s evening arrival was open to pre-credentialed media, a wider group than the pool. About an hour before he was due, CNN reported, the White House said it could cover the arrival with a photojournalist and an audio technician only, while other networks were permitted reporters and producers. MS NOW’s Laura Barrón-López said she was told she could not be let in.

The White House’s rapid-response account wrote, “contrary to what the Fake News wants you to believe, they don’t just get to have free rein into every part of the White House, every event, and every press call.” The restraining order restored the hard passes; whether it reaches event credentials is unsettled, and Deadline noted that the evening exclusion “does not appear to be addressed in Kelly’s order.”

The network television pool, paused since September 21, resumed. CBS had the White House duty and CNN the in-town pool at the National Archives, where the networks carried its feed of Trump and Xi. CNN anchor Pamela Brown: “CNN’s access to the White House has been restored, and the TV pool appears to be functioning as normal.” The outlets’ lawyer, Ted Boutrous, said they believe pool access “is covered by the temporary restraining order.”

At a tea meeting with Xi and the two first ladies, Trump said, “And we appreciate the fair coverage. It’s been very fair.”

Guidance issued the night before left CNN, the scheduled television pool network, off the plane for Trump’s trip to a college football game in Knoxville. The seat “has long been saved for a member of the U.S. network video pool,” the Associated Press reported, and the guidance “included Real America’s Voice,” which is not part of that group. CNN reported that “No outlet was listed as replacing CNN.” Aboard, Real America’s Voice’s correspondent said, “CNN is not here; we have taken over that responsibility.” The restraining order “said nothing directly about Air Force One,” the AP noted.

Trump posted: “Why should perpetrators of FAKE NEWS, like CNN and MSDNC, be allowed access to a very sacred place, the White House?” An hour and a half later: “FAKE NEWS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!! IT HAS GONE ON FAR TOO LONG, AT A TREMENDOUS COST TO OUR COUNTRY.” A third post, about coverage of his endorsement of Byron Donalds, named eight news organizations and said they “should not be allowed to enter the White House premises, or Press Room, because they are CORRUPT and DISHONEST!”

Leaving for Knoxville, he was asked by MS NOW’s Akayla Gardner, “Do you only want outlets that support you to be a part of the press pool?” He answered, “No, no, no. I want real news, not fake news — like you.” When she asked whether he did not want tough questions, he cut her off. In the transcript Gardner published: “Wait, wait. Quiet.”

The New York Times, citing four people briefed on the decision, reported that the networks were “set to resume their collective television coverage” even though the White House blocked CNN: “Each time that CNN came up in the pool rotation, the group of networks would decide whether to provide a substitute crew. Otherwise, CNN’s slot would be left unfilled.”

On ABC’s “This Week,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said, “Well, the president hasn’t denied access. That’s not the right way to describe it,” and, “It is a privilege and not a right to be there.” Asked by Martha Raddatz for an example of CNN reporting inaccurately: “You cannot be asking me that.” Raddatz: “The president said nothing about national security when he announced this ban.”

Late on September 28, CNN, MS NOW and Politico asked Judge Kelly for a preliminary injunction to replace the restraining order, which expires October 8. “The White House’s words and actions leave little doubt that it will immediately reinstitute a complete ban of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO if allowed the opportunity,” the filing says. It adds that after the order the administration kept confiscating passes on September 24 “before finally coming into compliance roughly 11 hours after this Court’s order,” and it puts the Air Force One exclusion before the court. The ACLU of D.C. filed in support the next day: “The White House is the people’s house, not the president’s private golf club.”

Judge Kelly, a Trump appointee, granted a preliminary injunction, an order that holds until the case is decided. “The record is clear that President Trump made the decision at issue,” he wrote, and, “Freed from such a naiveté, it is not hard to conclude that President Trump likely banned Plaintiffs from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him.” His conclusion: “Simply put, that is unlawful viewpoint discrimination.” On the government’s security rationale he found “practically nothing national security-related in the record connected to the President’s decision.”

He added a caution in the other direction: “no one should interpret the Court’s decision to suggest that President Trump’s concerns about accuracy and fairness in the media’s reporting are unfounded.”

“The Fake News has no place demanding a spot in the President’s Oval Office,” a White House spokesperson said. The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal to the D.C. Circuit.