First Lady Melania Trump has extended a potential olive branch to CNN as the network remains embroiled in a dispute with her husband.
President Donald Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House last Friday, accusing the outlets of producing “fake news.”
The move prompted Secret Service agents to confiscate some journalists’ press passes, while several outlets abandoned their plans to cover the president during his trip to the United Nations General Assembly this week.
CNN had been scheduled to provide a reporter and camera crew for the UN event, but the network was removed from the White House traveling press group on Sunday.
Despite the ban, the First Lady’s Office approved CNN’s request to cover Melania in Manhattan this week, according to CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein.
“Interestingly, we do have one new data point, which is that my credential to cover an event with the First Lady, on the sidelines of the United Nations tomorrow, has been approved,” Klein said Monday.
A source familiar with the matter told Our News Outlet that CNN had been granted credentials to cover an announcement Melania is expected to make Tuesday at the St. Regis hotel.
The announcement will concern her “Fostering the Future Together” initiative, which she is expected to highlight repeatedly during her visit to New York for the UN.
Melania Trump’s team approved CNN’s credentials to cover a Tuesday event with the First Lady, despite the White House ban against the network
CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein said she had been approved to attend an event with the First Lady on the sidelines of the UN. She was escorted from the White House on Saturday after Trump’s ban on CNN took effect
“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico,” Trump wrote Friday as he announced the ban
The First Lady’s decision to allow CNN access sharply contrasts with her husband’s escalating campaign against the network.
“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico,” Trump wrote Friday.
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report fiction and lies when they’re covering the President of the United States,” he added.
Reporters representing the banned outlets were turned away from the White House when they arrived for work the following day.
Secret Service agents also confiscated press passes from some of the journalists.
Trump reinforced the ban Monday while rejecting the suggestion that his decision amounted to “an assault on the free press.”
Instead, he said he was “instituting an assault on the fake news, some that has grown like cancer in our beloved United States of America.”
Following the decision to remove CNN from the UN trip, the five major US broadcast networks—Fox News, CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC—issued a joint statement saying they would not send a camera crew to cover Trump at the UN. The group is known as the TV pool.
White House broadcast tents stood empty Monday following Trump’s ban
The three media outlets Trump targeted, CNN, MS NOW and Politico, announced they would combat the administration in court over the ban.
‘This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,’ they said in a statement released on Monday.
‘Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,’ the statement continued.
‘Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.’
US District Judge Timothy Kelly, who Trump appointed in his first term, is presiding over the case and is on familiar legal ground.
In 2018, he ordered the White House to restore CNN journalist Jim Acosta’s credentials after his press pass was pulled following a heated clash with Trump.
