The White House indicated Friday evening that CNN would not be part of Air Force One’s press contingent for President Donald Trump’s Saturday trip, marking the latest escalation in an ongoing media-access dispute with potential First Amendment implications.
According to White House guidance, CNN’s seat was assigned instead to Real America’s Voice News, a conservative media outlet, for Trump’s visit to Knoxville, Tennessee.
Trump is expected to attend a midday college football matchup featuring the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas.
The announcement came shortly after reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico — three outlets barred from the White House grounds the previous week — returned to the executive complex carrying cameras, laptops and microphones.
A federal judge temporarily overturned the ban in an early Thursday ruling, although the decision did not explicitly address access to the presidential press pool.
Despite being permitted to return to the White House, journalists from all three organizations continued to sit out pool coverage involving Trump.
The judge’s temporary order referred specifically to access to the White House grounds and did not directly mention Air Force One.
Theodore Boutrous Jr., the attorney representing the news organizations, did not immediately respond Friday night to emails and phone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Appearing earlier Friday on CNN’s “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” Boutrous said the plaintiffs’ position was that U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly’s ruling also applied to press-pool access.
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For part of Friday, the White House video pool resumed operations for the first time since Trump’s decision to exclude three news organizations triggered an unusual confrontation over presidential media access.
During CNN’s noon broadcast, viewers saw Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping touring the National Archives alongside first lady Melania Trump and Peng Liyuan, Xi’s wife. A lower-third graphic identified the event as “Trump and China’s Xi Visit National Archives.”
The segment covered an otherwise ordinary state-visit appearance, but it was notable because CNN had gone several days without airing live footage of Trump.
“As of now, all systems are go,” said a person familiar with the press pool, who spoke anonymously because the situation remained in flux.
The U.S. network video pool is made up of five major broadcast organizations that rotate responsibility for recording and distributing footage.
After the White House barred pool member CNN, along with MS NOW and Politico, from its grounds, the other four video providers declined to take part in a solidarity protest.
CNN’s place on the flight had traditionally been reserved for a representative of the U.S. network video pool, a group that does not include Real America’s Voice News.
CNN did not issue a direct comment earlier Friday and instead referred questions to its on-air reporting.
Brian Stelter, CNN’s media analyst, wrote on X that the network had been assigned to cover the National Archives event and that the White House had approved its credentials.
