President Donald Trump’s Saturday trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, will go without TV pool cameras after the White House barred CNN from traveling aboard Air Force One, The Washington Post reported Friday, citing two people familiar with the decision.
CNN had been scheduled to fly with Trump to a college football game as the network representing the White House TV pool. The White House announced the change Friday night in its schedule and did not list a replacement, meaning there will be no TV pool coverage of the trip, CNN reported.
The move comes just hours after the five-network pool resumed coverage of Trump. CNN’s Alayna Treene told viewers on “Anderson Cooper 360” that it was clear CNN was being “singled out.”
Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House grounds last week, and a federal judge temporarily restored their access early Thursday. Even so, the three outlets were kept off the grounds for hours that morning, and Senate Republicans ducked questions about whether the president must follow the court’s order.
It’s unclear how the latest move will affect the outlets’ lawsuit. CNN’s outside lawyer has said he believes the court-ordered restoration of access covered the White House pool, according to CNN. The judge has given the news organizations until Monday to seek a preliminary injunction, which would keep Trump’s ban on hold longer.
The pool, made up of ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News, rotates responsibility for filming the president when space is limited and shares the footage with other outlets. The networks stopped pool coverage on Monday after the White House pulled CNN from its scheduled turn at the United Nations.
“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties,” Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, who chairs the TV pool, told the other networks at the time.
The standoff left Trump’s Thursday meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping without American TV pool cameras, a situation MS NOW’s Jen Psaki called “maddeningly ridiculous.” Coverage resumed Friday, with CNN part of the pool when Trump and Xi visited the National Archives.
Press advocates have pushed back on the White House’s efforts. “America cannot have state TV,” CBS’ Weijia Jiang, a former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Trump has suggested that The New York Times and The Washington Post could be next.
A CNN spokesperson declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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