The White House dropped CNN from President Donald Trump’s Thursday press pool, days after a federal judge blocked his ban on the outlet.
The network had been slated to travel aboard Air Force One and handle on-the-ground pool coverage for the trip, according to a rotation schedule the White House put out Sunday, NBC News reported Wednesday. But CNN was missing from the daily guidance released for Trump’s stops, which include a visit to a truck plant in Denton, Texas, and a speech in Durant, Oklahoma.
The exclusion lands less than a week after a federal judge paused Trump’s attempt to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. That order, however, covered only access to the White House grounds, leaving the administration room to sideline the outlets elsewhere.
It also isn’t the first time since the ruling. Over the weekend, the White House kept CNN off Air Force One during Trump’s trip to Tennessee, even though the network had been assigned pool duty.
CNN spokesperson Emily Kuhn confirmed the network had been pulled from the pool but declined to say more. She instead referred to a Monday statement from Theodore Boutrous, the attorney representing all three outlets, who called the ban “a blatant violation of the First Amendment and due process.” That statement accompanied the outlets’ request that the judge extend his pause.
The White House did not immediately respond to NBC’s request for comment.
The press pool is a rotating group of outlets that pool resources to cover the president at home and abroad, with each day’s members sharing footage and reporting with the rest of the press corps.
The outlets have drawn wide backing. The White House Correspondents’ Association, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 49 media organizations, including NBC’s parent company, filed a brief supporting them last week. Fox News, ABC News, CBS News and NBC News also briefly stopped performing pool duties in a show of solidarity with CNN.
The post Trump White House shuts CNN out of second presidential trip since judge halted ban: report appeared first on Raw Story.
