Three major news organizations are preparing to take legal action against President Donald Trump and senior administration officials after their White House press credentials were revoked over the weekend, according to a report from Breitbart News.
CNN, MS NOW, and Politico announced Monday they would pursue a lawsuit arguing the ban amounts to viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment. It marks the first formal legal response to the president’s move to bar the outlets from the White House campus.
How the ban unfolded
Reporters from the three organizations were blocked from entering the White House on Saturday, one day after Trump publicly aired his frustration with their coverage. The president did not specify what prompted the decision, though he wrote that “media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States,” adding that he wants fair and untainted coverage.
Trump announced the ban in a Truth Social post, saying he was acting “effective immediately” against what he called “Fake News CNN, MSNOW” — a reference to the network formerly known as MSNBC, which he claimed changed its name “due to lack of viewership and credibility!” — and Politico, which he described as the recipient of an “illegal and ridiculous $8 Million Dollar subscription” from the U.S. government under former President Joe Biden.
The president also indicated he would extend the ban to additional outlets he deems “Fake News,” signaling the policy could widen beyond the three organizations named in his post.
Reporters turned away at the gate
According to the Associated Press, White House correspondents from the two cable networks — Betsy Klein of CNN and Akayla Gardner of MS NOW — reported live that they had been turned away and their press badges deactivated upon arriving for work. Politico later said its White House reporter, Cheyenne Haslett, was also denied entry and had her badge confiscated.
The AP reported that all three outlets had previously signaled they would consider legal action.
In a joint statement posted to X, the organizations said the White House revoked their journalists’ credentials “without notice or process” because it objected to their reporting. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” the statement read.
Press association pushes back
Jacqui Heinrich, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, called on the administration to reverse the decision immediately, warning that the precedent reaches well beyond the three outlets affected.
“The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future,” Heinrich said. “The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.”
The president has previously singled out individual journalists from the affected outlets. He called MS NOW White House correspondent Jake Traylor “one of the worst in the business” and told Politico’s Dasha Burns that the outlet had “been so wrong about everything” and that “Politico is fake news.”
The lawsuit, once filed, would test whether a president can strip press credentials from specific outlets based on the content of their coverage — a question with little modern precedent. The three organizations argue the answer is no, framing the ban as punishment for reporting the administration dislikes rather than any security or logistical concern.
There is no announced timeline for when the suit will be filed or which court will hear it. The White House has not publicly detailed a formal process behind the credential revocations, and it remains unclear whether other outlets will face similar action as Trump follows through on his pledge to bar additional organizations from campus.
For now, the three networks’ Washington bureaus are operating without White House access, and their correspondents are pursuing legal recourse rather than in-person coverage of the president.
Source: www.breitbart.com — https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2026/09/21/cnn-ms-now-politico-notify-trump-theyre-suing-over-vetoed-white-house-access/