President Trump intensified his long-running fight with the mainstream press this weekend, publicly questioning why CNN and MSNBC should be granted White House access while CNN was excluded from the television pool aboard Air Force One for his trip to a college football game.
In a pair of early-morning posts, Trump argued that outlets covering him almost entirely negatively should not receive the privileges that come with presidential access, according to reporting by The Gateway Pundit’s Jordan Conradson.
“Why should perpetrators of FAKE NEWS, like CNN and MSDNC, be allowed access to a very sacred place, the White House?” Trump wrote. “Despite my big Election Win, almost 100% of ‘TRUMP’ coverage is negative, and has been for years!”
In a second post, the president added: “FAKE NEWS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!! IT HAS GONE ON FAR TOO LONG, AT A TREMENDOUS COST TO OUR COUNTRY.”
A changing press pool
The immediate flashpoint was the television pool assignment on Air Force One. Real America’s Voice, The Gateway Pundit and Red State Media traveled with the president on Saturday as he attended the University of Tennessee versus University of Texas football game. Earlier in the week, Real America’s Voice also took over the press pool for Trump’s trip to New York, per the same report. Lindell TV later stepped in to cover Chinese President Xi Jinping’s arrival after a boycott by mainstream outlets, following Trump’s decision last week to bar CNN, MSNBC and Politico from the White House.
RAV correspondent Taylor Mitchell spoke with The Gateway Pundit before boarding Air Force One. “We take our job very seriously, and we believe that we have a responsibility to the people to provide this footage and content of the President of the United States,” she said.
Conradson, who was traveling with the president, described the day in a social media post as “another big day for the new media at the White House,” noting that RAV’s Taylor Mitchell was again replacing CNN in the pool.
CNN pushes back
CNN said it was prevented from covering Xi’s arrival at a state dinner on Thursday. The network’s White House correspondent, Alayna Treene, and anchor Anderson Cooper told viewers on live television that CNN was not listed as the television pool in the White House’s daily guidance the previous night.
“The White House is now preventing CNN from carrying out their TV duties,” Treene said. “It’s unclear what’s going to happen to [the pool coverage] now.”
The Gateway Pundit disputed CNN’s subsequent framing, saying the network “dishonestly reported” that no outlet had been listed to replace CNN, which would have meant no television pool coverage of the trip at all. In fact, the outlet reported, Real America’s Voice was listed in the television pool.
A pattern of confrontation
Saturday’s dispute is the latest round in a broader restructuring of who gets access to the president. The traditional White House press pool, a rotating group of major outlets that travels with the president and shares its material with the wider press corps, has long been a source of tension between Trump and the establishment media. Under the current arrangement, newer and often explicitly pro-Trump outlets — including Real America’s Voice and Lindell TV, both associated with Trump allies — have taken on pool duties that were once the near-exclusive domain of legacy networks.
Trump’s argument, as he framed it Saturday, is one of reciprocity: outlets that cover him overwhelmingly negatively should not expect the same access as those he considers fair. Critics of that approach, including CNN, contend that pool access is a public service rather than a reward for favorable coverage, since pool material is distributed to all outlets regardless of their editorial stance.
For now, the practical effect is a presidential press contingent increasingly populated by outlets aligned with or friendly to the administration. The Gateway Pundit noted that its own reporter and RAV were both joining the president at the Tennessee-Texas game, a high-profile setting that guarantees heavy coverage.
The White House has not signaled any intention of restoring CNN’s pool slot, and Trump’s Saturday posts made clear he sees the exclusion as justified rather than temporary. CNN, meanwhile, has continued to raise the issue on air, casting the move as an attempt to limit independent coverage of the president.
Both sides appear to be settling in for a prolonged fight over the mechanics of presidential coverage — a fight that, for the moment, is being won by the outlets Trump prefers.
Source: www.thegatewaypundit.com — https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/09/trump-blasts-fake-news-as-cnn-barred-air/