Trump’s White House Press Ban and the First Amendment

President Donald Trump has spent years attacking news organizations he believes cover him unfairly. This weekend, however, that fight moved beyond rhetoric. After Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico would be banned from the White House for reporting what he called “fake news,” journalists from all three organizations arrived at the White House and discovered that their credentials had been disabled or confiscated.

Trump announced the ban on September 18, writing on Truth Social that media organizations should not be able to “write or report FICTION and LIES” while covering him, his administration, or the United States. He described CNN, MS NOW, and Politico as sources of “fake news” and said that other media organizations could face similar restrictions. When asked about the decision later that day, Trump described it as a “very simple ban.”

The following morning, the policy was enforced. CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein, MS NOW White House reporter Akayla Gardner, and Politico White House reporter Cheyenne Haslett were denied entry to the White House complex. Their existing White House press credentials were deactivated or confiscated.

The stated reason for the ban places the action directly within an area of First Amendment law that federal courts have addressed before.

In Sherrill v. Knight, decided in 1977, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit considered the rules governing White House press passes. The court recognized that members of the press do not have an unrestricted right to enter the White House and that the president retains discretion over private interviews and briefings. It nevertheless held that “arbitrary or content-based criteria for press pass issuance are prohibited under the First Amendment.”

The court also held that denying a White House press pass implicates both First and Fifth Amendment protections. A journalist denied a pass must receive notice of the reason, an opportunity to respond, and a written decision explaining the basis for the denial. The government may exclude a journalist for legitimate security concerns, but Sherrill required those decisions to be based on an articulated standard rather than the content of the journalist’s reporting.

The same issue returned to federal court during Trump’s second term. In February 2025, the White House restricted Associated Press journalists from certain presidential events after the AP continued referring to the Gulf of Mexico by that name rather than exclusively adopting Trump’s preferred “Gulf of America.” U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden later ruled that the government could not punish the AP for the content of its speech, writing that when the government opens presidential events to journalists, it cannot exclude particular journalists because of their viewpoints.

That litigation also established an important limitation. An appeals court later allowed the White House to maintain control, while the case continued, over access to small presidential spaces such as the Oval Office and Air Force One. The appellate majority distinguished that type of limited access from broader White House press credentials and compared it to the president choosing which journalists receive personal interviews or special access.

The new restrictions on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico are broader than exclusion from a single Oval Office event. The organizations reported that their journalists’ White House credentials themselves were disabled and that they were prevented from entering the White House complex.

Trump has also publicly identified the organizations’ coverage as the reason for the ban. He did not cite physical security concerns when announcing the decision. Instead, he accused the outlets of producing false and negative reporting and said the restriction was a response to what they had published and broadcast.

The White House Correspondents’ Association, the affected news organizations, and press-freedom groups have argued that the action violates the First Amendment. CNN, MS NOW, and Politico have each defended their right to continue covering the administration, while the dispute is expected to raise the same questions about content and viewpoint discrimination that federal courts have confronted in earlier White House press-access cases.

The immediate facts are unusually clear: three established news organizations held White House credentials; the president publicly objected to their reporting; he announced that they would be banned because of that reporting; and the next day their journalists were denied entry and their credentials were deactivated or confiscated.

Nearly fifty years before that happened, the federal appeals court responsible for reviewing many disputes involving the federal government had already stated the constitutional rule governing White House press passes: content-based criteria are prohibited by the First Amendment.