The White House has once again removed CNN from its assignment as the primary television pool representative covering President Donald Trump, marking the second such exclusion in a single week. The latest decision, made Wednesday night, impacts CNN's coverage of Thursday's presidential activities.
This removal follows an earlier incident on Saturday when CNN was excluded from pool duty aboard Air Force One. Both instances occurred despite a district judge's ruling two days prior to Saturday's exclusion, which had overturned the White House's ban on CNN and two other media organizations, MS Now and Politico.
Initially, a potential easing of tensions appeared on Sunday when the White House published a pool assignment list that designated CNN as the in-town pooler for Thursday's events, with the conservative network Real America's Voice listed as the secondary pooler. However, Wednesday night's abrupt reversal left Real America's Voice as the sole pooler for the President's travels to Texas and Oklahoma.
The five networks that typically serve in the primary television pool have been navigating the situation day by day since the White House first banned CNN on September 18. Pool operations were initially suspended by the networks before tentatively resuming last Friday. In a show of solidarity, none of the other four networks will take CNN's place on Thursday, mirroring their decision on Saturday. This means no primary pool footage will be available, though networks could cover individual parts of the President's trip independently.
CNN has not issued a comment regarding its exclusion on Thursday. Meanwhile, a White House official released a statement emphasizing President Trump's accessibility and characterizing television networks as “performative and dishonest.”
Earlier this week, lawyers representing CNN, MS Now, and Politico formally requested that the judge extend his ruling overturning the White House ban for a period of 14 days. A hearing is expected to be held soon, where the judge will consider arguments from both sides on whether to grant a preliminary injunction that would block the ban until CNN's lawsuit against the White House, filed on September 21, concludes. It is worth noting that the country's largest broadcast and cable television news networks have generally not aired footage from Real America's Voice, despite the network widely broadcasting its availability.
