The White House has barred CNN from traveling aboard Air Force One as part of the rotating television press pool for President Donald Trump’s weekend trip, according to CNN and The Washington Post.
CNN journalists had been scheduled to fly with Trump on Saturday to cover his visit to Knoxville, Tennessee, for a college football game. The pool system allows a small rotating group of reporters to cover the president when space is limited, sharing footage and information with other outlets.
The Washington Post reported Friday, citing two people familiar with the decision who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, that the White House had blocked CNN from accompanying the president on the trip.
The White House instead assigned Real America’s Voice News, a conservative outlet, to cover the Knoxville trip. That network is not part of the five-network pool rotation, which includes CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News and CNN.
The Post reported that the White House’s schedule for Saturday, distributed late Friday night, did not name a primary TV pool outlet for the day.
Kevin Bohn, a longtime Washington producer, posted a copy of the White House’s “Daily Guidance and Press Schedule” for Saturday on X on Friday. The document lists Real America’s Voice as the secondary TV correspondent and crew for the “Out-of-Town Travel Pool” but does not name a primary TV pooler. “White House schedule just released and does not list CNN as primary pool,” Bohn wrote. “Scott Nover reported earlier WH was not allowing CNN to be pool on Air Force One.”
Jacqui Heinrich, a Fox News anchor and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, told CNN the pool system “is what allows the networks to share video of the president with the whole country,” adding, “If they aren’t there, the pool can’t function.”
According to the Post, the five-network pool had resumed covering Trump on Friday morning after halting coverage in protest of the White House’s ban on CNN. CBS served as Friday’s designated TV pooler, shooting footage of events tied to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit, with the exception of a midday event at the National Archives, where CNN was the designated pooler. The pool’s brief return to normal operation Friday morning was thrown back into uncertainty by Friday night’s decision to exclude CNN from the Air Force One trip.
The move follows Trump’s attempt last week to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House grounds, which a federal judge blocked. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, in a ruling issued early Thursday, ordered the administration to immediately restore the outlets’ hard passes, finding the government had shown insufficient factual support for its national security justification for the ban.
However, Kelly’s order addressed only access to White House grounds and did not directly address pool duties or Air Force One travel. Theodore Boutrous, an attorney representing the outlets, said Friday on Fox News’ “The Lead with Jake Tapper” that the plaintiffs believe the ruling also covers pool access. The White House has not explicitly endorsed that interpretation, appearing instead to use the legal ambiguity to exclude CNN from the Air Force One trip.
On Thursday, journalists from the three outlets were initially denied entry to White House grounds before being allowed in later in the day. Earlier, MS NOW and CNN reporters had been denied access to a state dinner arrival for Xi’s visit.
The dispute had prompted CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox News to boycott the pool in solidarity with CNN. The four outlets did not resume participation until Friday morning, a day after Kelly’s ruling, as they waited to see whether the White House would honor the decision for television coverage. That normalization lasted less than a day before CNN was again excluded from the pool Friday night.
Separately, Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday defending the restrictions on press access. “Why should perpetrators of FAKE NEWS, like CNN and MSDNC, be allowed access to a very sacred place, the White House?” he wrote, adding that “despite my big Election Win, almost 100% of ‘TRUMP’ coverage is negative, and has been for years.”
Bohn, reacting to the post on X, wrote: “Despite judge’s ruling giving them access, @potus renews idea of not allowing WH access to CNN and MS NOW because he claims they are ‘fake news.'”
