The ban President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social on Friday, September 18, 2026, reached the White House gate the next morning. Reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were turned away on Saturday, September 19, and the Secret Service deactivated or confiscated their hard passes. The sharpest criticism came not from the president’s usual opponents but from conservatives and longtime Trump allies.

Badges Taken at the Gate

MS NOW White House correspondent Akayla Gardner was turned away at about 8 a.m. She was told her pass had been disabled when she tried to swipe in, and an officer asked her to hand over the badge. “I asked why I was not able to get inside. He said it was above him,” Gardner said. A network producer still got in with her badge.

CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein, who has covered the building in some capacity since the Obama administration, had her badge taken by a Secret Service agent. “I asked him if he could provide an explanation as to why it had been deactivated. He said he had no further information,” Klein said. A morning newsletter from Politico reported that Secret Service officers halted the outlet’s White House reporter, Cheyenne Haslett, and took her pass.

Trump Says More Could Follow

“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico … from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” Trump wrote. He continued: “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”

Asked about the decision in the Oval Office, the president said: “I mean, there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories. Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine. But I don’t have to let them into my…” He corrected himself: “into the People’s House.” Trump said no single story prompted the move, describing it instead as frustration built up over the previous two years, and suggested other outlets, among them The New York Times and The Washington Post, could be next.

Conservatives Turn on the Ban

“Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment,” said Jacqui Heinrich, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) and Fox News senior White House correspondent. Courts have repeatedly held that the White House cannot deny access arbitrarily or based on the content of a reporter’s work, Heinrich said, and the WHCA called on the administration to restore the journalists’ access immediately.

Conservative legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who has frequently faulted left-leaning outlets for bias, called the move an “assault on long-honored principles of a free press.” “Barring disfavored media from the White House is a terrible precedent and practice,” Turley wrote.

Fox News anchor Brit Hume shared Turley’s criticism and replied: “100%. And if he thinks this will lead to more favorable coverage, I think he’s dreaming.” Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary under George W. Bush, agreed that some outlets were biased but said: “Open the pool and the briefing room to conservatives. Challenge liberal reporters. Argue and defeat them. Don’t ban them. Or one day they’ll ban us.”

Trump loyalist and activist Laura Loomer blamed the president’s staff, saying the White House invited the fight by denying press passes to pro-Trump independent journalists while giving hostile outlets front-row access at briefings. “I love President Trump, but his staff should have seen this coming when they treated anti-Trump media personalities so well and bent over backwards to reward Trump haters in the fake news media,” she said. Ty Cobb, a former lawyer for Trump, also criticized the ban.

A Familiar Legal Fight

CNN said in a statement: “We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to report without interference from the government.” MS NOW said the building “belongs to the American people” and that it would take “any and all steps necessary” to defend its First Amendment rights. Jonathan Greenberger, Politico’s global editor-in-chief, said the outlet stands by Haslett and will do the same. First Amendment lawyer Theodore Boutrous told NPR the ban is, on its face, unconstitutional.

The administration barred The Associated Press from the press pool in February 2025 after the agency refused to adopt the term “Gulf of America.” The AP sued, and a federal judge ordered the White House in April 2025 to restore the agency’s access to presidential spaces. That ruling is still being appealed. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the White House revoked the press pass of then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta. CNN sued, a judge ordered the credentials restored and the administration backed down.

Blocking CNN could also scramble the traditional five-network television pool that travels with the president and tracks his every move.