Reporters who cover the White House for CNN, MS NOW and Politico arrived for work on the morning of Saturday, September 19, 2026, and found that their hard passes no longer opened the gate. The day before, President Donald Trump had announced on social media that the three news organizations would lose access to the building.
"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," Trump wrote in the post announcing the decision, as reported by ABC News. He named no specific article or broadcast, and said other organizations could face the same treatment.
Turned away at the gate
CBS News, which had a crew outside the northwest entrance, reported watching an MS NOW correspondent, Akayla Gardner, and a cameraman being refused entry shortly after 8 a.m., their badges already deactivated. Al Jazeera reported that CNN's senior White House reporter, Betsy Klein, and Politico's White House reporter, Cheyenne Haslett, were also stopped, with credentials collected at the door.
The White House did not immediately comment on the denials.
The practical reach of the order is narrower than it looks. A hard pass governs physical access to the grounds, the briefing room and the pool rotation that follows the president; it does not govern what a newsroom may publish. All three outlets said their coverage of the administration would continue.
"Any and all steps"
MS NOW said it would "take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism". Politico said it would "vigorously defend" the same rights. CNN described the move as "an illegal assault" on the right to report on the government without interference, and said its mission "will continue regardless of any attempts to restrict physical access".
Jacqui Heinrich, president of the White House Correspondents' Association, said the three had been singled out for doing their jobs and warned that whatever standard was used to exclude them could be applied to any outlet later.
The legal ground
American courts have looked at this question before. In Sherrill v. Knight, decided in 1977, a federal appeals court held that once the White House opens its grounds to the press, it cannot deny a pass arbitrarily: it has to give a reason, and the reason has to be reviewable.
The more recent precedent is from this administration. In 2025, the White House restricted The Associated Press over the agency's refusal to adopt the name "Gulf of America"; a federal judge ordered the agency's access restored, and the case has continued through the appeals courts since.
Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, quoted by Al Jazeera, called the exclusion "doubly unconstitutional", on the grounds that the press pool functions as a public forum and that the stated reason is the content of the coverage.
Reporting from CBS News, ABC News and Al Jazeera.
