CNN said the White House barred it from accompanying President Donald Trump on Air Force One to Saturday’s Tennessee-Texas college football game in Knoxville, excluding it from its scheduled turn in the rotating TV press pool. The game was set for noon ET.
The TV press pool shares footage when space is limited, with ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC rotating filming and distribution. CNN said the White House note named no replacement, while the Associated Press reported conservative network Real America’s Voice News would take its spot. The other four networks had declined to replace CNN after its earlier exclusion, leaving the pool without live video for several days before it resumed Friday.
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore White House press credentials for journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico for 14 days, writing that they were likely to show their passes had been revoked without constitutionally adequate due process. CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said the latest exclusion could prompt more court action and argued it violated the First Amendment; he said whether it technically violated the judge’s order was unclear.
