Home of the brave, land of the free, where publications are banned from the White House if they hurt the president’s feelings. On Sept. 18, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce that he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. In solidarity, the entire presidential television press pool agreed to suspend their coverage, including ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox.
Trump stated that the ban was a result of reporting fake news and included in his Truth Social post that “Media outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly…report fiction and lies while they’re covering the President of the United States of America.” He also warned that “other fake news media outlets” would follow. At this time, his claims remain baseless, as Trump has not provided any examples of falsehoods reported by the three news outlets he banned.
NO MAN IS ABOVE THE FIRST AMENDMENT
In response, CNN, MS NOW, and Politico joined together to sue the President for violating their constitutional rights. The lawsuit states, “This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.” It continues to cite their right to report without punishment and to due process, as the administration revoked their rights without giving them the opportunity to appeal.
Their lead attorney, Ted Boutrous, described the ban as an attempt to essentially bully reporters into writing what Trump approves of and punish them if they portray him negatively. Stating that the ban harms not only the outlets but also the American people, who are entitled to fact-based reporting rather than puff pieces.
On Sept. 25, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily reinstate press badges for the networks, finding that the revocation of the outlets’ access to the White House occurred without constitutionally required due process. Ultimately, it pointed out that the networks were formally notified of their bans days after the president announced them on Truth Social, and they went into effect, with no time to appeal or prepare.
A FREE PRESS IS EVERYONE’S DEFENSE
The administration is currently pushing the idea that these publications posed a national security threat, which apparently is why they were banned. The interesting thing about this explanation is that they didn’t mention this ban until it was challenged in court. Boutrous even suggested it seemed like “a light bulb went off” after the first mention of national security. This led the administration to run with the national security risk reasoning to defend their decision.
Boutrous is right: no matter who you support or what news outlet you prefer, this harms every American. The rights to free speech and free press aren’t decorative ideals but the spine of our democracy. That’s why protecting them becomes the responsibility of everyone. We must reject political retaliation against journalists before the day fiction like 1984 stops feeling so far-fetched and becomes reality.