Last week, President Trump unceremoniously banned Politico, MSNOW, and CNN from the White House. That unprecedented action was followed by an additional step toward authoritarianism. After the White House press corps, including ABC, CBS, FOX News, and NBC, decided not to participate in pool coverage of the president, Trump launched a new state-run television platform that will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, pushing his old and new announcements. (Viewership for the channel fell to just 1,000 people Monday night, independent journalist Aaron Parnas reported this morning.)
The banned media outlets are jointly suing the administration for restored access.
Jim Acosta, a former CNN White House correspondent and now an independent journalist, told me, “These organizations need to stand their ground because the First Amendment and Constitution are very much on the line.”
In a combined statement, CNN, Politico, and MSNOW said, “This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes. Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
Without pool coverage, a speech Trump gave Monday was barely audible. Politico posted a clip on social media with background noise drowning out the president’s words.
“Trump actually needs the media more than the media needs him,” Don Lemon, host of the Don Lemon show and former CNN host, said. “Hopefully, this is the moment the media finally figures that out. And it’s probably better for the emperor to discover he has no clothes when the cameras are gone, because nobody wants to see that.”
And with Trump in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session and a meeting with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the traditional White House Correspondents Association membership is standing down from covering the president. “It is everything he ever wanted,” Lemon said on social media. “But be careful what you ask for. When the cameras go away, so do the reach and cultural influence.”
Acosta said he thinks Trump banned the three media outlets “because he is in major political trouble again. He is going to test our institutions and see if they will hold. And that’s what we need the press to do in America.”
Paula Madison, former vice president and news director at NBC4 New York, told me, “The White House TV pool has taken an important stance today in standing up for the First Amendment. Trump is not the first bully who has tried to intimidate journalists. In my era, if an authoritative figure banned a journalist from a news conference, all of us would walk out. I pray the print journalists take the same action today.”
In the May issue of the Nation magazine, Greg Ruggiero wrote about why authoritarians always go after the press: “Threatening to silence broadcasters—or anyone else—for critiquing the atrocities being committed in our name erases democratic accountability and replaces it with a demand for obedience.”
The banning of Politico, MSNOW, and CNN from the White House and the creation of a state-run TV network are part of a larger attack on free media exercising their rights as guaranteed in the First Amendment. Back in March, the Federal Communications Commission threatened to revoke the broadcast license of any outlet whose content the Trump administration doesn’t like. Last year, the FCC threatened ABC’s license because Trump didn’t like a joke Jimmy Kimmel made on his late-night show.
Authoritarians can’t abide journalists who report on their machinations and corruption. But that’s exactly what the First Amendment protects. As Ruggiero wrote, “The framers crafted a constitution that protects our right not only to freely critique those in power, but also to freely reimagine power itself. This opened space for what W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Davis, and others have called ‘abolition democracy’—one capable of shedding the violence of settler-colonial legacies and advancing new frontiers of liberation based on solidarity, community, human affirmation, and love.”
April Ryan, host of The Contrarian’s The Tea With April Ryan, is the longest-serving Black woman reporter in the White House press corps. She is the author of “Black Women Will Save the World,” “The Presidency in Black and White: My Up-Close View of Three Presidents and Race in America,” “Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House,” and “At Mama’s Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White.”
Why does the OCF need a state-run television network? He already has Fox, CBS, Newsmax, OAN, Lindell TV and several more whose names I forget because I never watch any of them. Especially since I haven't had a television since 2017.
Thanks for this and all your other cogent reporting, April. How else can we get the truth in this crazy political phase? (I feel like I'm on a first-name basis with all you Contrarians!)