"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 (The recipients of an illegal and ridiculous $8 Million Dollar subscription, an All Time Record, directly from the United States Government, under Crooked Joe Biden, in order to keep them "alive." Seems like corruption to me!), from the White House as a result of their constant "reporting" FAKE NEWS! 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. Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
On the afternoon of Friday, September 18, 2026, Trump posted the statement above to Truth Social. Over that weekend the hard passes of CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO reporters were deactivated and their reporters were turned away at the gates. The three organizations and three individual reporters sued the President and several White House officials on September 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Cable News Network, Inc. v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-03287. On Tuesday, September 22, the White House Press Office sent each outlet a letter — filed in court the same day — stating that the President had "made the determination to revoke hard passes for members of your organization" for "behavior in violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex, including by trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information." The letters described the revocation as preliminary and gave the outlets until 5 p.m. Friday to "contest this initial decision," after which it "will be final." Judge Timothy Kelly, appointed by Trump in 2017, heard argument by videoconference on Wednesday, September 23, and issued a temporary restraining order at roughly 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, September 24, finding the ban likely unconstitutional, ordering the credentials "immediately" returned, refusing the government's request to delay the order, and setting a $1.00 bond. The order runs 14 days and expires October 8. On Saturday, September 26, with the order in force, the White House blocked CNN from flying on Air Force One to Tennessee in its scheduled turn as the rotating television pool network. On Sunday, September 27, Attorney General Todd Blanche told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week": "The president hasn't denied access. That's not the right way to describe it." He said "It is a privilege to be in the White House for anybody," then, "It is the people's house. It is a privilege, not a right, to be there," and "The president has every right to decide who flies on his plane." Asked about Kelly's skepticism of the national-security rationale, he said he would not "get into what the judge says" because the litigation is ongoing, but added: "our position has been clear from the beginning. What they say is exactly the issue when it comes to national security." Raddatz noted to him that the president said nothing about national security when he announced the ban. On Monday, September 28, the outlets filed a 49-page memorandum seeking a preliminary injunction, writing that the White House "has persisted in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing its ban, including by barring CNN from fulfilling its role as designated television network pooler on September 26."
Covered it as a fight the press won. The ban, the suit, the 1:30 a.m. order, the Trump-appointed judge, the $1 bond — all of it was reported accurately and fast, and the restoration of the credentials was the story. Three things in the record got almost no attention. The first is the last line of the post: "Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow." That is a stated intention to expand, published by the President on his own account, and it was quoted inside the block text and then dropped. Nobody asked which outlets, and nobody asked the question the sentence makes obvious — whether an outlet not yet named changes anything about how it covers him. The second is the letters of September 22. They arrived four days after the post and recast a announced-by-post ban as a preliminary administrative determination with a Friday 5 p.m. deadline to contest, which converts a First Amendment question into a process question and gives the government a record it did not have on September 18. The judge noticed; the coverage did not. The third is September 26. A court order was in force, the credentials were back, and CNN was still kept off the plane on its pool turn — meaning the remedy that made headlines does not reach the thing that was actually being withheld. That appears in the plaintiffs' brief and almost nowhere else.
This file now holds five entries on the same instrument. Entry #36: the President said networks should lose their licenses for not airing him, and a month later ABC told a federal court it had already changed what it broadcasts. Entry #39: he sent one reporter to the FCC by name while that agency was in federal court defending a retaliation claim. Entry #44: the FCC told a judge the chilling effect was self-inflicted. Entry #50: three government wins in twelve days, each because the wrong court was hearing it. This is the first time the pressure was applied directly, by the President, in his own name, with no agency between him and the credential — and it is the first time it lost immediately, in front of a judge he appointed. That is the part worth holding onto, and it is also the part that makes the rest of the record easy to miss. A temporary restraining order is fourteen days. It expires October 8, five weeks before the midterms. It restored passes and did not restore the pool seat. And the only sentence in the original post that describes future conduct — "Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow" — has not been withdrawn, contested in court, or asked about. Nothing here has been found unlawful on a final record; Judge Kelly ruled on likelihood, not merits. What the record establishes is that the President published a list, published an intention to extend it, and that the remedy so far runs to the names already on it.