Donald Trump Bans CNN, MS Now, & Politico Press from the White House

How many times can the First Amendment be assaulted in one administration?

By: Austin Abbring

September 20, 2026

I am honestly surprised this has not happened before. After an announcement on social media, Donald Trump has barred CNN, MS Now, and Politico press from accessing the White House. The move comes following what he deemed “fake news” from these media outlets. A tale we are all too unfortunately familiar with and, in some respects, desensitized to. It is unclear what reporting the president took issue with, so that can only mean two things. A) It functions as a distraction from Republicans panicking over their polling ahead of the midterms, the Iran War, and the rippling effects it has had on energy, food, oil, and gasoline prices, and B) it means the reporting was entirely accurate, and President Trump cannot allow factual news to be presented to the American people.

Betsy Klein from CNN, Akayla Gardner from MS Now, and Cheyenne Haslett from Politico all reported that their press badges were denied and deactivated, and they were turned away from reporting. This decision by Trump will face legal challenges and clearly violates the First Amendment. In any other functioning democracy, this would be the top of the news cycle for weeks - if not months. The president of the United States unilaterally banned reporters from operating as a free press because he disagreed with their reporting. This is just another Tuesday in America. This is how far we have fallen. I really want to know where all of the right-wing free-speech absolutists are on this one. They obviously did not care about protestors being silenced and detained on college campuses over the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, and they obviously do not care about this blatant violation of one of our most important rights. "The First Amendment for me, not for thee".

In a perfect world, I imagine every single staff member from the DOJ collectively face-palming over this. I fear that is not the case, and it hasn't been the case at any point in this second Trump presidency. You may remember that just last year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued memoranda limiting which press outlets had access to the Pentagon for reporting. You may also remember Donald Trump’s numerous personal lawsuits against various media companies such as ABC, CBS, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. You know, the normal stuff the American people should grow accustomed to from the sitting leader of the free world. 

I want to reiterate that this is all a distraction, white noise, if you will. I really wish something as detrimental and as serious as this was not simply a diversion for your eyes and ears, but we live in a Steve Bannon “flood the zone” world. A strategy that is uber effective and is not going anywhere. Republicans and this administration are absolutely drowning right now. They need us to look away from the affordability crisis that plagues all of us, the housing crisis, the Iran War debacle, the trade wars, the destruction of our agriculture, farming, and ranching communities, from ICE’s brutality (they just shot someone in Austin, Texas, as I write this), from the AI dangers, rising interest rates, a global economic crisis, and a continued shift in wealth and power more and more concentrated within the top 1%. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Just to tell you how dreadful things are for the Republican Party, they are spending record amounts of money on a Senate seat in deep-red Texas, as well as Senate races in Florida, Michigan, and Kansas. Kansas is up for grabs right now. I have never seen such an implosion in such a short amount of time by any political party by the midterms in my lifetime. There is no way to litigate this as anything but a complete disaster for the GOP. I am all for it. 

For me to write my blog, for you to consume your news, and for all of independent media to exist, we undoubtedly rely on journalists. Honest, accurate, free, and fair press is the pulse of a healthy democracy. We can never take it for granted, and hopefully, after this administration is long gone, we can return to some semblance of normalcy in our politics. It will take years, decades even - and we may never fully recover from the damage done during the Trump era. However, the coalitions built during 2024 by Donald Trump have disintegrated; independent voters are furious, and even some of the once unfracturable MAGA base have begun to show leaks in the levy. So I do not believe it is impossible for us to recover and heal as a nation, as a working-class collective, and as a robust democracy. We have no choice but to address the glaring faults we are confronted with. It all begins at these midterms with the one tool we still have at our disposal - our vote. It is the most powerful tool we presently possess. Use it to punish an administration and a Republican Party that repeatedly, brazenly, and dangerously assaults the First Amendment, and would not at all be squeamish at the idea of our ability to vote being severely diminished and suppressed.