The White House pulled CNN from its assigned role as the primary television pool covering President Donald Trump’s trip to Texas and Oklahoma on Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026, yanking the network from the rotation on Wednesday night, Sept. 30, and escalating a standoff that has already landed in federal court.
Under a press rotation document the White House released Sunday, Sept. 27, CNN had been designated to travel with the president, with the conservative outlet Real America’s Voice listed as secondary pooler. But when daily guidance went out for Trump’s visit to a truck manufacturing facility in Denton, Texas, and his remarks in Durant, Okla., CNN was no longer listed as providing pool coverage. The network had been scheduled both to fly aboard Air Force One and to provide coverage on the ground.
Second Removal in a Week
It is the second time in a week that the White House has unilaterally removed CNN from its turn as the lead television pooler. On Saturday, Sept. 26, the network was cut from pool duty aboard Air Force One as Trump traveled to Tennessee — two days after a federal judge overturned the administration’s ban on CNN and two other outlets.
As they did then, none of the other four networks in the five-outlet television pool rotation stepped in to replace CNN, meaning there will be no primary pool footage of the Texas and Oklahoma trip, though individual networks can still cover pieces of it on their own. The country’s largest broadcast and cable news networks have not aired footage from Real America’s Voice, even as that network has publicized its availability.
CNN spokesperson Emily Kuhn confirmed the network’s removal from the planned pool coverage and pointed to an earlier statement from Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., the attorney representing CNN, MS NOW and Politico, who called the ban “a blatant violation of the First Amendment and due process,” Boutrous said. In a separate statement, he said the White House is inconsistently and unpredictably carrying out what he described as the president’s unconstitutional ban on the free press by keeping CNN from serving as a designated television pooler.
What the Judge Ordered
The White House originally barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Sept. 18. The three outlets sued on Sept. 21, and on Thursday, Sept. 24, their journalists returned to the White House after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered access restored. Kelly, whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018, found the outlets likely to succeed in showing their press passes were revoked without due process and said the government must set clear standards for conduct that can cost a reporter a press pass.
Crucially, that order covered media access to the White House grounds and did not address CNN’s removal from the video pool. Kelly also rejected the administration’s argument that the outlets’ reporting endangered national security, noting that Trump himself had initially focused only on what he called negative coverage. Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik argued at the hearing that entry to the White House is something journalists are granted rather than owed.
Even after the ruling, coverage was anything but routine. A Secret Service agent had confiscated the banned outlets’ credentials, and restoring their badges took more than two hours, according to an administration court filing. CNN and MS NOW journalists were denied access to the state dinner arrival for Chinese leader Xi Jinping; CNN said the White House would allow only a photojournalist and an audio technician, refusing a reporter and a producer, while MS NOW journalist Laura Barrón-López was turned away from the arrival ceremony. No major American network aired live coverage that day.
Court Fight Moves to Next Round
The five networks in the primary television pool suspended operations after the Sept. 18 ban and tentatively resumed on Friday, Sept. 25. On Monday, Sept. 28, lawyers for the three outlets asked Kelly to extend his ruling for 14 days; the temporary restraining order was written to expire two weeks after it was issued. Both sides have until Oct. 5 to file arguments over a preliminary injunction that would block the ban while the lawsuit proceeds, and the judge will hold a hearing to weigh them. He has said he plans to rule quickly.
A White House official sent a statement touting Trump’s accessibility to the press and describing television networks as “performative and dishonest.”