The White House blocked CNN from accompanying President Trump on a Saturday trip to Tennessee, a network spokeswoman confirmed Friday night, the latest escalation in a weeklong standoff with the Washington press corps.
The decision immediately raised whether the television pool would cover the trip. The rotating group of networks that film the president’s daily activities had boycotted those duties this week after Trump first barred CNN from the pool.
A Friday night White House email laying out Saturday logistics listed no primary television pool representative. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Associated Press is reporting CNN was replaced by Real America’s Voice News, a conservative network, for the president’s trip to Knoxville, Tennessee, according to White House guidance. Trump is scheduled to attend a college football game between the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas at midday Saturday.
The news came just after journalists from CNN, along with MS NOW and Politico, which Trump banned last week from the White House grounds, returned to the executive complex with TV cameras in hand after a judge handed the organizations a reprieve.
The dispute began last Friday when Trump posted on Truth Social that he was banning three outlets from the White House for “constantly” writing negatively about his administration.
On Thursday a federal judge ordered the White House to restore the journalists’ credentials “immediately.” On Friday the White House allowed CNN to film Trump and Xi at an event at the National Archives in Washington; the TV pool then resumed coverage.
The outlets’ lawsuit asked the White House to restore the access they had before the ban.