Fox News joined ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC this week in refusing to film President Trump’s public events until CNN is restored to the White House press corps, after Trump banned CNN, Politico and MS NOW as “fake” news.
The five networks share the presidential TV pool, rotating the cost and duty of filming the president’s daily movements. After last week’s ban, they refused to replace CNN’s camera. On Tuesday night, Fox was scheduled to cover Trump’s Air Force One arrival at Joint Base Andrews and declined to film it.
A Fox spokeswoman referred questions to the joint statement.
The stance has surprised some liberal Fox critics and unsettled some Trump hard-liners. Inside Fox, journalists have framed it as both history and self-interest, people familiar with the deliberations said.
Fox joined the White House TV pool in the 1990s as a young network seeking Washington legitimacy. In 2009, when the Obama administration labeled Fox “a wing of the Republican Party” and tried to bar it from a Treasury event, the other networks refused to participate until Fox was reinstated.
Fox officials also note that a future Democratic administration could try to ban Fox the way Trump has banned CNN. Standing with CNN now, they argue, is insurance later. Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer put the same point on X: “Don’t ban them. Or one day they’ll ban us.”