Nicolai Haugsted
Trump’s latest move against CNN leaves his Tennessee trip without the usual television pool coverage.
Donald Trump’s battle with some of America’s biggest news organizations has already reached a federal courtroom.
Now it has followed him onto Air Force One.
CNN was scheduled to provide television pool coverage when Trump traveled to Tennessee on Saturday for a college football game between the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas.
White House guidance released Friday night showed something different.
CNN was no longer on the list, NBC News can confirm.
No competing network was named to take its place, leaving Trump’s Tennessee trip without the usual television pool coverage.
The decision came just days after ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and Fox News joined CNN in refusing to participate in normal television pool coverage after the White House removed CNN from the rotation.
CNN was supposed to be on Air Force One
Presidential coverage relies heavily on a rotating pool because space around the president is limited.
Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and CNN normally take turns providing television coverage that is then shared with the other networks and news organizations.
Saturday was supposed to be CNN’s turn.
Its journalists were scheduled to travel aboard Air Force One as Trump headed to Knoxville for the college football game.
Friday night’s presidential schedule instead left CNN out, with nobody assigned to replace it.
The result reaches beyond a dispute between Trump and one network.
Pool journalists work on behalf of other news organizations as well, meaning removing the assigned outlet can eliminate footage that would ordinarily be distributed far more widely.
A judge had just handed the White House a setback
The latest restriction arrived during an ongoing legal fight over press access.
Trump previously barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House.
Federal Judge Timothy Kelly temporarily intervened Thursday and ordered the administration to restore the affected credentials for 14 days while the larger case continues.
Kelly found that the outlets were likely to succeed in arguing that their passes had been revoked without constitutionally adequate due process.
Reporters from the organizations were eventually allowed back onto White House grounds.
The ruling did not, however, settle every question surrounding the television pool.
CNN’s participation remained unresolved even after its general White House access returned.
That gap has now become important.
Other networks have backed CNN
Trump’s decision to exclude CNN has also produced an unusual response from its television competitors.
ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and Fox News temporarily declined to provide replacement television pool coverage after CNN was removed.
The networks normally compete fiercely for viewers.
Presidential pool coverage operates differently because each outlet depends on the others to provide footage on its assigned days.
CNN’s removal therefore affects the system they collectively use to cover the president.
Earlier in the week, the television pool announced that it would not cover designated presidential pool events while CNN remained unable to perform its assigned duties.
Trump’s media fight comes with an unusual downside
Restricting the pool may punish a network Trump has repeatedly criticized, but it can also reduce television coverage of Trump himself.
That consequence was already visible during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the White House.
The television networks declined normal pool participation while the dispute remained unresolved, leaving major portions of the visit without the usual shared television footage.
Saturday’s Tennessee trip presented the same problem.
Trump was traveling to a major college football game, precisely the sort of public appearance that would ordinarily produce plenty of television footage.
CNN had the assignment. The White House took it away.
No other network was put in its seat.
