Explained: The White House submits journalists to a loyalty test
Explained: The White House submits journalists to a loyalty test
- Fri, Sep 25 2026 at 3:47 PM
Mark,
Last Friday, without warning, Trump unilaterally banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. Press access revoked.
I was part of the team that litigated this very issue in 2018 when I worked on PEN America v. Trump,1 which upheld journalists’ right to challenge presidential threats and acts of retaliation against the media.
But the president has never stopped attacking journalists. Thankfully, a Trump-appointed judge just ordered the White House to restore press access for the three banned outlets.
There’s a real pattern to all of this now: Trump ejects reporters. Reporters sue Trump. The courts slap down Trump’s unconstitutional First Amendment violations. In fact, he’s been on the losing side in nearly all of the First Amendment cases brought before courts during his second term.2
In an interview last week, Trump flippantly called the White House “the people’s house” — little did he realize that his own words bolstered the journalists’ legal case. Once the government creates a press-access system, it cannot selectively punish journalists because of their coverage. The White House doesn’t get to say, in as many words: “You may cover us, but only if we approve of how you cover us.” That would be blatant speech suppression.
The Justice Department argued that the president needs the authority to act immediately when a journalist’s conduct threatens national security, and that White House access is a privilege, not a right. In reality, national-security claims don’t automatically override our First Amendment protections.
In 1971, the Supreme Court weighed in on the Pentagon Papers in New York Times Co. v. United States, establishing an extraordinarily high barrier to prior restraint of publication based on national-security claims. And as far back as the 1930s, the Supreme Court has consistently held that the government cannot suppress disfavored journalism simply by invoking the public interest.
So the case may not be over, but the government’s arguments are weak — and they don’t seem to care: Trump has already threatened to withhold access for other outlets, explicitly naming The New York Times and The Washington Post.3 The administration has also kicked reporters out of the Pentagon and fought with the Associated Press over its refusal to adopt the president’s preferred terminology for large bodies of water (I’ll pause here for you to finish rolling your eyes).
Authoritarian governments rarely need to abolish the press outright: They control access, reward friendly coverage, punish independent reporting and make journalists compete for proximity to power. Eventually, the distinction between an independent press and a government-approved one begins to erode.
It’s encouraging that the press itself is asserting some power in the solidarity of refusing to cover a president who so desperately wants to be covered: After the White House excluded the three outlets, the TV networks of the presidential press pool — including Fox News — suspended coverage in protest.
These signs of resistance are welcome. But the larger issue transcends this one case. It’s about whether U.S. journalism will kowtow to the government or prioritize the public interest instead.
The First Amendment protects the press precisely because presidents cannot make that decision … and in the dark days of Trump’s second term, it falls to all of us to protect the First Amendment.
In solidarity,
Nora and the rest of us at Free Press1. “PEN America v. Trump,” PEN America, February 2018
2. “Trump Vowed to 'Bring Free Speech Back.' Judges in 75 Cases Ruled That He Has Stifled It,” Reuters, Aug. 4, 2026
3. “Trump Targets More News Outlets, Saying He Will Ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico From the White House,” The Washington Post, Sept. 18, 2026
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