Trump Immediately Bans CNN and Two Other Media from White House
On September 18, Trump announced via his social media platform Truth Social that CNN, MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico are immediately banned from entering the White House, citing these media's "continued reporting of fake news." He wrote in the post that media organizations "should not always fabricate fiction and lies when reporting on the president."
Regarding MSNBC's rebranding to MS NOW this year, Trump mocked in his post that the name change was due to "insufficient ratings and credibility." This statement directly interprets the rebranding as a remedial action following damage to the brand image, rather than the other explanations provided by the network.
Trump specifically named Politico, claiming that the media outlet received a "record $8 million" subscription contract directly from the U.S. government during the "corrupt Joe Biden" administration, aimed at keeping the media outlet "alive," describing it as "illegal and absurd" corruption.
The claim of "$8 million" has been verified by multiple media outlets in February 2025: the verification results showed that in 2024, several federal agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), indeed paid Politico over $8 million in total, but this money was dispersed across agencies for routine procurement expenditures for Politico's paid subscription content related to policy tracking, with USAID's actual expenditure being only about $24,000; both parties in Congress also purchased Politico's paid subscription services that year, and federal agencies subscribed to other media such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal at the same time. Politico's editor-in-chief previously publicly responded that the company "has never benefited from government projects or subsidies in 18 years, not a penny."
In the same statement, Trump also stated that "other 'fake news' media organizations will follow suit," suggesting that this ban may be just the first step, with the possibility of more media organizations being added to the list of those denied entry to the White House in the future.
According to Reuters, CNN, MS NOW, Politico, and the National Press Club have not responded to requests for comments on the matter. This is not the first time Trump has pressured media in a similar manner—he has previously called for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to revoke the licenses of television stations that criticize him and has pressured broadcasting organizations to remove programs unfavorable to him.
From a communication mechanism perspective, this ban directly affects the daily interview channels of the White House press corps—banned media will be unable to enter the White House to participate in routine briefings or coverage, effectively cutting off their channels for obtaining first-hand information from within the White House in the short term; the label of "fake news" combined with the previously verified inaccurate claim of "$8 million" also gives this ban a more opinionated character, rather than being based on newly disclosed specific evidence.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Trump's confrontation with mainstream media has a clear historical context—he has repeatedly publicly named CNN, The New York Times, and other media as "enemies of the people" since his first presidential term, and during and after his presidency, he has continued to pressure broadcasting companies to replace hosts and called for the FCC to revoke television licenses. This combination of "public humiliation + administrative pressure" has run through the entire history of his relationship with the media. The ban on three media outlets from entering the White House is the latest step in this strategy, escalating from "verbal attacks" to a specific administrative action of "physical exclusion."
Unlike regular commercial events, what is being mobilized here is not capital, but the scarce administrative resource of access to the White House—Trump treats the permission to "interview in the White House," which is part of the routine practice of press freedom, as an administrative privilege that can be unilaterally revoked; at the same time, he has rehashed the old claim of Politico's "$8 million," essentially weaponizing previously clarified information as ammunition for public pressure, rather than based on new investigative evidence. This combination of "reusing old materials + tightening administrative privileges unilaterally" is a low-cost, high-efficiency method of exerting pressure.
A comparable historical case is when the White House once banned CNN, The New York Times, and several other media from attending routine press conferences in 2017 on the grounds of "not being invited," which was partially reversed after public pressure and media negotiations; a similar script is now being replayed against the backdrop of the ongoing polarization of political and media relations in the U.S. The current stage of the industry is characterized by the continuous deterioration of trust between traditional mainstream media and sitting political figures, with media access permissions increasingly being used as political tools by administrative departments, as the "White House access rights" of media organizations shift from a systemic guarantee to a privilege that can be arbitrarily granted or revoked by administrative leaders.
This incident essentially reflects the structural squeeze of administrative power on the news supervision function: the original design intention of the White House press corps system was to ensure that mainstream media have independent and routine channels for interviewing and supervising the president's daily actions, but when the decision-making power of "whether to grant access" is entirely in the hands of the reported subject (the president himself), the supervisory relationship is inverted into a structural misalignment of "the supervised approving the supervisor." Mechanistically, this inversion can occur because White House access itself lacks institutional guarantees independent of the administrative department; once the administrative leader is willing to bear the public opinion cost, they can unilaterally tighten or even revoke the access qualifications of specific media at any time.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
Whoever controls access controls the boundaries of supervision
Rehashing old accounts often serves to cover up the lack of new evidence
Once the supervisor is approved, supervision becomes a performance