EditU.S. TV networks halt Trump pool coverage as press solidarity widens
The television-pool walkout is unusual because it includes Fox News, whose relationship with Trump has been closer than that of the other networks
Hours after CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO sued the Trump administration over their exclusion from the White House, the five networks that operate the presidential television pool refused to film the president. The result was a rare gap in live network coverage of official events, including the opening of a new White House helipad and Donald Trump’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The television pool – ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC – rotates a single camera crew that supplies shared video to other outlets when space is limited. CNN was scheduled to serve as pooler on Monday. After the White House omitted the network from its daily guidance, Fox News Washington bureau chief Bryan Boughton, the current pool chair, told members there would be no replacement crew for events designated as coverage of the president. Other pool duties, including those involving Congress and cabinet officials, would continue.
The five networks issued a joint statement: “The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
The practical effects appeared immediately. At the South Lawn ribbon-cutting for the new helipad, the White House’s own livestream carried Trump’s remarks without the boom microphones normally provided by the pool; the president’s words were largely inaudible over helicopter noise. Print, radio and wire reporters remained on the grounds, as did still photographers. Several of those photo desks – including The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, Getty Images and Agence France-Presse – agreed not to publish images from Monday’s presidential events until midnight as a further gesture of support for the banned outlets.
US TV networks cut live coverage of Trump in protest at ban on three leading outlets from the White House.
As a result of the row, Trump's opening of his cherished new White House helipad and his trip to the United Nations General Assembly are proceeding without live coverage… pic.twitter.com/UMKP26b7oK
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) September 22, 2026
The White House listed Hearst stations and Real America’s Voice as secondary television crews and promoted its own feed. On Monday evening it launched “TRUMP TV: The Essentials Station,” a 24-hour stream on the official White House YouTube channel and app. The service was billed as a place for “top videos, major remarks, and must-see highlights” updated in real time. Its first hours featured archived material, including Trump’s July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore rather than a conventional live newscast of the day’s events.
The banned outlets’ lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, names Trump, chief of staff Susie Wiles, communications director Steven Cheung and Secret Service Director Sean Curran. It seeks an emergency order restoring credentials and argues that the ban is viewpoint discrimination without notice or process. The case was assigned to Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee who in 2018 ordered the restoration of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s hard pass. A hearing on the temporary restraining order is expected this week.
The episode extends the dispute described in EUalive’s earlier report. Trump announced the ban on Friday on Truth Social, calling the three outlets’ work “fiction and lies.” Reporters found their badges deactivated on Saturday. The president has said access could return if coverage “gets better.” He has also framed the White House stream as a way to reach the public without what he calls “fake news.”
The television-pool walkout is unusual because it includes Fox News, whose relationship with Trump has been closer than that of the other networks. It does not stop the White House from distributing its own pictures, nor does it prevent individual networks from covering Trump with their own cameras away from restricted pool settings. What it does remove is the shared, independently produced live feed that for decades has supplied the pictures seen by audiences far beyond Washington.
Whether the courts restore the three outlets’ access, and whether the networks resume pool duty if they do, will determine how long this split in the information chain lasts. For now, the public record of the president’s official events is being produced in parallel: one version selected and streamed by the White House, another withheld by the traditional television pool in an explicit act of journalistic solidarity.
Caption: MS NOW reporter Vaughn Hillyard does a standup from outside the White House after US President Trump barred them, along with reporters from CNN and Politico, from entering the White House press room in Washington, DC, USA, 21 September 2026. All three outlets are suing the Trump administration to regain their media credentials to the White House campus. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO
Updated: September 22, 2026 - 08:16
