{"id":351498,"date":"2026-09-20T03:24:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T03:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351498\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T03:24:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T03:24:24","slug":"trump-administration-updates-cnn-politico-and-ms-now-reporters-barred-from-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351498\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Administration Updates: CNN, Politico and MS NOW Reporters Barred From White House"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Justice Department has sent F.B.I. agents to reporters\u2019 homes to serve subpoenas<\/a> and, in at least one case, flashed a warrant<\/a> to seize devices. The Pentagon has fired<\/a> the editor and publisher of its traditionally independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and blocked access to other journalists who refused to sign pledges that would limit their reporting.<\/p>\n

Regulatory agencies are using their powers to pressure media organizations over their content. The administration has stripped funding<\/a> from public television and radio. Angry over stories he does not like, President Trump has sued major news organizations and the White House has taken control of the previously independent press pool that tracks the president, deciding which outlets can participate.<\/p>\n

Almost 20 months into Mr. Trump\u2019s second term, his long-running media clashes have grown into a sweeping campaign to control speech in America that stands out for applying so many levers, so fast, all at once.<\/p>\n

Driven by personal pique, fury over leaks and a determination to shape the political narrative to his advantage, Mr. Trump is deploying the might of the federal government and filing personal lawsuits \u2014 targeting not just journalists and liberal critics, but also comedians and talk show hosts, and the corporate entities behind them.<\/p>\n

To the president and his allies, he is simply demanding accountability for what he casts as biased, unfair and sometimes inaccurate coverage and criticism \u2014 an effort that has been welcomed by longtime conservative press critics like those at the Media Research Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aides noted that the White House has this year expanded who gets invited to cover events, such as the off-the-record presidential lunch with network anchors that precedes the annual State of the Union address.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said that \u201cbiased reporting from the media is a disservice to the American people.\u201d Pointing to Mr. Trump\u2019s heavy rotation of question and answer sessions with reporters as evidence of \u201cunprecedented access,\u2019\u2019 he added: \u201cWe utilize every tool available to ensure that accurate reporting is provided to the public and the stain of those who knowingly peddle false information is held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Free speech advocates say the president\u2019s intent is apparent: to punish, intimidate and silence dissenters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a week that goes by where they\u2019re not taking a new step to curtail press freedom in the country,\u201d said Clayton Weimers, the executive director of the North America division of Reporters Without Borders. \u201cWe have measured a substantial diminishment of press freedoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

When challenged in court, the president and the administration have frequently lost, confronted with strongly worded rulings from judges affirming First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

Still, even the path to legal victory can have severe financial and reputational costs for those he views as adversaries, which have included The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC. And each time the president assails what has long been considered protected speech, media analysts say, he is eroding norms and undercutting the role of an independent press.<\/p>\n

Reporters Without Borders maintains an index that tracks press freedom<\/a> in 180 countries, clocking governmental threats, subpoenas and the vindictive use of regulations against journalists. The United States now ranks at its lowest since the organization started the index in 2002 \u2014 64th, just above Panama and just below Botswana. The trend is the same at similar indexes kept by the Freedom of the Press Foundation<\/a> and the V-Dem Institute<\/a> of Sweden.<\/p>\n

There is a long record of U.S. presidents taking steps to curtail speech. President Woodrow Wilson imposed strict censorship and forced dissenting publishers out of business during World War I. Richard M. Nixon kept an enemies list, and his aides threatened F.C.C. action against broadcasters. More recently, the George W. Bush White House<\/a> expanded government secrecy<\/a> and the Obama administration<\/a> went after the sources of journalists through leak investigations.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump had inveighed against the Biden administration<\/a> for what he and his supporters portrayed as draconian pressure on social media companies to censor disfavored content often at their expense, promising at his second inauguration to \u201cstop all government censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now his administration is breaking new ground in stifling dissent with personal lawsuits and novel uses of executive power, longtime First Amendment lawyers say, with implications that extend far beyond Mr. Trump\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a different world under this administration because the threats are so grave,\u201d said Floyd Abrams, who has worked on free speech cases for 60 years. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to say there\u2019s an extraordinarily powerful First Amendment, but unless and until courts rule on these matters, the threat is very real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harnessing Government PowerPresident Trump brought a libel suit against the author of \u201cTrumpNation.\u201dCredit…Tony Cenicola\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Long before he took office, Mr. Trump was well known for his media feuds. As a developer and reality TV star, he was quick to threaten defamation suits against those who challenged his assertions about his business successes and his wealth.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has been candid about his aim: to inflict pain, even if it was fleeting. After bringing a failed libel suit against the former Times reporter Timothy L. O\u2019Brien, whose book \u201cTrumpNation\u201d estimated Mr. Trump to be worth far less than he claimed, the president gloated about forcing the publisher to spend money. \u201cI did it to make his life miserable, which I\u2019m happy about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In his first term, the president branded journalists as \u201cfake news\u201d and crudely attacked reporters, especially women.<\/p>\n

In his second term, Mr. Trump is now imprinting his pugilistic approach across the machinery of the federal government. Those who once might have checked him have been replaced by loyalists who often use their power to fulfill Mr. Trump\u2019s desire to punish perceived enemies.<\/p>\n

Soon after his inauguration, the White House banned The Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One, ostensibly because the wire service would not call the Gulf of Mexico by Mr. Trump\u2019s preferred name, the Gulf of America. Another reason for the ban: The A.P. would not give the Trump team rights to its photo of Mr. Trump, bloodied with a raised fist, after he was shot in Butler, Pa., in 2024. At a private lunch with Mr. Trump and network anchors last year, White House aides tied the A.P. ban to the denial of the rights to the photo, according to two people briefed on the event.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s team is unapologetic about its goal of achieving firmer control over the national information environment \u2014 what Mr. Cheung, the communications director, has dubbed<\/a> in a social media post \u201cFull Spectrum Dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and one of the most aggressive supporters of Mr. Trump\u2019s efforts, has said<\/a> that the president is \u201creshaping the media landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citing the big broadcast networks, Mr. Carr told an interviewer for CNBC last year that \u201cfor years government officials just allowed those entities, with executives sitting in Hollywood and New York, to dictate the political narrative.\u201d Mr. Trump, he added, has \u201cfundamentally changed the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the Trump administration\u2019s strategies appeared to take root in a dispute between Elon Musk and the liberal press watchdog group Media Matters for America.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Mr. Musk was furious<\/a> about a Media Matters article<\/a> that showed pro-Nazi posts were running on his social media platform X alongside promotional posts from major consumer brands, contributing to an advertiser exodus from the site.<\/p>\n

A longtime Trump adviser, Stephen Miller, took to X to pointedly note that Republican state attorneys general had the power to consider civil and criminal fraud charges against the group. In short order, Mr. Musk sued Media Matters for allegedly manipulating the X algorithm to produce its results, the Texas attorney general\u2019s office opened an investigation into deceptive trade practices and the Missouri attorney general followed with its own inquiry.<\/p>\n

Media Matters won court injunctions<\/a> blocking the Texas and Missouri investigations. But soon after Mr. Trump took office again, the Federal Trade Commission, newly headed by the conservative lawyer Andrew Ferguson<\/a>, began its own investigation<\/a>, demanding internal documents related to Media Matters\u2019 methodology for evaluating media sources and its finances.<\/p>\n

The investigation was part of a broader F.T.C. inquiry<\/a> into whether several groups that work to identify online disinformation were colluding with advertising firms to direct money away from disfavored outlets. Conservatives saw the issue as central to what some labeled a \u201ccensorship industrial complex.\u201d<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Washington ultimately determined<\/a> that the F.T.C.\u2019s investigation of Media Matters presented \u201ca straightforward First Amendment violation.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the fight was costly<\/a> for Media Matters. In addition to paying legal fees, the group said it had self-censored articles to avoid further scrutiny from the agency. (It is still defending itself against Mr. Musk\u2019s suit.)<\/p>\n

Brendan Carr, the F.C.C. chairman and one of the most aggressive supporters of Mr. Trump\u2019s efforts, has said the president is \u201creshaping the media landscape.\u201dCredit…Tierney L. Cross for The New York Times<\/p>\n

The F.T.C. also investigated NewsGuard<\/a>, a site that rates the reliability of online information. It is avowedly nonpartisan in its approach; Fox News, for instance, rates above MS NOW.<\/p>\n

In court papers<\/a>, NewsGuard said it drew attention in part because it had given a low rating to the conservative site Newsmax, which is run by an ally of Mr. Trump\u2019s, Chris Ruddy. Mr. Ruddy had complained<\/a> that ad agencies were relying on NewsGuard ratings<\/a> to withhold money from right-leaning outlets like his.<\/p>\n

The F.T.C. took another tack that NewsGuard said affected it directly, related to the merger of two of the country\u2019s largest advertising holding companies, Omnicom and Interpublic Group. The F.T.C. entered into a consent decree<\/a> with the newly joined company barring it from broadly using ratings like those published by NewsGuard to withhold ad spending from certain sites, among other things<\/a>. (It could still follow individual clients\u2019 requests to do so.)<\/p>\n

In a lawsuit filed in February<\/a>, NewsGuard said the provision effectively placed it on a blacklist, immediately causing it to lose business.<\/p>\n

The F.T.C. ultimately dropped its investigations into both NewsGuard and Media Matters, saying it had achieved its goal of defending free speech through agreements with ad firms<\/a>. It said it was fulfilling its mission of protecting consumers from anticompetitive behavior that \u201cdistorted the marketplace of ideas,\u201d as Mr. Ferguson put it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dan Schneider, vice president for free speech at the conservative watchdog group Media Research Center, described the actions by the F.T.C. and the F.C.C. as a correction against abuses under the past two Democratic presidents. \u201cPlease, let\u2019s not forget history and rewrite everything that went on before,\u201d Mr. Schneider said.<\/p>\n

But Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a Democratic F.T.C. commissioner fired by Mr. Trump<\/a> last year, said in an interview that the agency\u2019s actions were \u201ca perversion of the F.T.C.\u2019s authorities in order to punish the speech of perceived enemies and reward perceived allies.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018Deeply Un-American\u2019After Mr. Trump and the first lady demanded ABC fire the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke, the F.C.C. started an early review of the federal licenses that ABC stations need to operate.Credit…Mark Abramson for The New York Times<\/p>\n

Much of the administration\u2019s action has been led by Mr. Carr. The longtime F.C.C. lawyer is known to frequent the president\u2019s golf clubs when Mr. Trump is there on weekends and often speaks to the president directly about his grievances with news outlets, according to people briefed on their conversations.<\/p>\n

He has bent the F.C.C. to the president\u2019s will, investigating the major broadcast networks by reviving largely dormant rules, like those against so-called news distortion \u2014 meant to punish the deliberate staging or distortion of a news event. Mr. Carr has also pursued<\/a> networks for their diversity, equity and inclusion practices, inquiring whether they violate federal law and agency regulations, a tactic the administration has used to significant effect against universities and law firms.<\/p>\n

Early on, Mr. Carr extracted extraordinary concessions from Skydance, the company run by the studio executive David Ellison, the son of the billionaire Trump ally Larry Ellison, as it sought to purchase Paramount, the parent company of CBS. To secure F.C.C. approval for the merger, Skydance agreed<\/a> to end CBS\u2019s diversity policies and appoint a monitor for news bias. (Mr. Trump has since shown a rooting interest<\/a> in the Ellisons\u2019 attempt to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN.)<\/p>\n

Critics, among them<\/a> F.C.C. chairs from past Republican administrations, have said Mr. Carr is exceeding his authority. Mr. Carr<\/a> says he is simply following the law by requiring broadcasters to serve the public interest in ways that he says his predecessors had failed to do.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump is clearly pleased with Mr. Carr\u2019s effort to solve the so-called fake news problem, as he put it in a speech in April at a private White House event ahead of the celebrations for America\u2019s 250th anniversary.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s keeping these crooked networks honest,\u201d Mr. Trump said as he spotted Mr. Carr in the crowd, describing his appointee as \u201cthe most powerful man in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Mr. Trump recently called for punishment<\/a> of the NBC host Kristen Welker for reporting he did not like, and suggested F.C.C. action against the airing of \u201cfake polls,\u201d Mr. Carr responded by saying<\/a> the agency was considering \u201ca lot of actions,\u201d including on \u201cfake polls.\u201d<\/p>\n

No network has borne the brunt of the president\u2019s ire as much as the Disney-owned ABC network.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s animus against ABC grew in 2024, when he sued over the anchor George Stephanopoulos\u2019s characterization of the verdict in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, who accused Mr. Trump of sexual abuse. ABC settled the suit<\/a> for $15 million.<\/p>\n

In the president\u2019s second term, his anger has increased as the ABC late-night comic Jimmy Kimmel has made him the regular butt of jokes.<\/p>\n

Last year, the F.C.C. opened an investigation into the network\u2019s diversity and inclusion hiring policies and revived a conservative group\u2019s complaint<\/a> over ABC\u2019s 2024 presidential debate.<\/p>\n

Early this year, the agency sought to require its talk show \u201cThe View<\/a>\u201d to follow so-called equal-time rules for political candidates, even though the F.C.C. previously agreed that the show qualified for an exemption.<\/p>\n

In April, after Mr. Trump and the first lady demanded ABC fire Mr. Kimmel<\/a> over a joke he made about her being an \u201cexpectant widow,\u201d the F.C.C. started an early review<\/a> of the federal licenses that ABC stations need to operate, years before they are set to expire.<\/p>\n

The agency had never brought such a mass challenge to a major network\u2019s station licenses. It said it was doing so because ABC was deficient in its responses to the diversity and inclusion inquiry.<\/p>\n

ABC is now<\/a> fighting<\/a> the agency\u2019s actions, which it called \u201cdeeply un-American.\u201d<\/p>\n

The network has asked a federal court to intervene immediately, arguing that Mr. Carr was effectively using the agency\u2019s enforcement process to wage a \u201cretaliatory campaign\u201d that is already negatively affecting its programming decisions.<\/p>\n

Out of fear of retaliation, ABC decided to carry live online a prime-time speech that Mr. Trump gave on election security, which it would not have otherwise done, and avoided certain bookings and video clips on \u201cThe View,\u201d the network said in court papers.<\/p>\n

It also reported onerous F.C.C. demands for documents, including staff communications from inside \u201cThe View\u201d and internal ABC News editorial policies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unprecedented to seek these records because they are part of the editorial decision-making,\u201d Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic F.C.C. commissioner, said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s all a strategy, and tools, to intimidate broadcasters into submission.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Carr has called ABC\u2019s suit meritless. This month, the F.C.C. moved to get the case dismissed<\/a>, arguing ABC was simply trying to short-circuit an agency investigation while exaggerating harms to its speech rights.<\/p>\n

\u2018Off the Charts\u2019Mr. Trump is targeting not just journalists and liberal critics, but also comedians and talk show hosts, and the corporate entities behind them.Credit…Doug Mills\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit group that tracks press freedom violations<\/a> in the United States, said that the administration\u2019s moves \u201chave certainly risen to the level where they\u2019re kind of off the charts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government efforts to subpoena journalists and chill their reporting through threats are at the highest level since the foundation started tracking incidents in 2017.<\/p>\n

And as a private citizen, Mr. Trump has filed lawsuits against a wide range of targets including the Guardian newspaper<\/a>, the journalist Bob Woodward<\/a> and the Pulitzer Prize board<\/a> \u2014 legal battles often financed by his donor-funded political action committee.<\/p>\n

Many of the moves have also drawn stern rebukes and concern from judges.<\/p>\n

That was the case after the F.B.I. served a search warrant in January at the home of a Washington Post reporter and seized several of her devices, as part of an investigation<\/a> into a contractor\u2019s handling of classified material. In February, Judge William B. Porter chastised the government<\/a> and forbade officials from immediately reviewing the reporter\u2019s materials, saying to do otherwise would be \u201cthe equivalent of leaving the government\u2019s fox in charge of The Washington Post\u2019s henhouse.\u201d<\/p>\n

While weighing a suit Mr. Trump has personally brought<\/a> against The Des Moines Register for a poll it published showing him behind in Iowa in 2024, a judge worried<\/a> that allowing the suit to proceed could have \u201ca massive, chilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a judge harshly questioned government lawyers in July over subpoenas for phone records and testimony from Times journalists who reported on the security capabilities of the new Qatari-donated Air Force One jet, the Justice Department withdrew<\/a> the subpoenas.<\/p>\n

At the time, David McCraw, the paper\u2019s top newsroom lawyer, called the outcome \u201can important affirmation of our country\u2019s commitment to a free press,\u201d but added in a statement that the subpoenas \u201cshould never have been issued in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

In siding with The Times in a challenge to restrictions for reporters at the Pentagon, Judge Paul Friedman of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in March,<\/a> \u201cThose who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation\u2019s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

After The Times initially prevailed in court, Pentagon officials sidestepped the ruling to again limit the access of journalists to the building. The Times sued again. This time<\/a>, an appellate panel allowed a key new restriction to stand, at least temporarily \u2014 reporters must have escorts inside the Pentagon where they once roamed freely.<\/p>\n

The rule remains in place while the legal fight presses on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Justice Department has sent F.B.I. agents to reporters\u2019 homes to serve subpoenas and, in at least one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,1452,1693,4469,9,24,4468,63,1069],"class_list":["post-351498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-donald-j","tag-freedom-of-speech-and-expression","tag-freedom-of-the-press","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news-and-news-media","tag-nyc","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}