The White House again blocked CNN from fulfilling its scheduled TV pool duties, barring the network from traveling with President Donald Trump as he visits Texas and Oklahoma on Thursday.

The move marked Trump’s latest effort to restrict media access after a judge ordered the president to temporarily lift his White House ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico last week.

CNN had been scheduled to travel with Trump on Air Force One on Thursday as he launched a campaign blitz in deep-red Texas and Oklahoma, according to a weekly White House press schedule released Sunday. But when the president’s daily schedule was released ahead of the trip, CNN had once again been barred from providing television pool coverage.

Though no primary TV pooler is set to travel with Trump on Thursday, cameras are expected to be on the president at the campaign events where he is scheduled to speak.

When asked for comment, a White House official said that Trump was “the most accessible President in history” and suggested that some of the backlash to the restrictions on media access were “performative and dishonest.”

The move comes after a federal judge on Sept. 24 blocked Trump’s effort to ban journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. That order applied only to White House access and did not touch on the ongoing feud between the president and the television pool tasked with covering him.

“As we explain in our latest brief, the White House is persisting in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing the President’s unconstitutional ‘ban on the free press’ by barring CNN from fulfilling its role as a designated television network pooler — to the detriment of CNN, its fellow pool members and, ultimately, the American public,” Ted Boutrous, the lawyer representing CNN, MS NOW and Politico, said in a statement Thursday.

None of the other four major news networks that make up the presidential pool — ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC — agreed to take CNN’s place ahead of Trump’s trip Thursday. The networks agreed to temporarily suspend televised coverage of Trump last month as a show of solidarity after the Trump administration blocked CNN from traveling to New York with him to serve as the primary TV pooler for Trump’s address to the United Nations General Assembly.

The primary TV pooler provides the sole television and audio stream the other four news networks rely on to broadcast presidential movements to the American public. ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC decide the daily rotation.

Lindsey Pipia contributed reporting.

The post White House again bars CNN from press pool as Trump heads to Texas and Oklahoma appeared first on MS NOW.

Author: Source Author

From MS Now.