CNN warns Trump White House: Restore Air Force One access or face further legal action

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The White House has been excluding CNN from President Donald Trump’s trips on Air Force One, disrupting a decades-old tradition of pooled TV coverage.

Now an attorney for CNN is warning that the network will take additional legal action if the White House continues to prevent its news crews from covering the president.

“These efforts to retaliate and discriminate against CNN based on the content of its news coverage are mistaken, counterproductive, and unlawful,” Ted Boutrous, outside counsel for CNN, wrote in a letter to the Justice Department on Monday.

The demand letter stated that CNN “will be forced to pursue additional judicial relief” if the action continues.

The letter is the latest extension of a legal fight that began when Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House one month ago.

The banned news outlets sued, alleging violations of the First and First Amendments. A federal judge intervened to restore access, first temporarily and then longer-term, while the lawsuit over the ban plays out.

The longer-term ruling by US District Judge Tim Kelly issued a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs, saying Trump’s ban likely violated the First Amendment because it amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

Judge says Trump press ban likely violates First Amendment

Following the judge’s order, the Trump administration restored White House access for the banned news outlets. But the Justice Department has justified the ban in court, and the White House has sought other ways to single out journalists.

Blocking CNN from traveling on Air Force One is one of those ways. The administration appears to be relying on an ongoing court case involving The Associated Press, which filed suit last year when Trump blocked AP reporters from Air Force One, the Oval Office and other areas with limited space for the press pool.

Trump took action against The AP because the news wire didn’t immediately start using his new name for the Gulf of Mexico like he wanted.

In June 2025, an appeals court panel partially lifted the stay obtained by The AP and stated that the news wire was not likely to succeed on the merits “because these restricted presidential spaces” like Air Force One and the Oval Office “are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion.”

But the ruling was “non-binding and non-precedential,” Boutrous pointed out in his letter, so it is not binding on other cases.

Boutrous also addressed the appeals panel ruling in the AP case by showing that the Oval Office and Air Force One have become the primary places “where the president interacts with the press by briefing reporters and answering questions.”

In the second Trump administration, the president has fielded more than 4,700 questions in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One and on the tarmac.

By contrast, he has fielded just about 150 questions in the White House press briefing room since returning to office in January 2025.

So far this year, through September, Trump has appeared in the White House briefing room only 4 times, while he has held “43 press events in the Oval Office” and answered questions aboard and around Air Force One “51 times,” Boutrous wrote.

The AP is still waiting on a decision from the full appeals court. Meanwhile, some of its access has been restored.

The White House has not explicitly said that it is following its AP playbook in its actions against CNN. In fact, it has provided “no written notice and offered no explanation” for excluding CNN from recent trips, Boutrous wrote in the letter.

The Justice Department did not respond to a CNN reporter’s request for comment about the demand letter on Tuesday morning.

But in a combative statement following the judge’s longer-term order last week, a White House official said “the Fake News has no place demanding a spot in the President’s Oval Office.”

The five major TV networks take turns providing pooled TV coverage of the president’s events and trips, and news organizations worldwide rely on the footage for their own reports and shows.

On several occasions when CNN was next in the TV pool rotation, the network was left off the White House’s list, signaling that it was “being barred from fully performing its pool duties,” Boutrous wrote.

Most recently, it happened last weekend, when CNN was supposed to provide pooled coverage of the president’s trip to Georgia and Florida but was excluded from the out-of-town travel pool.

In a show of solidarity, the other major networks have declined to fill in when CNN has been excluded.

The demand letter noted that CNN has participated in the TV pool and covered presidents in the Oval Office and on Air Force One for 45 years.

“That is because those spaces belong not to any particular president or administration but to all Americans, and CNN and other members of the press serve as surrogates for the public when covering the White House,” Boutrous wrote.

The demand letter may foreshadow new legal filings in the ongoing lawsuit by CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

Boutrous wrote in Monday’s letter that CNN would like the administration to “confirm in writing” that “the White House abandon any policy of excluding CNN from the Oval Office and Air Force One” and stop preventing assigned pool duties. He included a Thursday at 5 p.m. Eastern deadline.

“If these actions persist,” he wrote, “CNN will have no choice but to return to the court to defend its rights, and it is prepared to fight as long as is necessary to secure them.”

安娜·莫尼梅克/盖蒂图片社

白宫一直将 CNN 排除在唐纳德·特朗普总统乘坐空军一号的行程之外，打破了数十年来联合电视报道的传统。

现在，CNN的一名律师警告说，如果白宫继续阻止其新闻团队报道总统，该电视台将采取进一步的法律行动。

“这些基于新闻报道内容而对 CNN 进行报复和歧视的做法是错误的、适得其反的，而且是非法的，” CNN 的外部律师泰德·布特鲁斯周一在致司法部的一封信中写道。

索赔函中指出，如果诉讼继续进行，CNN“将被迫寻求进一步的法律救济”。

这封信是这场法律斗争的最新进展，这场斗争始于一个月前特朗普禁止 CNN、MS NOW 和 Politico 进入白宫。

被禁新闻媒体提起诉讼，指控其违反了宪法第一修正案和第一修正案。一位联邦法官介入，先是暂时恢复了这些媒体的访问权限，随后又延长了访问权限，直至禁令诉讼结束。

美国地区法官蒂姆·凯利 (Tim Kelly) 的长期裁决发布了有利于原告的初步禁令，称特朗普的禁令可能违反了第一修正案，因为它构成了违宪的观点歧视。

法官称特朗普的记者禁令可能违反了宪法第一修正案

根据法官的命令，特朗普政府恢复了被禁新闻媒体进入白宫的权限。但司法部在法庭上为这项禁令辩护，而白宫则寻求其他方式来打压记者。

阻止CNN记者乘坐空军一号就是其中一种方法。特朗普政府似乎正依赖于一起正在进行的、涉及美联社的诉讼。去年，特朗普禁止美联社记者进入空军一号、椭圆形办公室以及其他媒体空间有限的区域，美联社因此提起诉讼。

特朗普对美联社采取法律行动，因为该通讯社没有像他希望的那样立即开始使用他为墨西哥湾起的新名字。

2025 年 6 月，上诉法院小组部分撤销了美联社获得的暂缓执行令，并表示该新闻机构不太可能在实质上胜诉，“因为这些受限的总统空间”，如空军一号和椭圆形办公室，“并非受宪法第一修正案保护的、可供私人言论和讨论的场所”。

但布特鲁斯在信中指出，该裁决“不具约束力且不具有先例意义”，因此对其他案件没有约束力。

布特鲁斯还回应了上诉小组在美联社案件中的裁决，他指出椭圆形办公室和空军一号已成为“总统与媒体互动、向记者通报情况和回答问题”的主要场所。

在特朗普第二任期内，总统在椭圆形办公室、空军一号上和停机坪上回答了超过 4700 个问题。

相比之下，自 2025 年 1 月重返白宫以来，他在白宫新闻发布室只回答了大约 150 个问题。

布特鲁斯写道，今年到目前为止，截至9月份，特朗普只在白宫新闻发布室露面过4次，而他在椭圆形办公室举行了“43场新闻发布会”，并在空军一号上和周围回答了“51次”问题。

美联社仍在等待上诉法院全体法官的裁决。与此同时，其部分采访权限已恢复。

白宫并未明确表示其针对CNN的行动遵循了美联社的惯用伎俩。事实上，正如布特鲁斯在信中写道，白宫“既没有发出书面通知，也没有解释”为何将CNN排除在近期的访问行程之外。

周二上午，美国司法部没有回应 CNN 记者就该索赔信提出的置评请求。

但在上周法官下达长期禁令后，一位白宫官员发表了一份措辞强硬的声明，称“假新闻没有资格要求在总统椭圆形办公室占有一席之地”。

五大电视网轮流提供总统活动和出访的联合电视报道，世界各地的新闻机构都依靠这些画面进行自己的报道和节目制作。

布特鲁斯写道，有好几次，当 CNN 被列入电视联播轮值名单时，白宫却将该电视台排除在外，这表明它“被禁止充分履行其联播职责”。

最近一次发生这种情况是在上周末，当时 CNN 原本应该对总统访问佐治亚州和佛罗里达州的行程进行联合报道，但却被排除在出差报道范围之外。

为了表示声援，其他主要电视网都拒绝在 CNN 缺席时进行补播。

索赔函指出，CNN 参与电视联播网已有 45 年，报道过总统在椭圆形办公室和空军一号上的活动。

“这是因为这些空间不属于任何特定的总统或政府，而是属于所有美国人，CNN 和其他媒体成员在报道白宫时充当公众的代理人，”布特鲁斯写道。

这封律师函可能预示着 CNN、MS NOW 和 Politico 将在正在进行的诉讼中提起新的法律诉讼。

布特鲁斯在周一的信中写道，CNN希望政府“以书面形式确认”“白宫放弃任何将CNN排除在椭圆形办公室和空军一号之外的政策”，并停止阻止CNN记者被指派进行媒体采访。他设定了周四下午5点（美国东部时间）的最后期限。

他写道：“如果这些行为持续下去，CNN别无选择，只能重返法庭捍卫自己的权利，并且已做好准备，战斗到最后一刻，以确保这些权利得到保障。”