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White House removes CNN from press pool for Trump’s upcoming trip to Texas and Oklahoma

CNN was previously scheduled to fly on Air Force One and also provide on-the-ground coverage of Trump’s trip.

President Donald Trump speaks to the media aboard Air Force One on its way to Joint Base Andrews, Md., from Ireland on Sept. 13.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images file

Sept. 30, 2026, 11:29 PM EDT

The White House on Wednesday removed CNN from the press pool that’s set to cover a trip by President Donald Trump on Thursday, escalating a feud with the cable network after a federal judge blocked the administration’s push to restrict its media access.

CNN had been designated to travel with Trump on Thursday, according to a press rotation document the White House released Sunday. But when the daily guidance came out for his scheduled visit to a truck manufacturing facility in Denton, Texas, followed by remarks in Durant, Oklahoma, it did not list CNN as providing pool coverage.

The move comes less than a week after a federal judge halted Trump’s effort to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. It also comes after the White House barred CNN from flying on Air Force One over the weekend when Trump traveled to Tennessee, when the network was scheduled to provide pool coverage. (The judge’s order was limited to media access on the White House grounds.)

Emily Kuhn, a spokesperson for CNN, confirmed the cable network’s removal from planned pool coverage but did not provide additional comment. Instead, she pointed to an earlier statement from Theodore Boutrous, an attorney representing CNN, MS NOW and Politico in their fight with the White House over press access.

“As we have said from the beginning, the President’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House is a blatant violation of the First Amendment and due process,” Boutrous said in a statement Monday, when the three news outlets asked a federal judge to extend his pause on Trump’s ban.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about CNN’s exclusion from Thursday’s trip.

The White House press pool is a group of media outlets that share video, editorial information and costs for coverage of high-profile officials and events involving the president anywhere in the world. Under the system, each day’s designated “poolers” represent the wider press corps to document newsworthy events and serve as a conduit between the president and the public.

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The White House Correspondents’ Association, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a group of 49 news and media organizations that included NBCUniversal Media, the parent company of NBC News, filed a legal brief last week in support of CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

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Other member networks of the pool — Fox News, ABC News, CBS News and NBC News — briefly boycotted participating in pool duties last week in solidarity with CNN.

NBC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the exclusion of CNN for Thursday’s trip and whether it intended to take any action.

Trump has restricted access for other news outlets before. In 2025, he banned The Associated Press from the Oval Office, Air Force One and certain events for not referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America — his preferred name for the gulf.

The AP sued, and the case continues.

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