Dispatch News. White House Press Pool Revolts. U.S. State Media Begins. 9.24.2026//
Members of the media at the Bernie Sanders election night victory speech in New Hampshire in 2016. © 2016 Ryan McBride.
→ Since this news first broke, the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), and the other media companies that are apart of the press pool, have come out in support of CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, by suspending pool coverage of the President. Currently, the White House TV pool has consists of five networks: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and FOX.
Some historical context:
It's an incredibly rare event for a member of the press to be banned from the White House. It's even MORE rare for an entire organization to be banned. So much so that historically speaking, there is no definitive source I could find that an organization in it's entirety has ever been banned before Trump took office in 2016. There have been cases of exclusion, like in 2008 when former President Barack Obama tried to exclude Fox News from a press conference. This resulted in an immediate fallout, and all of the other major pool networks joined in solidarity by refusing to continue with the press conference without Fox News present for it.
But that being a rarity has changed. Beginning in 2016 when Trump started his first term, four organizations have been banned. Associated Press in 2025, and now CNN, MSNOW, and Politico.
The White House press pool is a hallmark of the fourth estate. Of freedom of the press. It was created out of the necessity of journalists to always have the whereabouts of the President known, whether they made news at the White House, or somewhere else.
By the 1930s, so many members of the media were covering the president, there was reason to find a way to pair down the amount of journalists in a way that would guarantee that the other members around the country that were not in this small group, would have access to the reporting and photographs that those in the pool provided. This idea was expanded and more formalized during the Dwight D. Eisenhower years while he was president in the 1950s. The press pool was specifically created as a small group of media members to be able to be with the President at all times, whereas the press briefing room, and more broadly, the White House Correspondents Association, has hundreds of members of the press who have access to the White House.
Back to Present Day:
Over the weekend after this news had broke, Trump's decision to ban the press pool immediate backfired. He was seen at ribbon cutting for a helipad, where he could not be heard because there were no microphones. And since the press pool is who controls and supplies that equipment were not present because of the ban, Trump was largely inaudible for the event, in which there is no doubt he was searing in the shadows.
Three outlets have also sued the Trump administration (regime), according to the NY Times.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico released a joint statement early Monday morning:
"This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes. Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference."
This lawsuit marks a critical moment in U.S. press freedom, and freedom of speech. It remains to be seen how quickly this lawsuit moves through the court system, and if the ban will be overturned. Though, as stated above, there are only a few instances where this has happened... they all happened under Trump. He lost all of those battles.
Where is this coming from?
Midterms are 40 days away and the Trump regime and all of his cronies are beginning to realize that their futures are at best, uncertain. Trump is now entering his lame duck era, which will not end until he either finishes his term, or is removed from office. This has him, and others, incredibly concerned.
Axios published a column called "Behind the Curtain: Trump’s future foretold", where they go into this very topic. It maps out a very clear mindset for Trump. He has (at the time of the article), 43 days left before the "beginning of the end", starts. And with it, Trump's power could end almost immediately if the democrats take over the House, and potentially the Senate, in November.
His decisions lately may seem like they are the same old same old, but he is unsurprisingly, escalating his rash actions. According to the article, his advisors report that his erratic behavior is increasing. Trump banning three media companies from the White House is a clear sign, after he had a horrendous week with the Supreme Court ruling against his mail-in voting restriction plans, a federal judge again blocking him from putting his name on the Kennedy Center, which also spawned a protest that very day. The Fed also raised interest rates after he made very explicit demands for them to lower them.
As the article cites from news platform Semafor, there is reason to believe the democrats could push hard. "Reps. Robert Garcia of the Oversight Committee, Gregory Meeks of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Jared Huffman of the House Natural Resources Committee", wrote a letter to Secretary Rubio and Attorney General Blanche, demanding they provide more information regarding the $13 billion dollars in revenue they received from Venezuelan oil.
All this to say, Trump and the closest members of his loyal circle could be looking at their last 40 days of power, and maybe even freedom.
Before we finish:
After the media banning blitz, Trump created the United States first ever official state media. Historically, and currently, there are government and publicly funded companies like Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia are funded by the U.S. federal government. There is also public broadcasting, which was created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
That was until Trump's regime begin live feeding 24 hours a day on the White House website, and YouTube. It marks an incredibly dark week as Trump lashed out at media, and banned three media outlets (CNN, Politico, and MSNOW). The numbers have been abysmal, which is no surprise as his support has hit historic lows. Government run state media is often used by authoritarian regimes to control the narrative of the country's regime. It comes as no surprise, but it is still something that should absolutely not be overlooked.
More to come as this story unfolds.