The Latest: MS NOW, CNN and Politico file lawsuit against Trump to restore White House access
CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday sued President Donald Trump’s administration after they were barred from covering the White House, saying the selective ban was “a blatant violation” of the First Amendment.
Meanwhile, Trump will meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani when Trump travels to the city for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly. The meeting is scheduled for Monday and at Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence. The two will discuss issues affecting the city and New Yorkers. The White House confirmed the meeting will take place but did not offer more details.
Here's the latest:
CNN, MS NOW and Politico on Monday sued President Donald Trump’s administration after they were barred from covering the White House, saying the selective ban was “a blatant violation” of the First Amendment.
The administration’s announcement of the bans Friday and the White House’s subsequent actions over the weekend represented a clear escalation of Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage he finds objectionable. They were also the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States, where the government is constitutionally forbidden from restricting the press.
The Constitution, the banned news outlets said in their lawsuit, “does not allow a president or any other government official to deprive the press of their First Amendment rights and liberty and property interests with no notice or process based solely on his dislike of the content of their reporting.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the news outlets’ lawsuit, which was expected to be filed later in the morning. But on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote Monday morning that he cherished what he called a free press.
“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” the president said in his post. “It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America. It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”
They were at an intersection just outside the White House complex.
Also Monday, CNN was removed from its pool duties, which are shared by the major networks. It had been scheduled to cover the president’s trip to New York. In an email, the TV pool, which consists of the five major networks, wrote that there would be no replacement coverage following the White House actions.
For nearly four decades, Canada built its economy around closer integration with the United States. President Trump has turned that dependence into leverage, imposing tariffs, threatening Canada’s sovereignty and openly seeking to pull Canadian industrial production south.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has moved on. Rather than return to trade talks or wait for the next U.S. president to restore the old relationship, he’s urgently building a future in which Canada is less dependent on America.
Last week, Carney embraced the prospect of Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member, not as a step toward full membership, but as a way to reduce Canada’s dependence on any single country without ceding control over its own decisions.
“The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future,” Jacqui Heinrich said. “The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.”
The meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week in Washington could cover trade, artificial intelligence and geopolitics.
Futures for the S&P 500 gained 0.7% on Monday, while those for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.8%. Nasdaq futures climbed 1.1%.
Oil prices fell more than 3% Monday as vessel traffic and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz picked up, although the Strait has remained largely closed and uncertainty persisted over U.S.-Iran tensions. Saudi Arabia on Saturday confirmed that Yemen’s Houthi rebels tried to attack its capital with a ballistic missile, the first targeting of Riyadh since the escalation in fighting with the Tehran-backed rebels that’s opened a new front in the Iran war.
Communism, President Donald Trump says, is the greatest threat the U.S. has ever faced.
This summer, citing similarly grave concerns, he took the rare step of delivering a primetime address to the nation, accusing China of “sinister election meddling” in 2020 and reviving his yearslong push to dispute his loss in that year’s election.
Even as Trump seeks to decry Democrats as communists ahead of November’s midterm elections, he's rolling out the red carpet this week for Chinese President Xi Jinping, the leader of the world’s most powerful communist country.
The state visit comes as the president himself has increasingly directed his administration to take large stakes in private companies to try to stimulate the economy — something even some Republicans decry as corporate socialism.
The contradictions between Trump’s words and actions risk muddying Republican attack lines on Democrats.
Trump will meet with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani when Trump travels to the city for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly.
The meeting is scheduled for Monday and at Gracie Mansion, the official mayoral residence, according to Anna Bahr, Mamdani’s communications director.
Bahr said the two will discuss issues affecting the city and New Yorkers. The White House confirmed the meeting will take place but did not offer more details.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist who upset former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary before winning the general election in November, has been a favorite and frequent political foil for Republicans.
But Trump has often been warm to Mamdani and seemed charmed by the young mayor. Their first meeting after Mamdani’s election was quite cordial, with Trump saying at the White House that the then-mayor-elect would “surprise some conservative people.” The Republican president had called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” during the 2025 campaign.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico said Monday they’ve notified President Donald Trump’s administration that they’re filing a lawsuit over being denied White House access.
Reporters from the three major news organizations were blocked from the White House on Saturday, a day after Trump said he was barring them because of reporting he found to be “fake news.”
The actions were a clear escalation of Trump’s long-running efforts — in the courts and through administrative action — to restrict news coverage by journalists he finds objectionable and were the latest test of First Amendment protections in the United States. Trump had said Friday he would ban all three outlets because of coverage he disliked.
© Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
