CNN sets Thursday deadline for White House on press access

CNN is threatening to take formal legal action against the Trump administration, accusing the White House of unlawfully excluding its journalists from Air Force One press coverage despite a federal judge’s order restoring the network’s White House access.

In a demand letter to the Justice Department on Monday, October 19, CNN’s outside counsel Ted Boutrous called the administration’s action “mistaken, counterproductive, and unlawful,” warning the administration’s actions “mistaken, counterproductive, and unlawful,” warning the network “will be forced to pursue additional judicial relief” if the exclusion continues.

He set a Thursday, October 22, deadline for the White House to confirm in writing that it will abandon any policy of blocking CNN from the Oval Office and Air Force One.

The lawsuit is a result of Trump's banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from accessing the White House last month. The news organisations filed a lawsuit against him, but the U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly handed a preliminary injunction last week, saying that the ban was unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment. 

Though access to the White House was secured for the organisations, CNN has again been banned from the TV pool coverage of several presidential visits, including to Georgia and Florida.

According to Boutrous, the Oval Office and Air Force One have become the main locations where the interaction between Trump and the press takes place because the president answers over 4,700 questions in these places, whereas in the briefing room he answers no more than 150 questions. 

In addition, Boutrous claimed that CNN has been covering presidents while they travel in Air Force One for 45 years and that the AP v. The Associated Press decision of the appeals court is not "binding and non-precedential."

The White House defended its position, stating that no journalist has a constitutional right to access the president’s Oval Office or Air Force One, and that outlets which “lie, fabricate, and ignore truth” can “write their fiction from outside of the secure facilities.”