CNN ups the ante with major legal threat against Trump over press ban

CNN is sending President Donald Trump a warning: remove the ban from news crews covering the president, or further legal action will be taken. An attorney representing the media giant in its ongoing effort to restore media access has sent a letter detailing its intentions if the request is not met.

“These efforts to retaliate and discriminate against CNN based on the content of its news coverage are mistaken, counterproductive, and unlawful,” Ted Boutrous, an attorney for CNN, wrote in a letter to the Justice Department on Monday. The demand letter adds that CNN “will be forced to pursue additional judicial relief” if the action continues.

The move comes as legal matters escalate since Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House one month ago. All media outlets banned sued, citing violations of the First and Fifth Amendments. Other media outlets, including longtime Trump ally Fox, joined the protest, with U.S. television networks suspending coverage of the president and removing standard audio equipment, leaving viewers unable to hear his press conferences. A federal judge later ordered access restored, first temporarily and then for a longer period, as the legal battle over the ban continues.

The longer-term ruling found that Trump’s ban likely violated the First Amendment by unconstitutionally discriminating against a particular viewpoint. The White House restored access to the banned outlets under court orders but has continued to penalize journalists from media organizations it considers adversarial.

One of the ways they’ve continued to isolate CNN is by blocking the network’s new crews from traveling on Air Force One, which was previously a regular occurrence for the network. The administration appears to be relying on an ongoing lawsuit filed by The Associated Press last year after Trump barred its reporters from Air Force One, the Oval Office, and other space-limited areas reserved for the press pool. Trump retaliated against The AP after the news wire didn’t immediately adopt his new name for the Gulf of Mexico.

The CNN report notes that in Trump’s second term, Trump has answered more than 4,700 questions from reporters in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One and on airport tarmacs. By comparison, Trump has answered only about 150 questions in the White House press briefing room since returning to office in January 2025.

From January through September this year, Trump appeared in the White House briefing room just four times, compared with 43 press events in the Oval Office and 51 instances of answering questions aboard or near Air Force One.