President Donald Trump on Sept. 18 said he has banned three news outlets from the White House.

Trump said on Truth Social that he was, effective immediately, banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”

The president added: “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”

Trump told reporters at the White House that one example was a story published Friday that went over deals his administration reached with drugmakers but did not mention that the deals had resulted in lower drug prices.

“It’s really just cumulative stories over the last few years,” he said. “You get sick of it, and you call them and ... they purposely write negative news.”

CNN and Politico defended their coverage.

“CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting,” CNN said in a statement. “We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government. Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”

“POLITICO will continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones. We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them,” a Politico spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

MS NOW did not respond to a request for comment.

White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) President Jacqui Heinrich said Trump described the move in the Oval Office as a “ban on the free press.”

“The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference. That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask.” Heinrich said in a post on X.

She said the issue was also about the public’s right to “a full and independent account of the activities, policies and decisions of whoever occupies the nation’s highest office,” and that the WHCA stands with their banned colleagues.

The National Press Club criticized the president’s announcement.

Club President Mark Schoeff Jr. said banning outlets over coverage the administration dislikes “is a clear attempt to control which voices are allowed to witness and report on the exercise of presidential power” and would, if carried out, mark “an unprecedented assault on press freedom.”

The club called on Trump to reverse the declaration immediately, arguing that the First Amendment does not allow the government to pick which journalists may cover the presidency and that the move would pressure other outlets to “soften their coverage.”

Trump previously banned The Associated Press from the Oval Office and other spaces after the outlet declined to change its stylebook to reflect the president’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

A federal judge entered an injunction against the ban, determining that it violated the First Amendment because it discriminated based on The Associated Press’s viewpoint.

But an appeals court in mid-2025 partially stayed the injunction. The court allowed Trump to ban the outlet from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and some other spaces, concluding that “these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion” and that the White House “therefore retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted.

Judges also ruled that Trump could not ban reporters from the White House’s East Room. “The identified harms are less clear with respect to the East Room, which does not share the hallmarks of spaces like the Oval Office,” the majority said.