The White House blocked Politico from traveling on Air Force One with President Donald Trump to Nebraska as part of the press pool covering his travels on Monday.
It’s the president’s latest move in an escalating war with media organizations whose coverage he does not like, after he previously tried to ban Politico, CNN and MS NOW from the White House last month.
The president’s move to ban the publication from Air Force One was first reported by CNN. A spokesperson confirmed with the Daily Beast that it was excluded as part of the out-of-town travel pool, a small group of reporters who travel with the president.
Politico is in a legal battle with the administration after Trump tried to completely block the three outlets from White House grounds, but that was temporarily halted by a federal judge after they filed a lawsuit.
The effort to ban its journalists from Air Force One appears to be the president’s workaround for now as the ongoing legal battle plays out.
The White House claimed that while Politico is allowed to attend presidential events, traveling on Air Force One with the president is a privilege, not a right, in response to the Daily Beast’s inquiry about Politico being blocked as part of the travel pool on Monday.
Trump first announced he was banning Politico, CNN and MS NOW from the White House in a Truth Social post on September 18.
Journalists from the organizations who showed up to work at the White House had their hard passes confiscated and were denied access by security the next morning.
District Judge Timothy Kelly sided with the news organizations days later after they scrambled to file a lawsuit, which argued the White House ban violates the First and Fifth Amendments.
Kelly ordered that the media organizations’ access to the White House grounds be immediately restored for two weeks as the litigation continued. He also acknowledged they would likely succeed on the merits of the case.
However, the president has been trying to exact his revenge in a series of other ways, such as banning their travel as part of the press pool on Air Force One or from covering specific events the pool is brought into the Oval Office for.
The administration has argued in court filings that the First Amendment does not apply to certain presidential spaces such as the Oval Office or Air Force One.
Before the White House barred Politico from traveling on Air Force One as part of the pool to Nebraska on Monday, it had repeatedly blocked CNN from traveling with the president when the network was up to be the TV pool representative.
Now that Politico was up to travel as part of the out-of-town pool in the rotation, it has also been denied access.
A hearing before Kelly on the lawsuit is scheduled for Thursday, as the organizations seek a preliminary injunction to protect access to the White House for a longer period of time as the legal battle proceeds.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is now arguing in favor of allowing the ban to proceed as a matter of national security, something Trump did not mention in his original September post.
