The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Five major TV nets- including Fox – band together, halt Trump pool coverage in response to Trump penalties

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(Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

BS BULLETIN:

  • The five major television networks in the White House pool say they will stop covering events designated for presidential pool coverage.
  • The move came after the White House prevented CNN from carrying out its scheduled pool assignment.
  • CNN, MS NOW and Politico are also challenging the Trump administration’s decision to bar them from White House access.

The escalating fight between President Donald Trump and several major news organizations took another turn Monday when the television networks responsible for White House pool coverage banded together and said they would stop providing that coverage.

CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox make up the television pool, which rotates responsibility for supplying video from presidential events to the broader media.

White House TV pool chairman and Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton informed pool subscribers that the system would effectively go dark after CNN was prevented from handling its scheduled assignment.

“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Boughton wrote in a memo.. “This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

The practical result could be significant: events normally captured by the rotating television pool may have no network pool camera present to distribute footage to other outlets.

The five networks also released a joint statement saying the public has an interest in receiving “accurate, independent information” about the government and arguing that an administration should not restrict an organization because it objects to its reporting.

The confrontation follows Trump’s decision to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House access. CNN was also removed from its scheduled pool assignment for Trump’s trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

CNN, MS NOW and Politico have announced a legal challenge to the restrictions, arguing that the administration is retaliating against them over their coverage and violating constitutional protections.

Trump, meanwhile, defended the move Monday morning on Truth Social:

“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish. 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!”

The dispute now leaves both sides in an unusual position: Trump has blocked several outlets he says traffic in false reporting, while the remaining major television networks are declining to step in and replace CNN in the traditional pool rotation.

The White House pool schedule released for Monday lists Hearst as the secondary in-town television crew and Real America’s Voice as the out-of-town secondary television crew.

DBS WIRE SOURCES:

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