Trump flew to Tennessee on Saturday without CNN. The network was due to ride Air Force One as the day's television pool, the rotating crew that films the president for every broadcaster. The White House listed Real America's Voice instead in Friday night's guidance, a conservative outlet that has never belonged to that pool.
Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the move on Sunday morning. "The president has every right to decide who flies on his plane," he said on ABC's "This Week," and called it "national security, especially on Air Force One." Trump, he said, is "sick and tired of certain media outlets just refusing to report accurate news." Blanche rejected the word "denied": "The president hasn't denied access." Accurate, on this account, is whatever the White House says it is.
Trump put it shorter as he left for the game: "I want real news, not fake news."
Trump announced the ban on Sept. 18: CNN, MS NOW and Politico were out of the White House "effective immediately," for their "constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!" The White House deactivated their badges that weekend. The three outlets sued. On Thursday a federal judge, Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, ordered the badges restored for 14 days. He called the White House's stated standard "so vague it hardly does the trick" and wrote that the record "lacks factual support" for the claim that the ban protected national security. Kelly noted that Trump's own announcement "focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity" of the reporting.
Kelly's order covered the badges. He wrote nothing about the pool or the plane, and the White House used that silence within two days. The four other networks answered on Saturday, and the White House had tried this door once before the judge ever ruled.
