CNN threatened the White House with further legal action if it does not restore its access to Air Force One.
This follows a court ruling against President Donald Trump’s decision to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House briefing room. The White House restored access to the briefing room, but has excluded CNN from Air Force One.
The White House has been excluding CNN from President Donald Trump’s trips on Air Force One, disrupting a decades-old tradition of pooled TV coverage.
Now an attorney for CNN is warning that the network will take additional legal action if the White House continues to prevent its news crews from covering the president.
“These efforts to retaliate and discriminate against CNN based on the content of its news coverage are mistaken, counterproductive, and unlawful,” Ted Boutrous, outside counsel for CNN, wrote in a letter to the Justice Department on Monday.
The demand letter stated that CNN “will be forced to pursue additional judicial relief” if the action continues.
The letter is the latest extension of a legal fight that began when Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House one month ago.
The banned news outlets sued, alleging violations of the First and Fifth Amendments. A federal judge intervened to restore access, first temporarily and then longer-term, while the lawsuit over the ban plays out.
The longer-term ruling by US District Judge Tim Kelly issued a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs, saying Trump’s ban likely violated the First Amendment because it amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
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CNN has spent 45 years accompanying US presidents aboard Air Force One. Now, the network says Donald Trump’s administration is repeatedly blocking its journalists from the aircraft, even after a federal judge ruled against a wider White House ban. The dispute began on September 18, when Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico reporters from White House grounds, accusing the outlets of spreading fake news. A federal judge subsequently granted the organisations a preliminary injunction, allowing them to challenge the restrictions while their lawsuit continues. But CNN says the White House has still prevented its journalists from boarding Air Force One on at least four occasions when the network was scheduled to provide television coverage for other news organisations. CNN’s attorney, Theodore Boutrous Jr., argues that the aircraft and presidential offices belong to the American public, not whichever administration occupies the White House. The network has given the administration two days to respond, warning that it will return to court if the exclusions continue. The White House has not provided CNN with an explanation for the Air Force One restrictions, according to its lawyers. #AirForceOne #DonaldTrump #CNN
— Flightdrama (@flightdrama) October 21, 2026
The president barred CNN from traveling with him to Georgia and Florida over the weekend.
Boutros further argued that CNN traditionally had “uninterrupted access to the Oval Office and Air Force One for 45 years” because “those spaces belong not to any particular president or administration but to all Americans, and CNN and other members of the press serve as surrogates for the public when covering the White House.”
The attorney further stated that the White House is now engaging in “what appears to be a new unstated policy to interfere with CNN’s ability to fulfill its duties.”
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