Informational vacuum to Trump as a protest for the veto to CNN, MS NOW and 'Politico'
Major television networks, including Fox, have announced that they will stop doing exhaustive coverage of the American president
WashingtonThe major American television networks have agreed to boycott Donald Trump and suspend their coverage of the pool presidential –the group of journalists that follows the American leader daily– after the White House prevented a CNN representative from accessing it this Monday.
ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and even Trump's friendly network, Fox News, have taken this decision as a protest against the veto that the Republican announced last Friday. "The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate and independent information about their government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it disagrees with its news coverage," the five networks said in a joint statement. This Monday the legal teams of CNN, MS NOW and Politico they have already informed the US administration that they will take legal action. Most likely, the litigation will lead to a long case regarding the scope and limits of the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression and information.
Later, Trump said on Truth Social that, if the judge is favorable to the class action lawsuit, he plans to appeal the ruling before the appeals court "Practically all the stories about me, or anything related to me, are negative, wrong and, in many cases, DANGEROUS for our country! No matter how GREAT my achievements are, they trivialize and disparage them", wrote the Republican, who labeled journalists as "clowns". The Republican made the post after an event held at the White House was broadcast without sound because there was no journalist from the pool.
In an unprecedented escalation in his war against the press, the US president said that he was banning the entry of CNN, the MS NOW network and Politico as retaliation for their coverage. According to the tycoon, it was a punishment for spreading what he considers "fictions and lies" and warned that "other media outlets" would follow the same fate.
The response agreed upon by the major television networks represents the biggest clash the press has experienced with the American president since he returned to power. Pressure against the media has been a constant of this second administration. Shortly after returning to the White House, Trump had already banned the Associated Press (AP) agency from being in the pool of the Oval Office because it refused to use the new terminology he had imposed for the Gulf of Mexico: "Gulf of America". At the end of a long legal battle, the courts ruled in favor of AP and it was able to regain access to the pool.
Last year, Trump also tried to cancel the comedian Jimmy Kimmel's show over some gags and threatened to revoke the licenses of all those television stations that provided "negative" coverage of his presidency. This is an idea that has also been repeated by the head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr.
Beyond the threats, Trump has also filed several lawsuits against major networks and news outlets in order to wear them down financially. The first was against CBS in October 2024, just before he reached the presidency, and the second was in December of that same year against the ABC television network.
