President Trump rolled out his own streaming channel Monday night after major TV networks boycotted his White House events.
The service, branded Trump TV, debuted with a Fourth of July weekend speech the president delivered at Mount Rushmore on July 3rd. The administration promoted it as “essential” television running 24/7 with updates in real time. “TRUMP TV IS STREAMING NOW. 24/7, updated in real time, with top past moments, announcements, and the latest and greatest from the administration all in one place. Not every big moment has made it on your tv, now it can,” the administration wrote in its launch announcement.
The launch capped a day of escalating confrontation between the White House and the press. Earlier Monday, the five networks that make up the White House television pool — CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News — announced they were suspending distribution of presidential event footage until further notice. The move came in response to the White House’s decision to ban CNN, MSNow and Politico from the grounds.
“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” read a joint statement from ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media and NBC News, the five White House television pool members.
The networks pointedly declined to air Trump’s ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new presidential helipad Monday afternoon. The White House streamed the event on its own social media channels, but Marine One’s running engines drowned out the president’s remarks.
Several print newspapers including the outlet and the outlet announced they would not publish photographs of the president taken by still photographers until after midnight, joining the networks’ protest.
The White House dismissed the coordinated pushback. “Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left,” the White House said in a statement. “The rule was never ‘every outlet gets in.’ It was always ‘our side stays in.'”
The boycott traces back to Friday, when Trump announced that CNN, MSNow and Politico were barred from White House grounds. The ban represented his most aggressive press restriction yet in his second term, following the outlet’s removal from pooled access last year after the wire service refused to adopt his rebrand of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” On Monday, the White House also blocked CNN from staffing the TV pool rotation for Trump’s trip to New York, which would have provided video of his meetings with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and French President Emmanuel Macron at the United Nations General Assembly.
Despite the boycott, some networks did carry portions of Trump’s news conference later Monday with Mamdani outside Gracie Mansion. The president taunted the press corps over the incomplete boycott.
“It’s interesting because they said where they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me, so I wasn’t very worried about that,” Trump remarked. “Look at all that press,” he added, gesturing to the assembled reporters.
Trump maintained that “fake news” outlets should be excluded from White House coverage. “They’re very bad for the country, very bad for national security … So we’ll see how it works out,” he said.
CNN, MSNow and Politico filed suit Monday to restore their access. The 27-page complaint names Trump, White House communications director Steven Cheung, Secret Service Director Sean Curran and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles as defendants. The filing calls the president’s Friday announcement “could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.”
A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at 3:30 pm before U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who ruled during Trump’s first term that the White House could not revoke CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass.
On Truth Social, Trump attacked Kelly’s assignment to the case and previewed an appeal. “They have drawn a great Judge, for them, a man who ruled in favor of Jim Acosta, who now seems to have disappeared from the Planet,” he wrote. “In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal.”
Trump’s travel continues to be covered by print, radio and wire journalists, still photographers, and the White House’s in-house camera team.