WASHINGTON — President Trump launched his counter assault to a decision by the major TV networks to boycott his White House events — Trump TV.
Labeling it as “essential” television, the presidential network launched Monday evening.
“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.
Its first broadcast was a speech Trump gave on July 3rd at Mount Rushmore.
The Trump TV rollout topped a long day of escalating fights with the media — a battle that has no end in sight.
The five TV networks — CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News — that distribute footage of presidential events to the rest of the press corps and outlets around the world, launched the first grenade when they announced the service was suspended until further notice, citing the White House ban on CNN, MSNow and Politico.
The major networks pointedly didn’t air President Trump’s ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday afternoon, when he officially opened the new presidential helipad before he departed for a two-day trip to New York.
“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 White House aired the ceremony on its own social media channels but Marine One, sitting on the helipad behind the president with its engine on, was so loud that Trump’s remarks could not be heard.
However, a few networks did air some of President Trump’s news conference later in the day with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“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 of the coverage. “Look at all that press,” he added, gesturing to the multitude of reporters outside of Gracie Mansion.
The standoff between the president and the media escalated throughout the day. Several print newspapers — including The New York Times and the Washington Post – announced they would not publish photographs of the president taken by still photographers until after midnight in a show of solidarity with the TV networks.
The Trump administration shrugged off the attacks.
“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.’”
CNN, MS Now and Politico sued the Trump administration Monday to restore their White House access after reporters for all three outlets were turned away from the property over the weekend.
The ban from White House grounds was Trump’s most aggressive move against the press so far in his second term after the Associated Press was removed last year from pooled access after the wire service refused to go along with his rebrand of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
The 27-page filing by the three outlets — which names Trump, White House communications director Steven Cheung, Secret Service Director Sean Curran and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles as defendants — said the president’s Friday announcement that the outlets were barred from the executive mansion “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 in front of U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who, in the first Trump term, ruled the White House could not ban Jim Acosta, then a White House correspondent for CNN.
Trump, on Truth Social, blasted the choice of judge and said his administration would appeal if the ruling was not in his favor.
“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.”
The TV network boycott was sparked when the White House declined to credential CNN on Monday, when it was the network’s turn to staff the TV pool, meaning it would have provided video of Trump’s trip to New York for meetings with Mamdani and French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
Trump’s travel is still being covered by print, radio and wire journalists, along with still photographers and the White House’s in-house camera team.
The president argued “fake news” should not be allowed into the White House.
“They’re very bad for the country, very bad for national security … So we’ll see how it works out,” he said.
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