President Donald Trump’s administration continues to take actions aimed at rolling back transparency, chilling disfavored news coverage, and limiting press access to government. President Trump barred journalists from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from entering the White House grounds, an extraordinary escalation of the administration’s attacks on the press. Since April, government officials have continued to bar reporters from the Pentagon without an escort, as the Department of Defense has doubled down on its restrictive access policy. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has increased pressure on broadcasters to conform to preferred messaging. And the Department of Justice, now led by Attorney General Todd Blanche, has aggressively pursued newsgathering sources by issuing subpoenas to journalists. These are some examples that illustrate how the news media in the United States continues to face increased press freedom attacks on multiple fronts.
In September, President Trump abruptly announced that three outlets, CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, would no longer be allowed to enter the White House based on his claim that their reporting amounted to “fake news.” Addressing reporters from the Oval Office, the president rejected the fundamental right of the press to publish critical stories stating, “there’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories.” CNN has also been denied the ability to fulfill its press pool coverage responsibilities, a system where five networks – ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC – rotate in providing television coverage of presidential events, split the costs, and distribute the footage to the larger press corps and thus to the public.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico have filed a lawsuit to regain access to the White House as quickly as possible and were granted emergency relief from the Court. Additionally, on September 21, the group of networks providing pool TV coverage temporarily agreed to suspend such coverage after the White House refused to allow CNN to serve as a pool representative. At the time, acting chair of the television pool Bryan Boughton, the Washington bureau chief at Fox News, wrote to television pool members, “effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President.”
This most recent ban of the three outlets comes after the Associated Press (AP) was denied press pool and other White House access over the outlet’s continued use of the term “Gulf of Mexico,” in February 2025. President Trump denied AP access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other White House areas open to journalists. AP’s lawsuit for restored access remains pending.
The Department of Defense continues its efforts to exclude press from the Pentagon facility. Historically, credentialed journalists were able to freely access certain areas in the Pentagon building, allowing them to interact with Department of Defense spokespeople and other sources. The Trump administration has sought to cut off that access.
The New York Times continues to maintain its lawsuit challenging the Department of Defense’s policy restricting reporter access to the Pentagon, and it filed a second suit, alleging that the Pentagon’s new escort policy requirement for journalists is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Most recently, a federal appellate court reversed a district court decision, reinstating the temporary requirement that journalists in the Pentagon be escorted. Both lawsuits are ongoing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Additionally, in early June, the Department of Defense announced that it was designating the Pentagon’s press office as a classified space, marking another effort to restrict journalists’ access.
Then, at the end of June, the Department of Defense rolled out a proposal to grant the Secretary of Defense new sweeping authority to exempt unclassified information from disclosure under both the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state public records laws. If passed by Congress, the measure could potentially block a large swath of information from public access. Specifically, the proposal would permit the secretary to unilaterally designate a vast array of information in the public interest as “controlled unclassified information” or “CUI,” which would then be exempt from disclosure under FOIA. Should the change go into effect, any information the government does not want to disclose could be designated as CUI and withheld. The proposal has not yet been attached to any bill or voted on by the U.S. Congress.
In August, the Department of Defense fired three employees of Stars and Stripes, a historic newspaper and outlet serving the United States military community, which, while an element of the Department of Defense, has traditionally been editorially independent. Stars and Stripes’ editor-in-chief and a reporter were ordered to be terminated after making statements about encroachment from the administration into the paper’s editorial discretion, and the paper’s publisher opted to retire when instructed to terminate the two employees.
All three individuals later received notices of termination from the Department of Defense for insubordination and other violations, stemming from statements each had made to the media. The three employees have since sued the Department of Defense, citing a violation of their First Amendment rights in their termination; they were recently denied a preliminary injunction.
The FCC Chairman Brendan Carr continues to both threaten and take actions against broadcast license holders based on their perceived “bias.”
In June, the FCC began an inquiry into whether the American Broadcasting Company’s program “The View” could continue to qualify as a news program, and therefore maintain its status as exempt from the agency’s requirement to offer an interview of equal time to all candidates running in a particular race if the show interviews one candidate in that election. The View interviewed James Talarico, a candidate for United States Senate in Texas, but not his primary opponent. Historically, programs like The View have been viewed by the FCC as “bona fide news interviews,” and therefore exempt from a requirement to offer equal time to Talarico’s opponents. However, the Trump administration’s FCC has sought to reverse The View’s long held bona fide status, and if successful, would impose the requirement to offer equal time on the program. Practically speaking, requiring any informational program like The View to afford dozens of candidates’ equal time simply to interview a single candidate is not feasible and would chill political news coverage, which should receive strong protection under the First Amendment. The possible revocation of The View’s bona fide status remains pending under FCC review.
In addition to The View proceeding, the FCC has also targeted ABC broadly, taking the unprecedented move of calling in early all the network’s owned-and operated-station licenses for review at once, pretextually citing alleged discriminatory hiring practices. The investigation appears to be spurred by speech the administration perceives as critical. Last year, for example, Disney and ABC temporarily suspended late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live” after Chairman Carr remarked that Kimmel’s monologue about the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a “concerted effort to lie to the American people.” More recently, Chairman Carr stated that ABC’s choice not to air President Trump’s July 16, address could factor into the agency’s decision on whether to renew the stations’ licenses.
ABC has challenged the FCC’s license renewal action in court, alleging that the agency is violating the First Amendment by retaliating against ABC’s protected expression. A federal judge in Washington D.C. is set to hear argument on ABC’s motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in October.
The administration continues its efforts to uncover journalists’ confidential sources by issuing subpoenas to various outlets in connection with their reporting.
In April 2025, the Department of Justice under then-Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded important protections for the press that were implemented in 2022 by the Biden administration. The recission of the reforms to the DOJ’s “news media guidelines” made it easier for department lawyers to use tools like subpoenas to obtain information from journalists as part of criminal investigations into matters such as leak investigations.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in March, federal prosecutors subpoenaed its journalists as part of a federal leak investigation in connection with its reporting on U.S. military action against Iran. And in June, The Washington Post reported that the department had issued grand jury subpoenas to its own reporters, as well as those at the Wall Street Journal, which were later withdrawn following legal challenges by the newspapers.
In July, then-acting Attorney General Todd Blanche authorized grand jury subpoenas to several New York Times reporters, as well as to their third-party communications providers and some reporters’ family members, seeking the source of information for their stories on a Qatari-donated jet intended to be used as Air Force One. When asked about the subpoenas at his confirmation hearing in July, now-confirmed Attorney General Blanche stated that the Justice Department viewed the reporters as material witnesses, “just like a reporter would be a material witness to a car crash.”
The department withdrew the subpoenas issued to the New York Times reporters following a hearing on the newspaper’s motion to quash them. At the hearing, Judge Subramanian questioned why the government failed to follow the Justice Department’s news media guidelines, stating, “subpoenas are the last step, not the first step, but the last step.”
And in August, the existence of a Justice Department subpoena seeking information from a New York Times freelance journalist connected to his reporting on a 2019 top secret mission in North Korea became public, but the proceeding remains under seal.
In July, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security published a new rule limiting the duration of visas for foreign journalists working in the United States. While visas currently allow foreign journalists to stay in the country effectively for the length of their assignment, the new rule caps their term at 240 days. Foreign journalists who wish to remain in the United States beyond their term must now apply for a visa renewal and undergo a vetting process for national security risks. The new rule raises concerns that government officials may use it to deny renewal requests from journalists based on coverage it perceives as critical.
The Trump administration continues to take steps to bar journalists from key areas of coverage and has launched aggressive attacks on information gathering. Freedom of the press to report without fear of government interference is a key function of journalism.
