All three barred outlets expected to challenge ban in court

Update, 20 September, 00:08 Israel time

Politico has reported that senior figures inside the administration were caught off guard by Trump's decision to bar journalists from the White House, according to an alert from Ynet. No official is named in the alert, and the White House press office is not quoted.

Ynet also reported that CNN's Betsy Klein, broadcasting from a nearby street, said her badge had been taken from her and that only the plastic holder was handed back. She said the network would carry on working from wherever it could. Ynet's report said press freedom advocates raised concern about a chilling effect beyond the United States.

The Times of Israel, carrying an AFP report, said all three organisations are expected to challenge the exclusions in court in an effort to restore access, going further than the earlier reports in which only MS NOW had said it would sue and CNN had said it would take unspecified steps. The AFP item also settled the naming question flagged on this page, stating that MS NOW was formerly known as MSNBC, and quoted the network's statement on X that the White House belongs to the American people and that decisions taken there are paid for by taxpayers.

Update, 19 September, 20:07 Israel time

Politico has now said its journalists were also refused entry to the White House. An alert from Ynet quoted the publication as saying its staff were not allowed into the building, making it the third of the named organisations to report that its reporters were kept out rather than only barred on paper.

The exclusion of the other two networks was also picked up outside Israel's liveblogs. The Jerusalem Post reported that CNN and MS NOW reporters were blocked from entering the complex following the ban, citing the president's characterisation of the outlets as producers of fake news. The Post's item carried a Getty Images photograph of CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein delivering a television report from a street corner outside the White House grounds after being denied entry.

The Ynet alert does not say whether Politico's credentials were cancelled in the same way the two networks described, and it carries no statement from Politico on whether it intends to take legal action. No response from the White House press office appears in either report.

Update, 19 September, 18:08 Israel time

Reporters for CNN and MS NOW have now been refused entry to the White House, and their credentials cancelled. The Times of Israel reported that journalists from both networks went on air to say they had been turned away, and that CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein was photographed outside the complex holding an empty credential holder after hers was revoked.

According to an alert from Ynet, MS NOW said its correspondents were not allowed into the building, which it described as belonging to the American people. A later Ynet alert said CNN staff were subsequently blocked as well, quoting the wording that their authorisation had been cancelled.

CNN issued a statement, carried by The Times of Israel, saying it stood behind its reporters and would not be turned from holding the government and other public bodies to account. MS NOW also said it stood behind its journalists.

The Israeli broadcaster N12 reported that MS NOW said it would sue over the exclusion, arguing it breaches First Amendment protections, and that CNN said it would take steps of its own. N12 also reported that staff badges for both networks had been cancelled. The reports do not say whether Politico journalists were refused entry, and no response from the White House press office appears in them.

The story as first reported

US President Donald Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW and Politico are barred from the White House with immediate effect, accusing the three news organisations of persistently publishing false reporting. The Times of Israel reported that the announcement was made on Truth Social, the social network Trump owns, and quoted him as saying he was "proud to announce" the ban and accusing the outlets of reporting "fiction and lies".

Israel Hayom reported that Trump said further news organisations would face similar treatment. In a later statement relayed by Ynet, the president said the coverage produced by the outlets he named made him sick, and accused them of being consistently biased against his administration. Ynet also reported that CNN responded by describing its exclusion from the White House as an unlawful attack on freedom of the press.

What a White House press pass actually is

Reporters who cover the American presidency day to day work from inside the White House complex, and access is controlled through credentials issued by the administration. Holding one allows a journalist into the briefing room, onto the grounds and, in rotation, into the small pool of correspondents who travel with the president and are present at events closed to the wider press corps. Losing that access does not stop an organisation from reporting on the presidency, but it removes it from the room where questions are asked directly and where announcements are first made.

The three organisations named are among the larger outlets in Washington. CNN is a cable news network with a global footprint. Politico is a publication built around the business of American government and legislation, widely read inside Washington itself. MS NOW is the network previously known as MSNBC, a cable channel whose opinion programming has long been critical of Trump.

A naming change that shows up in the coverage

The material carries a discrepancy worth flagging. The Times of Israel, Israel Hayom and The Jerusalem Post all refer to the second outlet as MS NOW. Ynet's main article and the Telegram channel Abu Ali Express render it as MSNOW, while the Israeli broadcaster N12's foreign desk initially named MSNBC and subsequently issued an edited item that referred only to CNN and other networks. Israel Hayom's report described MS NOW using the word "formerly", though the text available to us is cut off before the former name is given. The reports therefore point at the same network under two names, and none of them explains the change.

Why Israeli outlets are covering this closely

American media coverage of the presidency is followed unusually attentively in Israel, because the outlets involved are also the principal channels through which US policy on the Middle East reaches an international audience. CNN and Politico are routinely cited in Israeli reporting on Washington's positions, and Israeli newsrooms maintain foreign desks whose job is to relay American political developments to a domestic readership within minutes. The speed of the coverage here reflects that: the item moved through Israeli news alerts, Telegram channels and liveblogs within the same hour as the Truth Social post.

The announcement also lands in the context of a long and public antagonism between Trump and parts of the American press. The Jerusalem Post reported the ban as taking effect immediately, framing it around the president's own "fake news" characterisation of the outlets. Israel Hayom noted that Trump has clashed repeatedly with CNN and with MS NOW.

The response from the newsroom

CNN's reply, as reported by Ynet, placed the dispute on constitutional ground rather than on the accuracy of any particular story, calling the exclusion illegal and casting it as an attack on press freedom. The material available does not include a fuller statement from the network, nor responses from Politico or MS NOW.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports identifies a specific article, broadcast or claim that prompted the decision. The Times of Israel noted explicitly that Trump did not offer specifics for the accusation of reporting fiction and lies.

The reports also do not describe the mechanism: whether press credentials have been formally revoked, who at the White House is implementing the ban, whether it covers the whole of each organisation or named correspondents, and whether it extends to presidential travel and pooled coverage. There is no indication of how long the ban is intended to last, nor of any process for appealing it.

Which additional outlets Trump had in mind when he said others would follow is not stated in any of the reports. No response from the White House press office beyond the president's own post appears in the material, and there is no indication that any of the three organisations has begun legal action. Whether reporters from the three were physically turned away at the complex is not addressed.