Waste of time to hear lies........

Major TV networks decline White House pool duties

The move comes after the Trump administration restricted access to the White House for CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO.

By Ben Johansen and Megan Messerly

The nation’s major television networks are declining to participate in White House pool duties moving forward in response to the Trump administration’s decision to bar CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House, Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton wrote in an email to TV pool subscribers.

“This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Boughton wrote in the email, obtained by POLITICO. “This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

The email, which was not sent to POLITICO in its official capacity, was designated “off the record” and “for planning purposes only.”

The “pool” refers to the press corps that travels with the president.

The move could make it more difficult for images and video of President Donald Trump’s activities at the United Nations General Assembly this week to get to the American public. The television pool provides video from events where space constraints prevent every outlet from sending its own camera crew, with footage then made available broadly to news organizations.

CNN was scheduled to serve as the television pool Monday. But a White House “daily guidance” email sent to reporters Sunday night listed no TV pool — which consists of the five major networks, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News — at all.

Instead, it listed Hearst, which operates local TV stations across the country, as secondary TV crew in Washington, and the pro-Trump Real America’s Voice as secondary TV crew for the president’s trip to New York.

It was not immediately clear to what extent those outlets, which are outside the traditional five-network TV pool arrangement, would disseminate their footage more broadly.

White House television pool members, including FOX News Media, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News, all pushed back on the administration’s media ban in a statement Monday morning.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” they said. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

Trump announced Friday that he was banning the three outlets from the White House “effective immediately,” accusing the outlets of reporting “FAKE NEWS.” He also threatened to extend the restrictions to other news organizations, including The New York Times and the Washington Post.

The administration began enforcing the restrictions Saturday, as journalists from all three organizations were denied access to the White House grounds. POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW filed a lawsuit Monday to immediately restore access for their reporters, who had their credentials confiscated by the Secret Service.

Trump, in a post on Truth Social on Monday morning, described his move as “instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which he said has “grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.”

“It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control,” he wrote. “It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

When asked for comment, the White House referred to the president’s Monday morning post on Truth Social.

Past attempts by the pool to use its collective power to negotiate has proven effective in prior administrations. In 2009, during the Obama administration, the Treasury Department sought to exclude Fox News from a series of pool interviews with Kenneth Feinberg, then-TARP administrator, despite the other pool networks receiving interviews. TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, was a federal government program to help in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The Washington bureau chiefs of the five major television networks agreed that none of their reporters would participate unless Fox was included.

The administration quickly backed down and allowed Fox News to participate in the interviews.