MS NOW, CNN and Politico sue Trump over White House ban

All In with Chris Hayes

The episode examines the legal challenges facing the Trump administration following a ban on MSNOW, CNN, and Politico from White House groun

Key takeaways

• MSNOW, CNN, and Politico have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for violating First Amendment rights via media access bans.
• Recent polling from ARG places Donald Trump's approval rating at 29%, a significant political low.

Main topics

• First Amendment Lawsuit
• 2026 Midterm Election Strategy

Notable quotes

He wants this to be a country like Russia. He wants this to be a country in which he is a king.

Conclusion

The episode provides a deep dive into the escalating tensions between

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) Hey friends, Americans living abroad can legally vote in the U.S. election. Register or get tailored support at votefromabroad.org. Look, state deadlines are super close, so don't waste another second. Go to votefromabroad.org now and click Request My Ballot. Ask to receive it by email. All you gotta do is fill it out and send it back in. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. Votefromabroad.org. For many of Speaker 1 (0:27) us, going further... Speaker 1 (0:51) Beyond Borders Speaker 1 (0:57) Tonight on All In. He wants this to be a country like Russia. He wants this to be a country in which he is a king. But it's not his say-so. It's our say-so. And the Speaker 4 (1:09) no kings thing is not just a slogan. It's a truth. Speaker 2 (1:13) MSNOW, CNN and Politico join forces to sue the Trump administration for violating the First Amendment. Speaker 1 (1:20) I'm trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News, get out of here. It's Speaker 2 (1:27) unimaginable. Tonight, the lawsuit, the response and the massive implications for the free press in America. Speaker 1 (1:35) I just don't think this is something that will last in this country. We don't do this in this country. Again, we'll see. Speaker 2 (1:44) Then as more Republicans try breaking with Trump to win their races, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear on the countdown to the midterms. And what on earth is going on with Mitch McConnell? An Speaker 8 (1:55) All In starts right now. Speaker 2 (2:02) Good evening from New York. I'm Chris Hayes. Donald Trump's entire political project is in pretty rough shape right now. I mean, I think by Speaker 8 (2:09) almost every measure, the worst it's been this term. There's an argument the worst it's ever been. And he's not happy and he's lashing out. And as you may have noticed, his latest stunt is an unconstitutional ban of this very network, Speaker 2 (2:22) along with Politico and CNN from the White House. In fact, from the White House grounds, it appears. And what you have to understand is that this is a symptom of the president operating from a place currently of profound weakness. I mean, not weakness in terms of he's still the president, but political weakness. Today, we got a new poll from ARG, pretty good pollster, that puts the president's approval rating at... Ready for this? 29%. It's below freezing. You don't see that that often. Herbert Hoover got 40 % in 1932. Now, this is an outlier for now, but an appalling thing that starts with two is when things start getting politically catastrophic. I mean, the only real modern precedent would be George W. Bush at the end of his second term, true lame duck territory, Speaker 8 (3:04) entire global economy tanked. We had the worst financial crisis in 70 years, and we were stuck fighting two unpopular wars. People actually, it's funny about George W. Bush, Republicans loved him, were almost cultishly devoted to him. I mean, you know, it's all been memory hold bow, but no one can even remember the guy's name Speaker 2 (3:22) anymore. Even if you want to set that poll aside, the outlier, the 29, survey after survey shows Trump is in the low 30s. And it's clear people do not like what he's doing. Now, if you're watching this show right now, I suspect you have known that for some time. But here's the thing. Recently, that reality is also starting to make its way to the president himself. You see, Donald Trump is Speaker 8 (3:44) normally inoculated from bad news entirely. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles just doesn't let him hear it. Speaker 1 (3:53) Is Susie Wiles able to deliver Donald Trump bad news? No, nobody delivers Donald Trump's bad news. That's why she would, and she most of all would understand that's not a good look. So Trump gets, I mean, it's an important aspect of this administration. Trump get functionally and fundamentally gets no bad news. Even if the news is bad and even it has to be delivered, it's delivered actually as though it were good news. Speaker 8 (4:28) Now, eventually, when things get bad enough, the news will find its way to the rest of the desk. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported the president is spending his days pouting. that he's not getting enough credit for what he believes to be his accomplishments. He's actually been rage posting some of them. Buried in that report is a little nugget that actually provides, we think, some clarity on our current situation. Quote, the president has objected in public and private to media coverage of his presidency for months, but his frustrations reached a fever Speaker 2 (4:55) pitch on Friday when one of his closest aides, Natalie Harp, showed him clips of Speaker 8 (4:59) anchors on the cable network MSNOW criticizing his administration, according to people familiar with the matter. Hours later, Trump banned the network and two other news organizations from the White House. Speaker 2 (5:11) It was Natalie, the so-called human printer, the president's always-there companion who writes him unnervingly florid notes about her devotion to him. Now, normally she only shows the president effusive headlines, even if they are old or for some random right wing blogs Speaker 8 (5:27) or like the comment section. For whatever reason, on Friday, she decided to show the president critical coverage from this network and others. Obviously, we don't know if that is why he banned us. But, you know, here we are. And so we at MSNOW are now suing the president alongside our colleagues at CNN and Politico. There's a hearing scheduled for Wednesday. I Speaker 2 (5:47) think, and you'll see why in a moment. Trump already knows he's going to lose in the merits because he's already attacking the judge who we must point out he appointed. Quote, they have drawn a great judge for them. The judge's name is Tim Kelly, and he was sadly appointed by Trump. I'm not sure it matters all that much who the judge is, because what Trump is doing is so facially, Speaker 8 (6:10) flagrantly unconstitutional. You cannot control access to public government venues. based on viewpoint or on the tenor of the coverage or coverage you don't like. Full stop. Clear as day. Speaker 2 (6:20) That is exactly what Trump is doing. He's not even trying to hide it. He openly admits the ban is because he doesn't like our coverage. Today, he tried to put a little twist on it. You see, I think he's got it stuck in his head. Well, he definitely does. That a president can do anything they want if, if, if it's in the name of national security. Remember, so the ballroom is going to be a ballroom. And then all of a sudden it was like, it's a national security ballroom. And then his arch, which this weekend he was like, it's going to be full of artillery. And now apparently the media ban, quote. The White House is not instituting an assault on the free press, something which I cherish. It is instituting an assault on the fake news. It is a threat to our national security and must be stopped now. Speaker 2 (7:05) It's Speaker 8 (7:05) obviously utter nonsense. Everyone can see through it, obviously. And now, as a result, Trump basically is not getting any press coverage of the White House. So here's what's happened. MSNOW and Politico and CNN got kicked out. NBC News, ABC News, CBS Speaker 2 (7:19) News, Fox News all released a statement in solidarity with the three banned outlets. Quote, the public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news Speaker 8 (7:32) organization because it objects to its reporting. And the White House pool, which is a sort of weird institution, but actually quite central to how we find out about what the president's doing. It's a rotation of networks that cover the president every day, every event that he's doing, anything on his schedule. The pool is boycotting Trump's events today. So it's basically just the cranks like Newsmax left to cover Trump's White House in silence because there are no microphones. In fact, that literally happened today. The Newsmax anchors publicly musing the president's scheme may have backfired as he spoke to a camera with no mics. The president cannot hide from us at MS Now Forever or anyone in the press. During an event here in New York City today, Mayor Zoran Mandani Speaker 2 (8:17) ensured, to his credit, the full press was allowed into that joint event with the president. And that included our own White House reporter, Laura Barron-Lopez, who pressed Trump on the ban. Speaker 1 (8:30) Thank you. Mayor, to you first, what's your response to President Trump banning outlets from the White House grounds? Did you challenge him at all about this in your meeting with him? Historians and legal scholars have called it textbook authoritarianism. And Mr. President, are you banning outlets like MSNOW, CNN and Politico in order to distract from the Iran war and high gas prices? Speaker 1 (8:56) You know, I told the president that we're going to have all of the members of the press here on the lawn. And that is something that I believe in is is everyone, no matter the opinion or the critique that we engage. And it's interesting because they said they were going to boycott me, but they never boycott me. So I wasn't very worried about that. Look at all that press. Speaker 8 (9:21) You could write books about the intense pathology on display here, Trump and the press. But one thing is clear. I mean, Trump, Trump aspires to be an autocrat. He wants to be said he wants to be king. He wants to be a dictator. People like that don't like a truly free press. I mean, they like the press they can control or they like the sort of attention they get from it. But but they don't like the fact they can't control it. And all of this is against the backdrop that I think is important. This president has sustained a more comprehensive and systematic assault on all free speech than any president in my lifetime, bar none. Speaker 2 (9:59) His administration has snatched people off the street, taken away their freedom, thrown them into incarceration, imprisoned them for writing op-eds they disagree with. He has put enormous pressure on private universities to conform to his worldview. He's threatened law firms pursuing cases he does not like. Now he's trying to kick us and others out of the White House. But here's the thing. I really do think most Americans across lines of difference and political ideologies still believe in the fundamental values of this country. People's civic attachment to this cherished liberty of free speech is strong Speaker 8 (10:37) enough that this scheme is not going to work. Speaker 8 (10:40) Jelani Cobb is the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, a staff writer for New Yorker. Lisa Rubin is a senior legal reporter for MSNOW, and they both join me now. It's great to have you here. Thanks for having us. It's good to have you here. Let's just start on the legal front. On the lawsuit, Speaker 7 (10:54) I Speaker 8 (10:54) mean, my amateur understanding is you can't just kick people out because you don't like their coverage because that violates the First Amendment. And my understanding of the lawsuit is that that is what we are suing on. Fair enough? Speaker 7 (11:05) That is generally fair enough. There is an ongoing suit involving the Associated Press, which was barred from Air Force One and the Oval Office. And right now, a lower court's decision barring the White House from enforcing that is itself stayed, meaning that Trump has been allowed to bar the Associated Press from the Oval Office, Air Force One and Mar-a-Lago. And Speaker 2 (11:25) that was because they didn't change their style. Was it like the Gulf of? It was the Gulf of America slash Gulf of Mexico. But I want to Speaker 7 (11:32) quote to you from the majority opinion in that stay decision says unambiguously when the White House opens its facilities to the press generally, as it does in the Brady briefing room, it cannot exclude journalists based on viewpoint. Now let's pivot to your point about the Trump fixation with national security. It's not just a convenient, amorphous fixation with national security. There is a 1965 case called Zemel versus Rusk, decided by the Supreme Court, where they decided it was well within the authority of the State Department to deny a passport to a man who wanted to travel to Cuba. You might be