CNN is threatening to take the Trump administration back to court unless the White House stops blocking its crews from covering President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One.
CNN outside counsel Ted Boutrous sent a demand letter to the Justice Department on Monday, according to the network, giving the administration until Thursday at 5 p.m. EST to confirm in writing that it will drop any policy of excluding the network from the Oval Office and Air Force One.
“These efforts to retaliate and discriminate against CNN based on the content of its news coverage are mistaken, counterproductive, and unlawful,” Boutrous wrote. “If these actions persist, CNN will have no choice but to return to the court to defend its rights, and it is prepared to fight as long as is necessary to secure them.”
The letter escalates a fight that began a month ago, when Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. The outlets sued, and last week U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly issued a preliminary injunction finding that the ban likely amounted to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
The administration restored the outlets’ White House access, but it has kept leaving CNN off the list when the network’s turn comes up in the rotating TV pool. Most recently, CNN was left out of the travel pool for Trump’s weekend trip to Georgia and Florida. The White House has offered “no written notice” and “no explanation,” Boutrous wrote.
The other major networks have refused to fill in for CNN in solidarity.
The administration appears to be borrowing from its fight with The Associated Press, whose reporters Trump blocked from Air Force One and the Oval Office after the wire service declined to adopt his new name for the Gulf of Mexico. In June 2025, an appeals court panel ruled that those spaces are not First Amendment forums, but Boutrous noted that ruling was “non-binding and non-precedential.” The full appeals court has yet to rule.
Boutrous argued that those spaces have become the main places Trump interacts with reporters. Through September of this year, Trump appeared in the White House briefing room just four times. Over the same period, he held 43 Oval Office press events and 51 question sessions aboard and around Air Force One.
CNN has covered presidents in the Oval Office and on Air Force One for 45 years.
“Those spaces belong not to any particular president or administration but to all Americans,” Boutrous wrote.
The Justice Department did not respond to CNN’s request for comment. After Kelly’s ruling last week, a White House official said “the Fake News has no place demanding a spot in the President’s Oval Office.”