President Trump’s Continuing Crusade Against ‘Fake News’: An Unconstitutional Assault on Freedom of the Press in America
President Donald J. Trump exercised his prerogative, or so he believed, and took to his Truth Social platform on 18 September 2026 to announce a ban on three mainstream media outlets-the TV channels CNN and MS NOW, and the political news website Politico-from the White House, “effective immediately”, for reporting “FAKE NEWS.” A report in The Wall Street Journal suggested that this hasty and somewhat unconsidered decision was a direct response to critical comments about his administration on clips from MS NOW, shown to him by Natalie Harp, his devoted executive assistant and ‘human printer’.
Consequences of his decision were quick to follow. The following day, reporters from all three barred mainstream outlets were prevented from entering the White House, as their press credentials had been revoked and their badges disabled. In a show of press solidarity, the White House TV pool-the press corps which travels with the President and which also includes ABC News, CBS News, Fox News Media, and NBC News-boycotted Trump’s meeting with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the opening of the new White House helipad on 21 September. Other media outlets, including the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, also decided not to publicise these events. On the same day, the three barred outlets announced that they would challenge the Trump administration and file a federal lawsuit before Judge Timothy Kelly in the US District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington DC, seeking protection of their First Amendment rights and restoration of their White House access. Local TV stations and the pro-Trump Real America’s Voice are expected, meanwhile, to fill in the resulting media void, while the White House’s official app will provide “real-time updates and live events streamed DIRECTLY to your phone.”
The First Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified on 15 December 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, is unequivocal on the matter: “Congress shall make no law…. abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” Under Trump, however, some exceptions to the rule have emerged. Trump’s unrelenting obsession with the ‘truth’ and ‘free speech’, as defined by himself, led to the formation of Trump Media, with a mission “to end Big Tech’s assault on free speech by opening up the Internet and giving people their voices back.” In the aftermath of bans on Twitter and Facebook in January 2021, after the attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, Trump set up himself his own social media platform, Truth Social, which has “swiftly become the home for millions of people who have rejected the pervasive censorship regime that has ensnared legacy social media and endangered free speech online.” He tested the waters in February 2025, when he imposed a similar White House ban on Associated Press journalists, who refused to comply with his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” Litigation on this matter is ongoing. President Trump’s followers, distrustful of mainstream media, have already boycotted CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, and immersed themselves in the wider ‘MAGA media bubble’ of alternative ‘facts.’ To keep Trump’s myriad supporters better informed, Trump TV, a live streaming channel, was launched on 21 September, opening with Trump’s July 3 address at Mount Rushmore.
For a man who thoroughly dislikes any searching scrutiny or implied criticism of his actions, and can be hypercritical to the point of abuse, Trump seems unduly hypersensitive if the press choses to exercise its freedom to report in any way that seems to challenge his authority. Some may view this as a sign of weakness rather than as an assertion of strength. Historians will look back to Trump’s latest restrictions on press freedom as yet another example of a steady authoritarian drift under Trump 2.0. Given that we live in an era of 24-hour news cycles, who knows what may come tomorrow?
Ashis Banerjee