Fox News and the four other major television networks have stopped shared White House pool camera coverage of President Donald Trump after the administration barred CNN from its assigned rotation.
Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton, who chairs the TV pool this quarter, sent the notice Monday. POLITICO published the email. The New York Times also reported the decision.
“This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Boughton wrote. “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 five-network pool is ABC News, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, and Fox News. They take turns filming the president and share the video with one another and with outlets around the world when space is limited.
CNN was slated as the television pool Monday, including Trump’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. A White House guidance email Sunday night listed no primary TV pool. It listed Hearst as a secondary crew in Washington and Real America’s Voice as a secondary crew in New York.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins posted Boughton’s lines and credited Brian Stelter:
Bryan Boughton, who runs the Fox News Washington bureau and is the current TV pool chair, says in an email; ”This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President.”
“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.” Via @brianstelter
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 21, 2026
Do you watch Fox News?
Yes: 47% (28 Votes)
No: 53% (32 Votes)
Stelter wrote that the other networks were declining to put in a replacement crew after CNN was blocked from pool duty.
Email to TV pool subscribers: “Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President. This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.”
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 21, 2026
In a follow-up, he said Collins reported there would be no shared TV camera with the president broadcasting that footage to the wider press corps.
This means “that when the president does anything today, there will be no TV camera with the president that is broadcasting and sharing this footage” with the wider press corps and networks around the world, @kaitlancollins reports https://t.co/IfqJVvSwGH
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 21, 2026
Mark Halperin’s account posted that ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC had agreed to suspend pool coverage after the White House ban of MS NOW, POLITICO, and CNN.
Breaking: ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, & NBC agree to suspend pool coverage of President Trump after White House ban of MS Now, Politico, & CNN 🚨
— Next Up with Mark Halperin (@NextUpHalperin) September 21, 2026
Trump said Friday he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO from the White House “effective immediately,” accusing them of “FAKE NEWS.” He said other organizations, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, could be next. Reporters from the three banned outlets were turned away Saturday. The outlets said Secret Service confiscated their credentials.
CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO said Monday they would sue. In a joint statement they said the White House revoked credentials without notice “because it objected to our reporting” and that the ban “threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism.”
Trump posted on Truth Social that he was “instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS,” which he called corrupt, coordinated, and a threat to national security.
Print, radio, and wire reporters and still photographers are still expected to cover events. Boughton said other TV pool work, Congress, VIPs, and selected events would continue as normal. It was not immediately clear how widely Hearst or Real America’s Voice would distribute their video. Network spokespeople did not immediately comment, POLITICO reported.
In 2009, the same five bureau chiefs refused Treasury pool interviews unless Fox News was included after the Obama administration tried to leave Fox out. The administration then included Fox, according to contemporaneous accounts cited in the POLITICO report.
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