The White House barred CNN from Air Force One for President Trump’s Saturday Tennessee football trip, cutting the network from the television pool after a week of access fights and a court order.
President Donald Trump will fly to Knoxville on Saturday to watch the University of Texas take on the University of Tennessee at Neyland Stadium without CNN aboard Air Force One. The White House released the rotating pool schedule Friday evening and left CNN off the list for the trip.
Breitbart News reported that no television outlet was listed in CNN’s place, which means the presidential travel party will have no traditional network television pool coverage of the game visit.
CNN said the White House is barring the network from flying on Air Force One as part of its duties covering the president for the major television networks. The move lands days after a federal judge ordered the administration to restore broader White House access the outlets had lost.
Just the News reported that CNN had been scheduled to accompany Trump to Tennessee and that White House guidance on the Saturday schedule simply did not include the network among the assigned outlets.
The five networks that have long rotated television pool duty are CNN, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News, and Fox News. On a typical day the pool also includes print journalists, a radio reporter, a New Media reporter, and photographers. Interventions in that television rotation have historically been rare. The networks themselves usually decide who is up.
Politico noted that such White House interventions in the television rotation have historically been rare and that the five networks typically decide who is up for rotation. That pattern broke again for the Knoxville flight.
The New York Post reported that the White House signaled Friday night CNN would be left off Air Force One and that conservative outlet Real America’s Voice News was positioned in the travel mix instead. The Air Force One video spot had long been reserved for a U.S. network pool member, which Real America’s Voice is not.
A temporary court order had restored White House grounds access for CNN and other outlets earlier in the week. That order did not directly settle Air Force One or pool travel rules. The administration used the opening.
The same access fight has already produced network walkouts and counter-moves, including when Fox News joined rival networks in suspending White House coverage after earlier Trump restrictions on CNN.
On September 18, Trump removed Politico, CNN, and MS NOW from White House access. He stated the reason on Truth Social: the action came “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS,” and added that “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.”
The three outlets sued. They called the exclusion a blatant First Amendment violation because it singled them out for the content of their coverage. Early Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” their access.
By Friday, CNN said regular coverage had resumed. The network was back in the pool when Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping visited the National Archives. That same Friday evening, the White House put out the Saturday Air Force One schedule without CNN.
Press-credential fights have not been limited to the West Wing. Melania Trump’s office approved CNN credentials even while broader White House restrictions remained in force, underscoring how uneven the access map has become.
Vice President JD Vance defended the administration’s approach after CNN was kept out of the primary pool for a Monday White House helipad ribbon-cutting. He said outlets can still report on the Trump White House, still receive public reports, and still talk to people inside and outside the administration.
What they would not receive, Vance said, is special access inside the White House. He compared Politico’s posture toward Trump with Breitbart’s posture toward Obama and Biden and asked why Trump should be expected to give Politico special access when earlier Democratic administrations never handed Breitbart the same treatment. “It’s about basic fairness,” Vance said.
"They can still report on the Trump White House. They can still get the public reports. They can still, of course, talk to people in the administration and outside the administration. What the president has said is, we’re not going to give you special access inside the White House. The way that I think about it is, if you go back to the Biden administration or the Obama administration, compare, let’s say, Politico to Breitbart. If you actually look at the objective analysis, Politico and Breitbart are, Politico is as anti-Trump as Breitbart was anti-Obama or anti-Biden. Now, why on God’s green earth would Donald Trump be expected to give Politico special access when nobody in the media expected the Biden administration or the Obama administration to give Breitbart special access? It’s about basic fairness."
CNN was also kept off Air Force One for Trump’s Tuesday flight to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. On September 22, after arriving in New York, Trump spotted CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in the press group and made his view plain.
“It’s an honor to be here,” Trump said, then added: “I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me. You shouldn’t be here. You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me, you shouldn’t be covering me.”
The Washington Examiner reported that CNN itself said Friday it was supposed to be part of the television pool for the Knoxville trip covering the Texas-Tennessee game, yet was excluded from the designated pool list.
The current fight sits on top of an earlier structural change. In January 2025, then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added a New Media seat to briefings and often called on outlets such as Breitbart News and well-known podcast creators for the first question. That shift widened the room beyond the old network hierarchy.
Trump has also answered network pressure with his own distribution plans, including when he launched a streaming channel as networks suspended White House coverage and the access lawsuit moved forward.
Saturday’s game at Neyland Stadium is a high-visibility public event. The president will attend. The traditional television pool seat that CNN expected will not be filled by CNN. Whether that leaves the flight without network video or with a non-traditional outlet in the mix, the White House made the call on the schedule it released Friday night.
Taxpayers pay for Air Force One. Voters elect the president. Legacy networks do not hold a permanent lease on the cabin. After years of one-sided coverage fights, the administration is treating special access as earned, not automatic, and CNN just learned the difference on a football Saturday.