White House Blocks POLITICO from Air Force One Amid Ongoing Media Access Dispute

The White House on Monday blocked POLITICO from boarding Air Force One and carrying out its print pool duties, marking the latest escalation in an ongoing battle over media outlets’ access to President Donald Trump.

“The White House has blocked today's print pooler, Politico, from traveling on Air Force One,” Washington Post reporter Katherine Doyle wrote in a White House pool report Monday afternoon.

Doyle added that “since [the White House] was unable to find a replacement, there is no primary print pooler on this trip,” and noted that she would be making reports as “the secondary pooler” as Trump travels to Nebraska for a campaign rally ahead of the midterms.

CBS, the designated representative for the TV pool on Monday, is also sharing its notes with news organizations during the trip. “Neither news organization is replacing Politico,” Josh Gross of CBS News emphasized in an email.

POLITICO did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has confirmed that it was blocked from traveling on Air Force One to multiple outlets.

“Many outlets including POLITICO are granted access to attend and cover presidential events unilaterally, but traveling with the President of the United States aboard Air Force One is a privilege not a right,” a White House official tells TIME. The official adds that Trump is “the most accessible President in American history,” and says that he will “continue to grant an unprecedented level of access to the press.”

In the White House pool system, a rotating group of journalists accompanies the President to various events and shares updates with the wider press corps to enable news organizations to widely provide coverage despite the often limited space at event venues or on board Air Force One.

But that pool coverage of Trump has been complicated by the President’s most recent efforts to punish media organizations whose coverage he objects to.

POLITICO is one of three outlets, also including CNN and MS NOW, that Trump announced that he was banning from the White House on Sept. 18, claiming that they were repeatedly publishing “FAKE NEWS.” A day after his announcement, journalists from the outlets were turned away from the White House gates and their press badges were taken away.

Within days, the three outlets proceeded to sue the Trump Administration, arguing that the ban violated the First Amendment and their Fifth Amendment right to due process. In solidarity with the impacted outlets, the five broadcast networks that comprise the White House TV pool, which records and shares video footage of the President on a rotating basis, also temporarily suspended their coverage of Trump.

A federal judge on Sept. 24 issued a temporary restraining order against Trump’s ban, in effect for 14 days, and ordered the President to immediately restore the affected outlets’ access, finding that the ban “likely violated” their “constitutional due process rights.” Following that order, journalists from the three outlets were once again allowed to access the White House grounds.

But access to carry out pool duties has remained a point of contention. The White House previously blocked CNN from Air Force One, preventing the network from carrying out its scheduled TV pool duties.

POLITICO, CNN, and MS NOW, in response to CNN being prevented from traveling on the President’s plane and fulfilling its pool duties, previously requested that a federal judge block Trump’s ban on the outlets until their case against him was resolved, arguing that he had violated the previously implemented restraining order and had “persisted in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing its ban.”

“The White House’s words and actions leave little doubt that it will immediately reinstitute a complete ban of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO if allowed the opportunity,” the outlets’ lawyers wrote in a filing last week.

Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington, who granted the temporary restraining order against the ban, is scheduled to hold a hearing over the outlets’ request to extend against Trump on Thursday.

The TV press pool has meanwhile resumed coverage of Trump after journalists from the outlets targeted in the ban were allowed back onto the White House grounds. But people familiar with the situation previously told TIME after CNN was blocked from traveling on Air Force One that decisions about TV pool coverage of the President would be made on a day-by-day basis amid the ongoing uncertainty over the network’s access to perform its pool duties.