CNN & MS Now Say They Were Denied White House Access To Cover Trump’s State Dinner For Chinese President Xi Jinping

CNN said that it was denied access to cover the arrivals at the White House State Dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping, just hours after a federal judge ordered the network to restore hard passes to the network journalists and those of MS NOW and Politico.

The coverage at the North Portico was scheduled to be open to pre-credentialed media, a wider scope of reporters and photographers than the White House press pool.

CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes said that they were told that their credential to cover the event was only for a camera and audio, not an editorial presence. She had requested that she and her producer attend.

“Again, no editorial presence, just a camera and audio, which certainly seems like a reaction to President Trump saying that he wanted the CNN coverage of the event,” Holmes said.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered that credentials for CNN, Politico and MS NOW be restored, ending Trump’s five-day ban of the outlets from the White House grounds. They returned to the White House around noon, and hours later, Trump event complained that CNN and MS NOW were not covering the state visit.

Trump claimed that the networks “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years, the arrival at the White House of the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng. The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to ‘TRUMP,’ they refused to be there. That’s why they have such poor Ratings. Tonight’s State Dinner at the White House, for President Xi, will be spectacular!”

In fact, network correspondents said that they were not able to get access to the White House on Thursday morning. And after the White House pulled CNN from the TV pool on Monday, the other four networks in the pool declined to replace them in the rotation. That has meant a dearth of video images from the White House, as TV pool coverage has yet to resume.