On September 18, 2026, President Donald Trump announced that he would be barring the news organizations CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from attending press conferences at the White House. According to the subsequent court filing made by his administration, these outlets were unable to meet basic “standards of professionalism and decorum” as they have published falsehoods and classified information to the American public, such as “top-secret” construction details on a bunker in the East Wing of the White House. 

While Trump’s administration frames this ban under the guise of logical rationale, this is to hide the fact that it is a step towards authoritarianism. 

A Lack of Historical Precedent

Those who critique the ban are met with a “gotcha moment” from supporters: why target Trump when other presidents have done the same? After all, Trump claims that there is a precedent to his actions, citing when in 2009 the Obama administration tried to ban Fox News from participating in a specific interview. 

However, the administration in 2009 backed down after facing pushback from other news organizations, and did not continue to make similar attempts. There is clearly a stark difference in behavior between the two presidents. Unlike one isolated incident from the Obama administration, Trump has shown a consistent pattern of disregard for the press. Trump has publicly labeled outlets that have a left to left-center bias as “fake news” on his Twitter (now X) account since 2017, and verbally insulted reporters, such as when he told a female reporter “quiet, piggy” in 2025. 

In addition to this, no president in the course of America’s democracy has ever permanently revoked the access of news outlets from attending press conferences at the White House. This completely disregards the idea that there is grounds for a historical justification of this ban. 

Looking Back at the Literature 

In their book How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt detail one of the processes that leads democratic countries to devolve into authoritarian regimes: democratic backsliding. 

Democratic backsliding is the slow erosion of democracy over time by elected leaders, who undermine it from within. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that would-be authoritarians show specific warning signs that hint at their anti-democratic nature, one of these being a willingness of leaders to curtail the civil liberties of their opponents, including the media (Page 22). 

Trump’s ban of these three news outlets from the White House does just this–curtails the media’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech, a clear indicator of his tendency towards authoritarianism. Barring CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from attending these press conferences is a way for the president to censor the press from questioning his judgement or publishing articles that are critical of him. 

Democracy Doesn’t Just Rely on the Law

Levitsky and Ziblatt also mention two norms that are crucial to democracy: mutual toleration and institutional forbearance (Page 102). Institutional forbearance is defined as when political leaders take care when employing their legal actions, so as not to violate the spirit of the law. Mutual toleration is the acceptance of the right of your political rivals to exist. Arguably, it also applies to non-political rivals that exist to act as a check on the government, in this case the press. 

As stated before, a lack of respect for media outlets that criticize him is nothing new for Trump. What is alarming is how winning a second term has emboldened him to test the constitutional limits of his executive power in regards to freedom of the press–what Levitsky and Ziblatt call constitutional hardball (Page 109). What started as posts on Twitter has now turned into a direct attempt to violate the freedom of the press. 

From this, it can be seen that mutual toleration between the press and the executive branch has been eroding from the very beginning of Trump’s rise to power, but now he is disregarding institutional forbearance as well. By taking action that his administration deems as legal to censor certain media outlets, Trump is rejecting an entire American history where the press has been viewed as an essential part of democracy. 

Why Does This Matter?

Banning CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from attending the White House press pool goes beyond a violation of the First Amendment. If the press is unable to publish truthful critiques of the president, then there is a lack of accountability between the government and the people. 

As Robert Dahl said in his 1971 book, “Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition”, in order for a society to be a democracy, citizens must be able to formulate their preferences and signify them to the government through collective action (Page 2). If the American public is not aware of the dubious actions of the executive, they will be unable to recognize the signs of democratic backsliding, and unable to engage in collective action to express their displeasure. 

Silencing the media means silencing the public into complacency.

What the Future Holds

As worrisome as Trump’s increasingly aggressive authoritarian tactics towards the press are, some respite comes from the response of other governmental institutions. On September 23rd, a federal judge ordered that CNN, MSNOW, and Politico be allowed back at the White House press pool for two weeks, temporarily suspending his ban. It is unclear what will happen after those two weeks are up, but fellow news outlets have rallied together in support of the three that have lost access, suspending the press pool and refusing to cover Trump’s meetings in an effort to bring them back. The authoritarian actions of the current administration may be bold, but they are not going unnoticed. Relief comes in the fact that America’s democracy is still strong enough to recognize and address these anti-democratic threats.