First Lady Melania Trump has extended a conciliatory gesture to CNN as the network remains locked in a bitter dispute with her husband.
President Donald Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House last Friday, accusing the outlets of producing “fake news.”
The decision prompted Secret Service agents to confiscate journalists’ press passes, while the affected news organizations abandoned their planned coverage of Trump’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly this week.
CNN had been scheduled to send a reporter and camera crew to the UN event, but the network was removed from the White House traveling press pool on Sunday.
Despite the ban, the First Lady’s Office approved CNN’s request to cover Melania Trump in Manhattan this week, according to Betsy Klein, the network’s senior White House reporter.
“Interestingly, we do have one new data point, which is that my credential to cover an event with the First Lady, on the sidelines of the United Nations tomorrow, has been approved,” Klein said Monday.
CNN received credentials to cover an announcement Melania is expected to make Tuesday at the St. Regis hotel, a source familiar with the matter told the Daily Mail.
The announcement is connected to her “Fostering the Future Together” initiative, which the First Lady is expected to discuss several times during her visit to New York for the UN.
Melania Trump’s team approved CNN’s credentials to cover a Tuesday event with the First Lady, despite the White House ban on the network
CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein said she had been approved to cover a First Lady event on the sidelines of the UN. She was escorted from the White House on Saturday after Trump’s ban on CNN took effect
“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico,” Trump wrote on Friday in announcing the ban
The First Lady’s decision to allow CNN access sharply contrasts with her husband’s treatment of the network.
“I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and Politico,” Trump wrote Friday as he announced the restrictions.
“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report fiction and lies when they’re covering the President of the United States,” he added.
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The next day, reporters working for the banned outlets were refused entry when they arrived at the White House.
Secret Service agents also confiscated the press passes of some journalists.
Trump reinforced the ban Monday, arguing that his move did not amount to “an assault on the free press.”
Instead, he wrote that he was “instituting an assault on the fake news, some that has grown like cancer in our beloved United States of America.”
Following the ban, the five major US broadcast networks—Fox News, CNN, CBS, NBC and ABC—issued a joint statement. The organizations, which make up the television pool, said they would not send a camera crew to cover Trump at the UN after the White House removed CNN from the trip.
White House broadcast tents stood empty Monday following Trump’s ban
The three media outlets Trump targeted, CNN, MS NOW and Politico, announced they would combat the administration in court over the ban.
‘This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes,’ they said in a statement released on Monday.
‘Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,’ the statement continued.
‘Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.’
US District Judge Timothy Kelly, who Trump appointed in his first term, is presiding over the case and is on familiar legal ground.
In 2018, he ordered the White House to restore CNN journalist Jim Acosta’s credentials after his press pass was pulled following a heated clash with Trump.