Press has a 'slam dunk' case against Trump — but he still holds the cards

President Donald Trump boards Air Force One as he departs for a state visit to Britain, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, September 16, 2025. REUTERS Kevin Lamarque

The White House Is Testing Whether Illegality Still Has a Price

The Ban Is the Context, Not the Mystery

According to MS NOW’s report, President Donald Trump announced that MS NOW, CNN, and Politico would be barred from the White House after accusing them of intentionally lying about him. The three outlets sued, the White House press pool declined to cover presidential events in solidarity, and legal analyst Andrew Weissmann predicted the ban would be struck down as a violation of due process and the First Amendment. The report does not provide a court ruling, so the ban’s legality remains a litigated question—not an adjudicated fact.

The Power Sits in the White House

This is not a dispute among equally situated combatants. The president controls executive-branch access; news organizations do not. Trump made the decision, and White House officials were positioned to enforce it.

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That distinction matters because the administration’s grievance against unfavorable coverage does not neutralize its institutional power. A president excluding selected outlets is using government authority against organizations he publicly condemns. Calling the resulting conflict a “feud” would obscure the basic structure: one party possesses the machinery of the state, while the others are challenging its use.

A Likely Legal Defeat May Still Be a Political Success

Weissmann called the outlets’ case a “slam dunk,” but that remains his legal assessment, not the outcome of the lawsuit. Even if courts ultimately reverse the ban, reversal alone would not erase its effects.

The administration can impose exclusion immediately while forcing its targets to spend time and money seeking relief. That creates an asymmetry: the government acts first; the injured parties litigate later. If officials expect no meaningful personal consequence, an eventual loss can become merely the operating cost of testing how far presidential power will reach.

The reported boycott by ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox directly challenges that calculation. Their leverage does not come from polite condemnation. It comes from collective refusal to let the White House isolate three outlets while preserving normal access through the rest.

The Accountability Gap Is the Real Story

Weissmann’s central point was more severe than his prediction about the lawsuit: he said “precious little” legal recourse exists to punish officials who participate in unlawful conduct. He pointed to presidential pardon power as a potential barrier to federal accountability and professional sanctions or disbarment as possible consequences for lawyers.

The report does not establish that pardons will be issued for conduct connected to this ban. Weissmann predicted a future “flurry of pardons,” and that prediction should not be converted into fact. But his structural argument stands on the terms presented: when an administration can plausibly expect institutional correction without individual accountability, the deterrent value of the law weakens.

A court order can stop an act. It cannot, by itself, make officials fear committing the next one.

“Fake News” Is a Rationale for Selective Punishment

Trump’s accusations against the three outlets function here as justification for exclusion. The report supplies no evidence substantiating his claim that they intentionally lied about him. What it does establish is that he paired that accusation with a denial of White House access.

That is scapegoating through official power: hostile labeling identifies the targets, and executive control supplies the punishment. The political purpose can be inferred from the mechanism even where personal motive cannot be proven. Selected journalists are made examples of, while every other outlet is shown that access may depend on remaining outside the next blacklist.

The weakness in the article’s framing is its emphasis on how little can be done after officials “go along.” Officials are not weather systems caught inside Trump’s decisions. If they implement an exclusionary order, they are exercising delegated state power and enabling the outcome, even when the president originated it.

Illegality Without Liability Becomes a Governing Method

The larger pattern is not simply presidential hostility toward the press. It is the conversion of weak enforcement into political opportunity.

An administration need not win every lawsuit if it can act immediately, burden its targets, and leave participating officials largely insulated from personal consequences. Under those conditions, legal defeat does not necessarily discipline power. It may only mark the boundary after power has already crossed it.

The press pool’s collective action therefore matters more than ceremonial statements about constitutional values. Institutions restrain abuse when they make retaliation expensive in real time. Where accountability arrives late, incompletely, or not at all, unlawful conduct stops looking like an aberration and starts functioning as a strategy.

Thanks to Alter Net

Source: Press has a ‘slam dunk’ case against Trump — but he still holds the cards

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