Trump inaudible at helipad ribbon cutting amid press pool fight

President Trump attended a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new South Lawn helipad at the White House on Monday. However, due to a dispute over TV pool coverage, his remarks were inaudible in live footage. This came after Trump banned CNN, MSNBC, and Politico from covering him last week, prompting the TV pool to suspend coverage.

The banned outlets filed a lawsuit on Monday, arguing that the ban violates the First Amendment. The TV pool, which serves hundreds of journalists, decided to pull pooled TV coverage in response to Trump's attempt to limit pool access. This rare display of unified pushback from major networks means that the media and the public may have limited access to what they can see and hear.

According to Axios, the White House Press Pool is a collaborative effort among top news outlets to provide coverage of the President. The pool's reports are shared for the public record and are part of holding the office accountable. The decision to pull TV coverage was made after the White House provided video without usable audio of Trump's remarks.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Hill, Axios — 2 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.