Trump calls out CNN for showing up to UN despite 'boycott' over White House ejection

Trump spoke at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning, and coverage was widely provided by a number of outlets, including those who have vowed to boycott coverage of Trump over his banning of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House.

Speaking with reporters, Trump addressed the presence of CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, saying, “I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me.” Collins said the UN had allowed the outlet in, and Trump replied, “you should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t gonna cover me. You shouldn’t be covering me.”

Collins said in a CNN broadcast that the outlet is credentialed by the United Nations. She claimed, “We never said that we were not going to cover the president, we will do our best to cover him each and every day. We were actually positioned in this spot last year when the president was here, long before all this back and forth over access to the White House began as it did on Friday.”

Collins spoke on Monday night about the boycott enacted by the members of the TV press pool, as well as news photographers. “Now, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC, the four other networks that share the responsibility for providing television coverage with CNN, all agreed to suspend those efforts.”

She noted a statement from current TV pool chair and Fox News’ Washington bureau head Bryan Boughton, who said, “This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President. This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.”

CNN was ultimately the only major network that did not air Trump’s address itself. Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, and MS NOW aired Trump’s speech using a UN televised feed. Per the Washington Times, Fox and MS NOW streamed the address live, while other broadcast networks aired the speech on their streaming video news channels.

On Friday, Trump announced that he was banning CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House over “fake news” disseminated by the outlets. The outlets have sued over the matter.