It has been a staple of news for decades: wherever the president of the United States goes and no matter what he does in public, he is followed by a group of print, digital, broadcast and photo journalists who document his every move.

The White House press corps reports on what the president says in the Oval Office, outside the White House, under the wing of Air Force One and at state dinners. Pool members report on the president’s speeches, and even trail him to golf courses.

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But now there is a struggle between President Donald Trump and news outlets. Trump followed through on a threat he made on Friday to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, accusing them of reporting “fake news.” In response, White House television pool members suspended coverage of the president on Monday and have sued to get the three targeted networks’ White House credentials restored.

Read the lawsuit here.

This past weekend, CNN’s Betsy Klein, MS Now’s Akayla Gardner, and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett were denied access to the White House and their press credentials were deactivated.

The current ban creates a potential void, as the tussle between Trump and the press clogs the faucet of information to the public.

[ CNN, MS NOW, Politico sue Trump over White House ban ]

“The press pool serves as the public’s eyes and ears inside the White House, since not all journalists, let alone all Americans, can be there themselves,” Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told CNBC in an email. ”The public is entitled to hear how the president handles difficult questions, even if the answer is by berating those who ask. All of that becomes far more difficult, if not impossible, without a functioning press pool.”

For decades, the White House press pool has covered major events as they broke, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Pool reporters were in Warm Springs, Georgia, when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, and outside the Washington Hilton when President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, CNN reported. They also accompanied George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump on secret visits to war zones, according to the cable news outlet.

Here are some things to know about the White House press pool.

What is the press pool?

The White House pool consists of print reporters, broadcast journalists and photographers. The size of the pool varies by the space allotted to them. For example, Air Force One only has 13 seats to accommodate members in the press cabin, CNN reported.

The pool hands out in-person reports, photos and videos to other outlets covering the president, The Associated Press reported. When those “pooled” events have ended, the print, TV and radio pool members share written notes, video and audio with outlets interested in using their coverage, according to the AP.

Who are the pool members?

The pool currently includes three wire service reporters, along with two print or online reporters, according to The New York Times. There is also a radio reporter, four photographers and a television crew -- including a producer, an audio technician and a camera operator, the newspaper reported.

The White House television pool consists of five networks, according to the Times: ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN and Fox News. Those networks use a rotating schedule to get video footage of the president on a daily basis, according to the newspaper. The members share the footage with each other and with their affiliates.

CNN had been scheduled to have presidential TV pool duty on Monday.

Who pays for the pool?

The major news outlets pay their own way when flying aboard Air Force One, CNN reported. They also foot the bill for hotel expenses or traveling in vehicles provided by the government, including the president’s motorcade, according to the Times. Internet costs and food expenses are also paid by the news outlets.

Taxpayer dollars are not used to pay any costs incurred by press pool members.

The costs are determined using formulas set by the White House, and the news organizations are subsequently billed, CNN reported.

History of the press pool

The press pool was an offshoot of the White House Correspondents Association.

In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson threatened to halt presidential news conferences after complaining that “certain evening newspapers” quoted remarks he considered off the record.

That led to the creation of the WHCA, which was formed on Feb. 25, 1914.

The White House press pool has been following presidents extensively since the Roosevelt administration. As a practical matter, the number was limited during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s two terms, as it was unwieldy for hundreds of White House correspondents to track the president’s moves, the Times reported.

In 1969, a new press briefing room was created by covering over a swimming pool installed for Roosevelt, according to the White House Historical Association. A running gag during the administration of Richard Nixon was that the president might put a button on the podium that would activate a floor opening and dump the reporters in the pool.

Limiting the press pool

Trump’s ban of the three news outlets is not the first time an administration attempted to limit the access of outlets the chief executive deemed unfriendly.

The Obama administration attempted to exclude Fox News from a series of interviews in 2009 with Kenneth Feinberg, who was the administrator of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, CNN reported. The interview was offered to the other four networks, but they banded together in protest, which led to Fox News being reinstated.

In 2018, the Trump administration revoked CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s White House press credentials. The cable news network sued, and Acosta’s credentials were ultimately restored with certain conditions, including asking just one question at a time, The Washington Post reported.

For security reasons, the White House reduced the size of the press pool that accompanied Bush to then-undisclosed locations after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to CNN.

When Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine in 2023, only one print reporter and a photographer accompanied him on the train ride from Poland, the cable news outlet reported.

In February 2025, the White House press office announced it would determine the press pool that covered Trump, according to CNBC.

On Saturday, CNN and MS Now reported from across the street from the White House, the Post reported.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government,” the five White House television pool networks said in a joint statement on Monday. “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”

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