Trump has previously threatened to pull a reporter’s credentials on the basis of their coverage. In a tweet he sent in May, he wrote that “the Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?”
During his presidential campaign, his team barred The Washington Post and other outlets from campaign events, typically held in venues that are considered private property or secured under a rental agreement. But the situation is different at the White House, which is government property.
When Trump broached the idea in May, some media law experts said that such a move would not be legal. “Denying White House press credentials to reporters based on the content of their coverage would violate the First Amendment, as the DC Circuit made clear many years ago in Sherrill v. Knight,” said Theodore Boutrous, a partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher in Los Angeles. The case is a 1977 decision in which the court ruled that when it came to bonafide journalists covering the White House, that “access not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons,” including the content of their coverage.
