{"id":227262,"date":"2026-10-12T00:09:40","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/justice-department-investigating-major-tv-networks-over-suspending-pool-coverage-of-trump-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T00:09:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T00:09:40","slug":"justice-department-investigating-major-tv-networks-over-suspending-pool-coverage-of-trump-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/justice-department-investigating-major-tv-networks-over-suspending-pool-coverage-of-trump-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Department investigating major TV networks over suspending pool coverage of Trump – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0The Justice Department said it is investigating five major TV broadcast networks for potentially violating federal antitrust laws after the networks temporarily declined to provide pool coverage of President Donald Trump, a department spokesperson said.
The investigation into the networks that make up the White House TV press pool \u2014 NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and Fox News \u2014 is underway, and the department sent out \u201ccivil investigative demands\u201d on Friday, according to a Justice Department official.
\u201cMembers of the television press pool have boycotted covering White House events. Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act. The Antitrust Division is simply investigating to determine whether these news organizations have violated the antitrust laws,\u201d department spokeswoman Emily Covington said Saturday.
The pool is a rotating group of networks that share the duties of recording the president\u2019s activities during public appearances and travel. The network performing pool duty then distributes information and media, such as video footage and audio, to other outlets.
The New York Times first reported the investigation<\/a>.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
ABC News said it has not received any notification from the Justice Department but expects to. Representatives for NBC, CBS and CNN declined to comment. Fox did not respond to requests for comment.
The investigation appears to be the latest move from the White House in its escalating feud against the press corps.
Last month, Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico<\/a> from the White House grounds, citing what he said was \u201ctheir constant \u2018reporting\u2019 FAKE NEWS!\u201d The other networks in the TV pool briefly declined to participate in pool duties after CNN was removed from its spot in the rotation.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued to block the ban,<\/a> claiming it was a violation of the First Amendment. They were reinstated about a week<\/a> later after a judge ruled that the administration had to temporarily restore their access for 14 days. A federal judge this week extended the order to Tuesday.
The five major networks released a joint statement <\/a>at the time, saying: \u201cThe public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.\u201d
The pool system has been recognized by administrations from both parties for decades, and the coverage is used by pool members and subscribers, which include outlets like Newsmax, One America News Network, C-SPAN and international outlets.
During the time the outlets declined to provide pool coverage, individual TV networks, including NBC News, continued to provide coverage of White House events that were open to the press, outside of the pool.
Bruce D. Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement that the First Amendment protects the decisions news organizations make about coverage and called the investigation \u201canother and even more brazen attempt to try to intimidate journalists.\u201d
Kelly O\u2019Donnell reported from Washington and Marlene Lenthang from Los Angeles.<\/em>
Chief Justice and National Affairs Correspondent
Marlene Lenthang is a breaking news reporter for NBC News Digital.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For YouSettings news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeWASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0The Justice Department said it is investigating five major TV broadcast networks for potentially violating federal antitrust laws after the networks temporarily declined to provide pool coverage of President Donald Trump, a department spokesperson said.The investigation into the networks that make up the White […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":227263,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}