Newsweek is reporting that President Donald Trump announced Friday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico would be barred from the White House, with their reporters turned away the following morning. It said that by Sunday, the White House had launched Trump TV, a 24-hour stream of presidential speeches, appearances and related programming, advertised as "The Essentials Station."
Newsweek said the sequence amounted to a fight with television becoming a television network, and a communications problem becoming a communications product. It said the interval between grievance and branding was 48 hours.
Newsweek also highlighted other items in its latest edition. It said Sen. Jon Ossoff has emerged as a Democratic favorite for the 2028 presidential race, with the open question being whether he wants to run. It said keeping U.S. diesel at home sounds like a direct answer to record prices, but that a 1973 soybean embargo is a troubling precedent.
Newsweek said readers were appalled by Trump's $5,000 "dividend," and that a history lesson may be in order. It also published a first-person piece on how a child's report card grade caused panic, and a note from Editor-in-Chief Jennifer H. Cunningham describing the outlet's membership offerings and its participation in the Trust Project, which focuses on honesty, accuracy and fairness in journalism.