Trump Tells CNN "You Should Not Be Here" at UN as Standoff with Media Outlets Persists

New York: President Donald Trump confronted CNN's Kaitlan Collins as she arrived at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Tuesday, telling her she should not be covering him and suggesting, incorrectly, that the network had said it would stop reporting on him — a claim Collins later disputed on air. The exchange came ahead of Trump's address to the UN General Assembly amid high-stakes diplomacy on the global stage.

The confrontation followed the administration's decision days earlier to bar CNN, along with MS NOW and Politico, from White House grounds and remove CNN from its regular pool coverage duties. Despite the ban, CNN was still admitted to the UN as a regularly credentialed outlet. The three networks filed a joint lawsuit on Monday challenging the ban as selective and unconstitutional. The White House had until Tuesday to respond, and a hearing is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Trump said Tuesday he expected the judge to rule against him referring to the stance he chose in similar cases.

In solidarity to the banned media outlets, other members of the White House press pool, including ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, agreed not to replace CNN and suspended pool coverage entirely until further notice. The Associated Press, along with The Washington Post and The New York Times, also declined to publish photographs from presidential events on Monday. A sign reading support for the banned outlets was spotted in the White House press workspace, even as Trump remained visible globally through UN and international pool coverage.