By Tom Hicks | September 22, 2026
Editorial Note:
This column is about how news organizations cover the presidency, not whether they should cover it. A president should be scrutinized aggressively by an independent press. The question is whether that requires television networks to broadcast every presidential appearance live simply because the White House provides an opportunity to do so.
By Tom Hicks | September 22, 2026
Donald Trump had a brand-new White House helipad to show off Monday, and if you’ve watched this man for any length of time, you know exactly how this was supposed to work. There was a ribbon, oversized gold scissors and Marine One sitting nearby. Everything about the event seemed built for television, right down to a president who has spent most of his adult life knowing where the camera is and what to do when the little red light comes on.
Except this time, the usual independent television pool wasn’t there.
The television networks had stopped providing pooled video of presidential events after Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. CNN had been scheduled for pool duty, and ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox declined to take its place. CNN, MS NOW and Politico went to federal court Monday, arguing that the administration revoked their access in retaliation for their reporting and violated their First Amendment and due-process rights. The White House’s position is that access is a privilege and that it can exclude outlets it considers unfair. (Reuters)
Then Monday night brought the part nobody had written into the script.
The White House launched a television channel.
Not metaphorically. Not a sarcastic nickname invented by some smartass columnist. Trump TV is its actual name.
Welcome to Pravda West.
TRUMP TV IS HERE
The White House calls it “TRUMP TV: The Essentials Station.” Its own description promises the Trump administration’s “biggest moments,” “top videos,” “major remarks,” and “must-see highlights,” streaming around the clock and updated in real time. It launched Monday, September 21, in the middle of a confrontation over Trump’s decision to exclude three news organizations from the White House. (The White House)
Think about that sequence for a moment.
Trump removes news organizations whose coverage he doesn’t like. Other television networks refuse to replace CNN in the independent pool. Hours later, the White House launches a 24-hour channel through which the administration decides which pictures you see, which speeches you hear, which moments qualify as highlights and which moments presumably don’t make the cut.
Trump wanted fewer independent cameras inside his White House. By Monday night, he had something apparently more to his liking.
His own television station.
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THE PROBLEM ISN’T THAT THE WHITE HOUSE HAS A CAMERA
Every modern White House produces video. Every president has tried to communicate directly with Americans, bypassing journalists when possible, and social media made that easier long before somebody hung the Trump TV sign over the door.
The distinction here is timing and control.
The White House isn’t merely posting a presidential speech on its website. It has created a continuous channel promising to select the administration’s “biggest moments” and “must-see highlights” at precisely the moment independent television coverage has been disrupted by the president’s own decision to exclude news organizations whose reporting he dislikes. (The White House)
That’s why I have no problem using the word propaganda here. I’m not using it as a synonym for stuff Donald Trump says that I don’t like. Propaganda is information selected and distributed by a government to promote its policies, actions or point of view. A government-run channel devoted to presenting that government’s chosen achievements, remarks and highlights fits that description remarkably well.
Trump TV can call itself whatever it wants.
I’ll stick with Pravda West.
THE HELIPAD PROVIDED THE PERFECT DEMONSTRATION
Monday also showed why government video isn’t a substitute for independent coverage.
With the normal television pool absent, the White House supplied video of Trump’s helipad appearance. There was one fairly important technical problem: Trump’s comments were largely inaudible because Marine One overwhelmed the audio. Independent pool crews ordinarily provide professional video and audio that are distributed broadly to news organizations, giving journalists material they can examine, preserve, and report independently. (Axios)
That’s the practical argument for keeping independent cameras around, but the larger argument matters more. The camera controlled by the subject of the story can never replace the camera controlled by the people covering the subject.
A White House videographer works for the White House.
A journalist doesn’t.
That difference shouldn’t require a constitutional-law seminar.
TRUMP HAS ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD THE CAMERA
Long before Donald Trump became president, television helped make Donald Trump into Donald Trump. The Apprentice turned a New York developer and tabloid personality into a nationally recognizable television character whose boardroom catchphrase became part of American pop culture.
Trump learned something from television that politicians sometimes spend careers trying to understand: attention has value whether the audience loves you or hates you. Conflict attracts cameras. Surprise attracts cameras. Outrage attracts cameras. Once those cameras are live, the person standing behind the microphone controls an enormous amount of what happens next.
That has created an odd relationship between Trump and television journalism. Networks cover him because he’s president and what the president says matters, but live television also gives Trump something extraordinarily valuable: an unedited national platform whose timing and subject matter he largely controls.
Those are two different things.
Covering the president is journalism.
Automatically carrying whatever the president decides to stage is programming.
THE NETWORKS JUST DISCOVERED THE DIFFERENCE
When CNN couldn’t perform its scheduled television-pool assignment, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox could have taken the slot. They didn’t. The television pool instead suspended presidential video coverage under the restrictions, meaning Trump’s trip to the United Nations was also set to proceed without the normal pooled television camera. (Axios)
That’s significant because the dispute stopped being CNN’s problem.
Today it’s CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Tomorrow another administration could decide Fox News is the problem, or CBS, or some news organization that doesn’t yet exist. Once the principle becomes the government gets to decide which legitimate news organizations deserve access based on whether it approves of their journalism, everybody holding a press credential has reason to care.
The lawsuit will determine what the government can legally do. The courts, not television executives and certainly not this columnist, get to settle that question.
But television executives have another decision that’s entirely theirs.
They decide what goes on television.
DON’T TURN OFF THE CAMERAS
This is where Monday night’s Trump TV development changes my thinking.
My first instinct when the television pool stood together was that perhaps networks had finally stumbled onto the easiest way to reduce Trump’s ability to turn every presidential event into an episode of The Donald Trump Show: stop automatically giving him the live camera.
I still think they should.
But I don’t want the independent camera disappearing while the government’s camera keeps rolling.
That would solve the wrong problem.
Send the journalists. Record the event. Preserve the footage. Ask the questions. Keep independent photographers and television crews as close to the presidency as security legitimately permits. Fight in court when government retaliation threatens that access.
Then do something television news occasionally seems to forget it is allowed to do…Edit.
Determine what is newsworthy. Check questionable claims. Add context. Show viewers what happened without automatically surrendering twenty uninterrupted minutes of airtime because somebody at the White House put a podium in front of a flag.
That’s journalism too.
THE GOVERNMENT SHOULDN’T BE ITS OWN WITNESS
There’s another reason independent cameras matter that has nothing to do with Trump.
Someday Donald Trump won’t be president.
The principle we’re establishing now will still be sitting there waiting for whoever occupies the Oval Office next. If Americans become comfortable with the idea that government-produced video is an adequate substitute when independent journalists aren’t present, we’ve created a tool that every future administration can use.
Republican. Democrat. Somebody we haven’t heard of yet.
The answer can’t depend on whether you happen to trust the president operating the camera.
The answer is that the president shouldn’t operate the only camera.
WELCOME TO PRAVDA WEST
There is something almost comically perfect about the birth of Trump TV.
Donald Trump has spent years attacking news organizations for deciding what news is. He has accused reporters of lying, attacked networks over unfavorable coverage, and now barred three organizations from the White House while saying other outlets could follow. Those organizations sued, their competitors refused to provide replacement pool coverage, and the resulting confrontation created a television vacuum. (Reuters)
Trump filled it himself.
Now the White House can choose the pictures, choose the clips, choose the remarks, and choose the “must-see highlights.” Nobody should be surprised if the president looks pretty damn good on the television network run by the president.
That’s what makes this moment more important than one fight involving CNN.
Trump may believe he has discovered a way around troublesome journalists. What he has actually done is provide a remarkably clear demonstration of why troublesome journalists exist.
The press shouldn’t surrender the camera to him.
It also doesn’t have to surrender the programming schedule.
Cover the president. Keep the independent cameras rolling. Ask every inconvenient question you can think of.
Then stop automatically producing the show.
THE BULLSHIT DETECTOR
Three fresh claims. Let’s check the receipts.
CLAIM: Trump says he “cherishes” a free press and that what he calls “fake news” is a threat to national security.
BULLSHIT: Unsupported.
WHY: Trump can criticize news organizations all he wants. Calling them a national-security threat is a factual claim requiring evidence, and Reuters reported Monday that he provided none. The larger dispute is now before a federal court because CNN, MS NOW and Politico argue that their credentials were revoked in retaliation for journalism the president dislikes, while the administration maintains that White House access is a privilege. Whatever the court ultimately decides about access, calling unfavorable journalism a national-security threat doesn’t become evidence simply because the president says it.
CLAIM: “Gas prices were much higher under Biden than under ‘TRUMP.’ So were almost all other prices.”
BULLSHIT: Misleading.
WHY: Gasoline did reach a higher national peak during Biden’s presidency, climbing to roughly $5 a gallon in June 2022, so there’s a piece of truth sitting inside Trump’s statement. The rest does considerably more work than the evidence can carry. Recent inflation data show overall consumer prices continuing to rise rather than some broad Trump-era collapse in “almost all other prices,” while gasoline itself has climbed sharply over the past year. Comparing today’s price with the highest point of somebody else’s presidency is a nice political trick, but it isn’t the same thing as showing that Americans are now paying less for almost everything.
CLAIM: The White House’s new “Fraud Ledger” identifies billions of dollars in fraud uncovered or stopped by the administration.
BULLSHIT: The ledger mixes established fraud with money that hasn’t been established as fraud at all.
WHY: The White House presents the ledger as a running account of “fraud, waste, and corruption,” which certainly makes the enormous numbers look impressive. A review published Monday by Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families found that the ledger includes $2 billion in Medicaid funding withheld from California and another $500 million withheld from Minnesota while federal officials determine whether claims are allowable. Money under review isn’t automatically fraudulent money, and Georgetown also found that the ledger doesn’t explain how several much larger HHS figures were calculated. Putting uncertain numbers under a giant FRAUD heading doesn’t settle what those numbers actually represent.
Bullshit travels fast. Off Script checks the receipt.
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ONE QUESTION BEFORE YOU GO
Off Script with Tom Hicks would like your perspective: Should television networks stop automatically carrying presidential appearances live and decide what’s actually newsworthy first?
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