The Latest: Trump says he is banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from White House over their coverage

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President Donald Trump said Friday that he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House due to what he called unfavorable coverage, and threatened that more such prohibitions of media outlets could follow.

Meanwhile, in-person voting for this year’s midterm elections is underway in Virginia, ushering in the final six weeks for Americans to decide which party they trust to lead Congress at a time of a cost-of-living crisis, a prolonged war in Iran and other pressing issues. Voters in Idaho, Minnesota and South Dakota, can cast absentee ballots in person.

And a top official at the U.S. Postal Service has said the agency has stopped work on developing a controversial computer system that was central to Trump’s effort to limit mail voting after the Supreme Court rejected his executive order this week.

Here's the latest:

Federal law banning licensed firearms dealers from selling to them is unconstitutional and can’t be enforced, the department said in a legal opinion released Friday.

The opinion from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said the law, aimed at making it harder for 18- to 20-year-olds to get handguns, violates the Second Amendment.

The opinion indicates that the Trump administration will not defend or prosecute cases under the law, which has been the subject of competing court rulings in the wake of a landmark Supreme Court decision that transformed the legal landscape.

Federal appeals courts have split on whether handgun age limits are constitutional, and the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the federal law in the wake of the 2022 landmark decision that changed the test used to evaluate challenges to firearm restrictions.

Gun control groups called the Justice Department’s opinion misguided and dangerous.

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The Trump administration illegally terminated the Solar for All program, designed to make solar power accessible to more than 900,000 lower-income people, the federal judge in Rhode Island ruled Friday.

The Environmental Protection Agency rescinded the Solar for All funds in August 2025 after Trump’s massive tax and spending law passed in Congress. Administrator Lee Zeldin called the Biden-era grant program a “boondoggle.”

District Judge Mary McElroy wrote in the ruling that Congress clearly intended the EPA to continue administering the Solar for All grants that were already obligated. The EPA acted contrary to this intent and without any other statutory authority, McElroy said, and she vacated the termination.

The EPA said it was reviewing the decision and considering options for appeal.

The lawsuit by the Rhode Island AFL-CIO labor organization and others highlighted the importance of the program for local workforces and lower-income communities seeking access to clean-energy project funding.

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In return the leader of the breakaway Somali republic is floating the potential of military and commercial access to the territory’s Gulf of Aden coast.

After concluding various meetings with U.S. officials and lawmakers, President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi said Friday that establishing a U.S. diplomatic post in the capital of Hargeisa or the city of Berbera, a major port near the entrance to the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that has played a critical role in the Iran war, is a priority for his government.

A number of lawmakers have called for the Trump administration to recognize Somaliland as an independent country, particularly after Israel did so earlier this year.

While the administration has stepped up ties with Somaliland — providing it with $6.2 million in counterterrorism, security and humanitarian assistance — it continues to recognize the territorial integrity of Somalia, which includes Somaliland.

It is the first major construction in an area of the U.S.-Mexico border where the administration’s plans have met with heavy opposition.

The start of construction marks a milestone in the administration’s $46 billion plan to line the border with walls, barriers, roads and technology. Customs and Border Protection says it has doubled the pace of building.

CBP said in a statement to AP that “border wall panel installation is underway” in a 47-mile stretch of Hudspeth County known as Big Bend 1. There are a total of five project areas that make up the roughly 500-mile Big Bend region, stretching from an area of Hudspeth County south of El Paso to Lake Amistad.

The agency said the first panels were erected Sept. 15. On the agency’s website a photo shows a crane lifting one of the 30-foot tall steel wall panels into place.

In the broader Big Bend region, CBP has run up against opposition from landowners, environmental groups, business owners and ranchers who say the remote area is not a high-traffic area for illegal immigration.

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Greenland and Denmark “were always willing to consider an expanded U.S. military presence,” said Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

“They were always looking to potentially grow that military presence as well as welcome U.S. investment in a variety of sectors,” he added.

But Trump’s repeated demands for Greenland and threats to take it by force rattled the NATO alliance and discomfited European allies, Bayoumi said.

“I think Americans really underestimate how damaging it was for the image of the United States in Europe,” he said. “I think Greenlanders, Danes, Europeans saw this as a real attack on their sovereignty, and it’s going to take a lot of work to repair.”

Speaking on a call with reporters, senior officials said there have been discussions ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington about reducing certain tariffs in nonstrategic sectors.

The officials, who insisted on anonymity as ground rules to hold the call, said such a move might affect a narrow band of goods that would advantage both sides. They did not elaborate.

The officials do not expect the U.S. to be ready to ease export controls to allow for greater flow of rare earth minerals into the global market.

They said China maintaining an acceptable flow of such minerals would be discussed but there is unlikely to be an exchange involving reduced U.S. export controls.

— Will Weissert

A senior Trump administration official says Iran will be a key discussion topic at the annual gathering but stressed that it won’t be the only topic.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said artificial intelligence will also be a focus.

A meeting focused on the governance of AI is to be led by France’s foreign minister.

The official said a G20 meeting on Ebola and the administration’s response to the crisis in parts of Africa is also on the schedule. The official said other discussions will cover undersea cables and seabed minerals.

— Darlene Superville

The Trump administration lifted a broad swath of sanctions against the Eritrean government, armed forces and certain senior officials, allowing penalties imposed in 2021 to expire as the Horn of Africa nation becomes potentially important in securing Red Sea shipping while the U.S.-Iran war drags on.

The Treasury Department said Friday in a notice that it allowed an executive order signed by former President Joe Biden during the height of a conflict between Eritrea and neighboring Ethiopia to lapse.

In addition to six individuals, two companies and the country’s main political party, which controls the government, the step removes U.S. sanctions from the Eritrean Defense Forces.

The president said he deserves recognition for trying to save it and claimed that he could secure the $257 million Congress approved for repairs. He also suggested that the center requires an ongoing subsidy to stay open.

A judge recently blocked plans to return Trump’s name to the building and ordered 30 days’ notice before any major changes.

Trump called the judge “hostile.”

The Kennedy Center board, aligned with Trump, voted to close the center indefinitely for repairs.

Artists canceled appearances after the board added his name to the facade.

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Trump will greet Xi Jinping and his wife, Madame Peng, on Wednesday at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.

The next day the president and first lady Melania Trump will welcome the couple at an arrival ceremony on the State Floor of the White House.

The leaders will participate in a military review in the Rose Garden before their closed-door meeting. The first lady and Madame Peng will follow a separate schedule.

Xi and Madame Peng will also be the guests of honor at a state dinner Thursday in the East Room.

Xi and his wife return to the White House on Friday morning for tea with the Trumps, who will then take them on a tour of the National Archives, home to some of the United States’ most important documents.

Xi will return to Joint Base Andrews.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agreement reached to permanently maintain an American military presence on the island is a historic win that will secure U.S. interests in that part of the Arctic.

“Greenland will forever be part of the strategic defense area of North America and exclude any adversary from it and the surrounding area,” Rubio said in a statement. “This deal permanently and completely addresses our national security concerns in Greenland.”

The State Department said following Trump’s announcement of the deal that it will allow the U.S. to increase the number of bases it has in Greenland at will.

Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark, was already covered by NATO defense guarantees and previously hosted U.S. military facilities, although there was no proscription against non-NATO members establishing bases there.

There won’t be a shortage of tech power at Trump’s state dinner honoring Xi Jinping next week.

Among the executives scheduled to attend are Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Sundar Pichai of Google and Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Technologies.

Also on the invite list are Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup, and Tim Cook, who recently left his position as CEO of Apple.

The president said every state will join the program set to provide Most Favored Nation pricing to some drugs within the Medicaid program, bringing the net price of selected drugs down to prices paid in certain other countries.

The administration claims that Medicaid will save billions on prescription drug costs as a result of the plan, dubbed the Medicaid “GENEROUS” model. Experts say the savings are unclear since the content of the deals isn’t public.

Cost-of-living issues are at the forefront of voters’ concerns ahead of the midterms. In a way to address affordability concerns, Trump has cut deals with pharmaceutical companies so that the cost of some drugs in the U.S. would not be dramatically higher than in other affluent nations.

But critics say his administration has not presented a viable plan for broadly addressing rising health costs, especially after Republicans let Affordable Care Act subsidies expire this year, sending plan costs soaring.

The president has several meetings scheduled with other world leaders while he is in New York City for the United Nations General Assembly next week.

He will participate in a “pull-aside” meeting — a more casual meeting than a formal bilateral sit-down — with acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez, according to Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Waltz also told reporters on a Friday call that Trump will be meeting with Andy Burnham, the United Kingdom prime minister, and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

Trump also will meet with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The office of Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the Greenland deal with the U.S. will be signed by three governments next week during the United Nations General Assembly. However parliamentary action is still needed by the Danish and Greenland governments before it can be enforced.

Frederiksen said in a statement that “the agreement recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Greenland and Denmark and upholds both people’s right “to self-determination.”

The sweeping sanctions package targets Russian officials and key pillars of its economy and is meant to punish and pressure Moscow for the ongoing war against Ukraine.

The measure was a final legacy item for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close ally and friend of the president who had just returned from Ukraine when he unexpectedly died in July. In the works for more than a year, the bill passed with large bipartisan margins: 86-11 in the Senate and 262-159 in the House.

It is meant to starve President Vladimir Putin of the resources Russia needs to continue the war after invading Ukraine more than four years ago. The bill sanctions officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps Russian energy moving.

It also directs Trump to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas, with an exception for some countries.

In a new campaign ad, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar breaks with the president on immigration and says some of his enforcement efforts have “gone too far.”

Salazar represents a majority Hispanic district in South Florida and is in a competitive race for reelection in November. Trump endorsed her in the primary.

Asked if he still supports Salazar and had seen the video, Trump said, “I do and I have.”

He added, “I disagree with her.”

“I’m very strong on the borders,” Trump said, “and she isn’t.”

CNN denounced the move, saying it stands behind its White House team and their “fair and accurate reporting.”

“We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government,” it said in a statement on the social platform X. “Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.”

Politico said it would “continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones. We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them.”

The president said Friday that he has a deal with Denmark to bolster the U.S. military presence in Greenland after months of threatening to take the island by force from the NATO ally.

Trump, in a social media post announcing the agreement, said it “gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns.”

He added that with the agreement, his administration would “immediately” begin the process of developing a larger military presence on the mineral-rich Danish territory.

The Danish Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.

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“They’re going to have an official opening on the 21st with the first helicopter landing, etc. and it’s beautiful,” Trump said about the granite helipad on the South Lawn of the White House.

Trump designed the landing pad in the image of the presidential seal.

He has said the helipad was necessary because the new versions of the Marine One presidential helicopter are so powerful that they would burn the grass.

Trump has said Sikorsky Aircraft, a subsidiary of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, would pay for it.

The White House has not said how much it cost.

Asked about Donald Trump Jr.’s recent wedding being bankrolled in part by Umar Kremlev, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said “a lot of people have parties” and “it’s totally allowed.”

The president further suggested, without evidence, that his son was in the process of paying Kremlev back.

Trump said he heard about Kremlev paying partially for the event “a little while ago” and asked his son about it. He then recalled a conversation in which he said his son responded, “I’m paying him back, Dad.”

Trump Jr. and socialite Bettina Anderson were married in the Bahamas in May. The president did not attend, suggesting that he was too busy with major issue like the war in Iran.

ProPublica first reported the story about Kremlev’s involvement this week.

“This is a democracy,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer posted on X.

“You will not be able to manipulate the news or hide the truth.”

The Senate leader’s criticism came after Trump’s post banning CNN, MS NOW, Politico from the White House over their coverage of the president and his administration.

As Trump tries to convince voters that Democrats have let crime run amok, he’s digging into the country’s political past to cite one of the most controversial campaign advertisements that relied heavily on racist tropes.

During a campaign stop Wednesday in Gastonia, North Carolina, to stump for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley, Trump resurrected a 1988 George H.W. Bush presidential campaign ad featuring Willie Horton, a Black man convicted of rape and assault after his release through a Massachusetts prison furlough program.

A grainy black-and-white prison photo of Horton was used in the ad targeting then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was ahead of Bush in the polls. On Wednesday, Trump evoked the Horton ad in an effort to convince voters Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper, Whatley’s opponent in the Senate race, is soft on crime.

Since returning to office, Trump has pursued other legal action against a variety of different outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the BBC.

Trump seeking to block White House access for CNN is especially notable, however, as it could upend the traditional five-network television pool that travels with the president and tracks his every move — meant to provide independent coverage of his actions and interactions for the Americans who elected him and the world.

In the social media announcement, Trump did not provide details on how the ban would be implemented.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business group, announced Friday that the bus tour will visit nearly 20 states in six weeks to promote private enterprise and push back against candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.

“Free enterprise isn’t perfect,” Suzanne Clark, president and CEO of the Chamber, told reporters who joined her on a short bus drive around Washington. “But it is the best at getting better. ... It’s our job to get out there and promote it and protect it.”

The tour will launch this weekend with events supporting three Republican members of the House: Rob Bresnahan, Mike Lawler, and Ryan Mackenzie.

Clark acknowledged there were “extremes” in both parties that are increasingly questioning the benefits of a free-market economy. Still, she added that, “we have to out-work and out-organize our socialist opponents.”

The president said the movie is due to what he called unfavorable coverage, and threatened that more such prohibitions of media outlets could follow.

Trump wrote on his social media site that effective immediately, “I am banning” CNN, MS NOW and Politico “from the White House as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”

It is the administration’s latest test of constitutional First Amendment protections.

It follows Trump’s decision in February 2025 to keep Associated Press journalists out of the Oval Office, Air Force One and other events too small for a full press corps, in retaliation for the news outlet’s decision not to follow his lead in changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name.

The AP filed suit, and the case is ongoing.

Plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the administration’s takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace asked a federal appeals court to stop plans to carve President Donald Trump’s name in the façade of the building.

The emergency filing late Thursday alleged that a contractor has been chosen to do the work even though the case is pending. Trump’s name is already affixed to the building. Carving his name into it would cause “irreparable injury,” the filing said.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in an email that “frivolous litigation to stymie” Trump’s efforts in global peace should be rejected. She did not address the contract issue.

Elon Musk-led DOGE took over the nonprofit in March 2025, removing the board and firing employees. A district court reversed the action in May 2025 but a federal appeals court stayed that lower court decision.

The filing is just one of several this week by plaintiffs in lawsuits against Trump vanity projects amid concerns work might move forward on them despite pending litigation.