The White House has launched Trump TV, a 24-hour online stream of the US President’s speeches and appearances, amid a widening row over its ban on three news organisations.
The channel went live on YouTube and the White House website at 7pm Washington time on September 21. It opened with a speech Donald Trump gave at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, on July 3 during celebrations marking 250 years of US independence.
Billed as “Trump TV: The Essentials Station”, the stream promises top videos, major remarks and highlights updated in real time. Kaelan Dorr, deputy assistant to the President, described it on X as a “livestream of the Administration’s greatest hits, unfiltered”.
After the Mount Rushmore address the channel moved on to footage of Trump’s 2025 inauguration, according to Forbes. It was not clear whether it would also carry live events.
The launch came on the day the main US television networks stopped supplying pooled footage of the President. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News refused to step in when CNN was blocked from covering him.
The five networks rotate the job of filming the President and share the pictures with other broadcasters and outlets in the US and abroad. Their decision left events such as the unveiling of a new White House helipad broadcast without sound, as no pool microphone was present.
Trump barred reporters and photographers from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, whose credentials were confiscated at the White House on September 19. He accused the outlets of constantly publishing “fake news” about him and his administration.
The three organisations filed a lawsuit in federal court in Washington on September 21, arguing that the ban breached their First Amendment rights. In a joint statement they said the White House had revoked their journalists’ credentials “without notice or process” because it objected to their reporting.
ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC said in a separate statement that no administration should restrict a news organisation because it disliked its coverage.
Trump hit back on Truth Social the same day. He said outlets that only wrote negatively about him and published false and defamatory stories violated national security, adding that the Oval Office should not be defiled by “Third Rate Clowns”.
He also predicted he would lose before US district judge Timothy Kelly and said his team would almost certainly appeal. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, described the new channel as “quite literally state-run TV”.
The administration has repeatedly criticised European speech regulation, including the European Union’s Digital Services Act, as a threat to free expression. The dispute at home comes as Republicans seek to defend narrow majorities in Congress at the November midterm elections.
