President Donald Trump’s decision to bar three news organizations from covering him at the White House has landed his administration in court. CNN, MS NOW, and Politico filed a lawsuit Monday accusing the administration of violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The organizations are seeking restoration of their access to the White House grounds, public property that does not belong to Trump. Their lawsuit calls the ban a “direct assault on the First Amendment” and a “blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles.”

The outlets say the White House stripped their journalists of credentials because officials objected to their reporting. They argue that allowing the administration to impose such punishment would threaten both an independent press and the public’s access to information.

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” the organizations said in a statement.

Trump responded early Monday with a social media post defending his administration’s move. He insisted that the ban is “not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish.”

That claim crashes directly into Trump’s long record of attacking the free press throughout nearly his entire political life. He has called for stronger libel laws and advocated pulling broadcast licenses from media organizations that reported honestly on him and his failings.

Trump described the ban instead as “an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America.” His tirade treated journalism he dislikes as something the government must suppress rather than scrutiny a president must face.

“It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control. It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!” Trump added.

That description of the press is false and detached from how major media organizations have actually treated Trump. News organizations routinely defer to him, while powerful figures within the press have repeatedly bent coverage in his favor.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University announced its support for the lawsuit. Its executive director, Jameel Jaffer, said excluding news organizations because of their reporting is an unmistakable constitutional violation.

“We’re glad to see that these news organizations are suing. The president’s decision to bar them from the White House for the content of their reporting is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. It’s an attack both on press freedom and the public’s right to independent information about the government,” Jaffer said in a press release.

The ban also prompted a collective response from the members of the White House television pool. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox announced Monday that they would not cover events that the White House had designated for pool coverage.

“This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties,” the pool members said in a statement. Their decision widened the fallout from an effort initially aimed at three organizations.

Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, president of the White House Correspondent’s Association, also condemned the ban after it was announced Friday. “The WHCA calls on the administration to immediately restore our colleagues’ access,” she wrote on X.

Former President Barack Obama addressed Trump’s action during an appearance at Colgate University this past Friday. Obama called the press ban “unimaginable” and considered how the political world might have reacted if he had attempted something similar against a conservative network.

“I’m trying to think what would have happened if I had said, ‘You know what, Fox News? You’re out of here,’” Obama said. His comparison put the raw abuse of presidential power at the center of the dispute.

Trump’s latest escalation against free speech and the free press comes less than two months before this year’s midterm election. Signs point toward a surge of votes for Democrats and against Trump and his party, driven largely by his failures on multiple issues since returning to the White House.

Rather than confront those failures, Trump has chosen to censor news organizations whose reporting he dislikes. That decision has now produced a First Amendment lawsuit, a protest by the television pool, condemnation from the White House press corps, and support for the plaintiffs from a prominent constitutional institute.