I Can't Stand CNN. But You Don't Use the Sherman Act on Reporters.

Every principle you claim to hold gets tested sooner or later, and it never gets tested on the people you like.

It gets tested on the people you can't stand.

For me, that's CNN.

I spent years in local news and talk radio watching that network tell my listeners what they were allowed to think, then act shocked when half the country changed the channel.

I don't owe CNN a thing.

I have never owned the mug.

So believe me when I say I took no pleasure in writing what comes next.

On Friday, October 9, the Justice Department's Antitrust Division started sending what it calls "civil investigative demands" in an investigation of five television networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News.

Their alleged offense?

For a few days in September, they stopped sharing pool footage of the President.

That's the trust they want to bust.

How We Got Here

On September 18, President Trump announced on Truth Social that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banned from the White House grounds.

He wrote that the three outlets "shouldn't be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES" about him.

The next day, Secret Service officers took their hard passes at the gate.

CNBC reported that 78 journalists lost their passes before a judge stepped in.

With CNN locked out, it also lost its slot in the television pool, the rotation where one network films the President and shares the footage with everyone else.

The other four networks, Fox included, refused to cover CNN's shifts.

For about four days, the pool went quiet.

It was not a quiet week to pick.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Washington, and on September 25 he arrived at the National Archives Museum with the President and the First Lady.

The New York Times reported that footage of some of the week's biggest moments, including the President's greeting of Xi, wasn't carried by any major news network.

Each network still covered open press events on its own, outside the pool.

They also put out a joint statement, which is worth quoting in full.

"The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government."

"No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting."

On September 21, CNN, MS NOW and Politico sued.

Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump nominee, ordered their access restored two days later, and they were back inside on September 24.

On October 13, he turned that order into a preliminary injunction.

"President Trump's own comments suggest that he intended the revocation of Plaintiffs' hard passes to alter their reporting on him," Kelly wrote.

He said the Justice Department's national security argument appeared to be "merely a post-hoc justification" that surfaced after the outlets sued.

That's a judge this President picked.

By then, the antitrust demands had already gone out.

What the Sherman Act Was Built For

The Sherman Antitrust Act passed in 1890, named for Senator John Sherman of Ohio.

It was written for railroads, oil barons and the trusts that were strangling small competitors and squeezing farmers.

Section 1 outlaws contracts, combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade.

That's the law that broke up Standard Oil in 1911.

That's the era of the famous 1904 cartoon of Standard Oil as an octopus with its tentacles wrapped around the Capitol.

And in 2026, the Justice Department is pointing it at camera crews who skipped a few shifts.

Here is how the department explained itself.

"Group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act," spokeswoman Emily Covington said, adding that the division was "simply investigating."

Commercial is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

A cartel normally gets together to raise prices or push a rival out of the market.

This one cut its own output, to stand up for the rival.

Nobody made a dime.

If that's a conspiracy in restraint of trade, it's the dumbest one in American history.

I'm not the only one who thinks so.

William Kovacic, a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, told Deadline the case had a "very remote prospect of success."

"To me, if there is a commercial aim to this, it is well hidden," he said.

Sam Weinstein, a former Antitrust Division lawyer, pointed to the Supreme Court's 1982 Claiborne Hardware ruling, which protected an NAACP-led political boycott under the First Amendment.

His verdict on the case was blunt: "It would seem to be a non starter."

Bill Baer, who ran the Antitrust Division under Obama, told the Washington Post, "It looks like total retaliation."

Now, I wouldn't trust Bill Baer to pick my lunch order.

But a broken clock can still read the room.

The Part My Side Won't Like

Here is the name on that list my side keeps skipping over.

Fox News.

Fox sat out the pool with the others, and Fox is on the same list.

So the Justice Department of a Republican administration is investigating Fox News for standing next to CNN.

Sit with that for a second.

Now run the tape forward.

A future Democrat president, a future attorney general, and a weekend when Fox, Newsmax and OAN decide they won't carry footage from some rally they think is a stunt.

The demand letters go out on Friday.

Every conservative I know would be screaming about the weaponized DOJ by Saturday morning.

And they'd be right.

Whatever tool you build for your guy, you leave lying around for the next guy.

What Do They Actually Want?

On paper, the demands ask for communications and materials about the pool.

In plain English, that means newsroom emails.

Who said what, to whom, about which story, and when.

Axios spoke to legal experts and press freedom advocates who think that's the real point, and that the antitrust probe could be a pretext for getting at reporters' records.

I don't know if that's true.

I haven't seen the demands, and neither have you.

But I know what it feels like when someone with power decides your coverage is a problem.

Years ago a video platform pulled my old talk-radio clips for "misinformation."

They quietly put them back months later.

No apology, no explanation, just a lesson about who holds the off switch.

Bruce Brown of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press called the probe "another and even more brazen attempt to try to intimidate journalists."

Bob Corn-Revere of FIRE, a group that has defended plenty of conservatives on campus, said, "Political boycotts are part of a longstanding American tradition."

He's right about that one too.

Americans have been boycotting tea, buses, beer brands and football leagues since before we had a Constitution to argue about.

There Is a Real Argument Here, Just Not This One

I'll give the White House this much.

The pool has been a cozy little club for decades, and I've never loved who held the keys.

In February 2025, the White House took over choosing who gets into the pool from the White House Correspondents' Association.

I thought that was overdue.

If the President thinks five networks have too much control over his pictures, he can fix that.

Put Newsmax in the rotation.

Put OAN in it.

Hand a shift to an independent livestreamer with a good camera and a bad haircut.

That's a policy fight, and it's one I'd happily join.

What you don't get to do is treat a protest as price-fixing and go fishing through newsrooms' inboxes.

Where I Stand

I backed this President because both parties left people like me behind.

I never signed up to applaud every swing of the bat.

And this one is a miss.

You can ban a reporter you think lies about you, and take your chances in court.

You can open the pool to anyone you like tomorrow morning.

You can call CNN fake news seven days a week, and I'll probably nod along.

But you can't antitrust a camera.

A walkout from a press event is a protest.

Calling it a cartel is a warning shot, and every newsroom in the country heard it.

To the Antitrust Division: drop the demands.

There are real monopolies out there, and some of them have been censoring Americans for years.

Go get them.

And Remember:

Trust no Single Source

Trust Your Gut

and Stay Curious

Jesse

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