WH Bans CNN From Traditional Pre-SOTU Luncheon

CNN reports:

President Donald Trump’s targeting of CNN is moving to yet another arena: The annual presidential lunch with television network anchors. CNN anchors are being excluded from Tuesday’s lunch, three sources said on Monday night.

Trump, like presidents before him, typically invites anchors from all the major networks to dine with him at the White House in advance of his State of the Union address. The lunch conversation is considered off the record, but it gives the anchors a sense of the president’s state of mind before they anchor SOTU coverage.

“Despite Trump’s persistent attacks on the news media, he’s kept up such traditions,” Politico pointed out last year. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer attended last year’s lunch. Blitzer has been attending these lunches longer than almost any other anchor — 20 years in a row.