Trump's decision to throw CNN, MS NOW, and Politico out of the White House has left him with almost no TV coverage at all — an embarrassing outcome for a president who lives on camera.

• Other outlets, including Fox News, refused to staff the press pool in solidarity, so a presidential event aired with pictures but no sound.
• The pool is a shared arrangement: one reporter and one camera crew cover the president and feed everything to everyone else.
• Even Newsmax, normally friendly to Trump, admitted on air that the ban had backfired.
• The three banned outlets had all published stories about dwindling U.S. munitions, suggesting the real trigger was accurate wartime reporting.
• The White House is now launching its own state-run broadcast channel to bypass the press entirely.

Outlook: Courts have struck down past White House bans, but the press pool sits on shakier legal ground, so expect the standoff — and more government-run coverage — to continue.