- A judge ordered the White House to temporarily restore access to previously banned media, including CNN, Politico and MS NOW.
- Their access was restored by midday on Thursday.
- The ban comes amid a state visit from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s ban of news outlets from the White House, ordering for CNN, MS NOW and Politico to have their credentials restored.
Reporters said midday Thursday they were still blocked from entering – prompting new court filings – but they were later admitted to the White House grounds.
In a late-night ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly ordered the White House to immediately “return, reinstate, and restore” the outlets’ access to the White House.
The judge said the three news outlets, backed by the White House Correspondents’ Association and many other media companies, had met the threshold for a temporary restraining order, which would go into effect for 14 days.
Kelly agreed with the media, who said in their lawsuit against the Trump administration that their press passes were rescinded without due process or notice.
The three outlets jointly sued the administration on Monday after Trump announced last week they’d be banned from the White House.
The judge in the case was randomly assigned. Kelly was appointed by Trump in 2017 and previously ruled that a CNN journalist’s access must be restored in a similar case in 2018.
Kelly said the White House must have clear standards for conduct that would be acceptable for removing a press pass, but said the White House’s letter to CNN, MSNOW and Politico banning them over their negative reporting of the president was “so vague.”
National security concern justification rejected by judge
Kelly said the court was skeptical that the White House’s interest in protecting national security is the “actual motivation” of removing the outlets’ access. Even if that was the case, he wrote, the White House didn’t offer them due process or notice.
The White House failed to present reasoning why removing the three outlets protects national security, or that keeping them in the White House media pool endangers it, the judge said.
“Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” Kelly wrote. “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House–instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”
After the judge’s ruling Thursday, the outlets shared online that their journalists were still unable to get access to the White House, despite the temporary restraining order.
It was unclear if it was an early-morning fluke or a larger issue at the time, but members from the outlets said they remained blocked from the White House hours later, as the president hosted a state visit with Chinese officials.
By midday Thursday, reporters from the banned outlets shared online that they were allowed to enter.
Before being reinstated, the news outlets asked the court in a new filing for an immediate hearing to address their continued ban from the White House.
“This morning journalists from each of CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO attempted to enter the White House and were turned away,” they said in the latest court filing. “A Secret Service agent confiscated the hard pass of journalists from all three organizations.”
Reporters from the outlets said they were allowed to enter the White House grounds as of noon on Thursday.
Outlets file lawsuit, other media supports them amid China state visit
Several other outlets, including ABC, CBS, Fox News and NBC, supported the banned outlets. The White House television press pool announced the TV pool would not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the president after the White House didn’t allow CNN to fulfill its duties of being the designated tv press pool earlier this week.
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were hosting a state visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, and it remains unclear if the TV pool will be covering the event or continue to not participate in presidential events.
Trump said last week the ban for the media outlets was a result of their “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” He said outlets shouldn’t be able to report “FICTION” and “LIES” when they cover the president.
Trump said he cherished the free press and said the ban was on the “fake news,” which he said was spreading like a “cancer.” He also said fake news was an issue of national security.
Vice President JD Vance argued Trump wasn’t banning media outlets, despite Trump’s threat to add more outlets to the ban. Vance said Trump’s ban was to revoke “special access” to the White House since the outlets were engaged in “what is effectively propaganda.”