{"id":610575,"date":"2026-09-24T18:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610575\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T18:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:56:11","slug":"judge-orders-media-outlets-white-house-access-be-reinstated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610575\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders media outlets’ White House access be reinstated"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge early Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump\u2019s move to ban three news outlets from the White House grounds and said CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored.<\/p>\n

It’s the latest development in an escalating showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes. Trump announced he was banning the outlets<\/a> Saturday, assailing what he called \u201cfake news\u201d. More recently, the president has said negative coverage was dangerous for the country.<\/p>\n

The outlets argued they were singled out because of the content of their coverage \u2014 in other words, viewpoint discrimination \u2014 and called the ban a \u201cblatant violation\u201d of the First Amendment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an order, US District Judge Timothy Kelly said the media outlets had met the legal thresholds needed to obtain a temporary restraining order, which include likelihoods of succeeding on the merits of the case and of suffering irreparable harm without an order.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Kelly \u2014 whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist\u2019s access restored in a similar case in 2018 \u2014 heard arguments Thursday and ended the hearing without ruling.<\/p>\n

He issued a temporary restraining order that will be in effect for 14 days. Such orders are typically designed to preserve the status quo pending a closer review of the case by the court.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed by CNN, MS NOW and Politico against the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is photographed Monday, Sept. 21, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The White House did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment.<\/p>\n

In an emergency hearing, the judge had questioned whether the administration had met its legal responsibilities and provided the outlets with adequate due process before banning them.<\/p>\n

Kelly said his decision must be guided by prior rulings in comparable First Amendment cases, even if the government disagrees with them. \u201cThese are urgent matters,\u201d Theodore Boutrous Jr., attorney for the outlets, had argued, saying there had been irreparable harm to the outlets at a time of momentous news events. \u201cWe\u2019re at war. We have world leaders coming to Washington.\u201d Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik had reiterated the administration\u2019s point that the president had the right to choose who gets into the White House.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccess to the White House is a privilege, not a right,\u201d Velchik said.<\/p>\n

In arguing that Trump was not engaging in viewpoint discrimination, Velchik said the president had criticised other news organisations even more harshly \u2014 such as calling ABC \u201cthe worst\u201d \u2014 but hadn\u2019t banned them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president should be able to take immediate action to protect national security,\u201d Velchik told the court. In response, Boutrous said, \u201cSuddenly it\u2019s a national security case\u201d, arguing that the president brought up that point only after the lawsuit was filed. Trump \u201ckeeps proving our point\u201d, Boutrous said, describing how the president has consistently used negative coverage of him as justification for the ban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge early Thursday temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump\u2019s move to ban three news outlets from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,1073,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-610575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-media","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}