NEW YORK — Three news organizations banned from the White House for days were back Thursday after a judge handed CNN, MS NOW and Politico a reprieve in an extraordinary showdown between U.S. President Donald Trump and outlets whose coverage he dislikes.
But media coverage of Trump’s White House was hardly normal. On a high-profile day when Chinese leader Xi Jinping was visiting Washington and planning to attend a state dinner, no major American network was airing live coverage.
After the White House banned CNN from a rotation of five major U.S. broadcast outlets who take turns shooting and sharing video, the other four -- in a show of solidarity -- were still declining to participate in the so-called video pool.
The president posted online that TV networks “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years ... because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to “TRUMP.”
It was a chaotic day for the media at the White House and in court.
Initially, in the morning, CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists were denied entry. A Secret Service agent had confiscated their credentials as part of the ban. After the ruling for the outlets in the early hours Thursday, White House operations officials were notified to restore access to the affected reporters, but said they needed time to find, reactivate and deliver their entry badges. The process took over two hours, according to an administration court filing.
In his decision to provisionally lift the ban, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the three outlets’ access. He said they had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order and were likely to succeed in showing that their press passes were revoked without due process.
The ruling did not address CNN’s removal from the White House video pool. The White House did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The judge’s ruling issued a temporary order
Kelly -- whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018 -- said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass. He called the standard of objectionable reporting outlined in letters that the White House sent the outlets “so vague it hardly does the trick.”
The judge also made clear he did not buy the administration’s argument that the news outlets’ reporting endangered national security -- and noted that Trump himself had not used that argument in the beginning, focusing solely on what he called negative coverage.
Theodore Boutrous Jr., the news outlets’ attorney, said the judge’s quick ruling vindicated the freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law.
“I think we’re going to end up stronger because of this, and this tactic of just attacking the press, attacking individual journalists, is going to be discredited,” Boutrous said in an interview on MS NOW Thursday afternoon. “The law is just clearly on our side here,” he said.
The temporary restraining order -- typically designed to preserve the status quo pending a closer review of the case by the court -- expires in two weeks. The judge gave both sides until Oct. 5 to file their arguments over whether he should consider issuing a longer-lasting ruling called a preliminary injunction. Kelly said he “intends to rule expeditiously” on the preliminary injunction request.
Attorneys debated access to the White House and any risk to national security
Boutrous argued in the hearing that there was an urgent need for renewed access, saying that the ban caused irreparable harm to the outlets at a time of momentous news events. “We’re at war,” he told the judge. “We have world leaders coming to Washington.”
U.S. Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik, in his argument, reiterated the administration’s point that the president has the right to choose who gets into the White House.
“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” Velchik said.
In arguing that Trump was not engaging in viewpoint discrimination -- the government singling out specific media outlets for the content of what they say or publish -- Velchik said the president had criticized other news organizations, but not banned them. He noted, for example, that Trump had called ABC “the worst.”
Major networks refrained from covering Trump for the media pool
On Wednesday, after the hearing, the major networks refused to air footage of Trump without assurances that CNN would be permitted back into the video pool.
At Joint Base Andrews, where the president formally welcomed Xi, journalists from Fox News, CBS and NBC were present but not shooting video.
Other television outlets whose crews were present, according to signs on their tripods and cameras, were NewsNation, Newsmax, Right Side Broadcasting Network, One America News and LindellTV.
The Associated Press said it provided video coverage of Trump greeting Xi to its customers, so they could decide whether to broadcast. “We did not stream the coverage on our own platforms, including APNews.com or our YouTube channel,” said an AP spokesman, Patrick Maks.
In an advisory to customers, AP said it would not have independent video coverage of meetings between Trump and Xi. It noted that a U.S. government handout live feed could be accessed on the White House website.
The AP was one of some 50 groups filing an amicus brief ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, urging the court to immediately restore the three outlets’ White House access.
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By Jocelyn Noveck, Hallie Golden and Laurie Kellman
Golden reported from Seattle and Kellman from London.