President Donald Trump just lost the same argument that Richard Nixon lost as president 55 years ago about trying to stymie unflattering media coverage. The bruised emotions of a thin-skinned politician, the legal precedent goes, do not amount to a national security threat.
U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly ruled on Sept. 24 that Trump must restore – for now – access to the White House for journalists from CNN, MS Now and Politico.
Trump last week revoked White House media credentials from those journalists while bellyaching about how they cover him. From the start, Trump made clear that he craves favorable coverage but wasn’t getting it.
Trump’s lawyers later – too late, it turns out – tried to rewrite his gripes about media coverage into
some sort of threat against national security after CNN, MS Now and Politico sued to overturn the ban.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, it didn’t make sense to the judge either.
This won't be the end of Trump's media tantrums
Kelly, appointed by Trump in 2017,sounded skeptical of Trump's media ban during a hearing in Washington, DC on Sept. 23, and then rejected claims of “security concerns” in his ruling, a temporary restraining order in place now for 14 days. His ruling said the media outlets look likely to secure a preliminary injunction after that.
While Kelly's early-morning order said Trump "shall immediately" restore media credentials to CNN, MS Now and Politico, journalists from those outlets were initially blocked while trying to report to work at the White House on Sept. 24.
Kelly then asked the Trump administration for an explanation by 12:30 p.m. after CNN, MS Now and Politico called for a new hearing.
The White House then backed down, telling the judge in a Sept. 24 court filing that credentials for the journalists had been reissued.
Trump will no doubt expand this senseless fight to cast the judge as some sort of villain out to get him. That's a pattern for Trump as familiar as his whining about accurate media coverage.
Kelly also ruled against Trump during his first term as president in 2018 when he tried to kick a journalist from CNN out of the White House.
Trump saw all this coming, lamenting in a Sept. 21 social media post that the media outlets who sued him were lucky to have a “totally disloyal judge” on the case. That post made no mention of national security concerns. It was just another collection of typical Trump insults.
Trump's Nixon-like thin skin shows again
Trump, like Nixon, sees any journalism that could expose him to criticism as some kind of unfair attack. He feels the same way about judges who rule against him, especially if he appointed them to the bench.
Nixon tried to use national security as a legal dodge in 1971 to prevent publication of The Pentagon Papers,an embarrassing history of America's military history in Vietnam.
That case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Nixon lost, with Justice Hugo Black writing: “The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.”
Kelly’s Sept. 24 ruling echoed that, noting that concerns Trump’s lawyers expressed about the impact on national security from reporting from the journalists he banned was “so vague it hardly does the trick" to justify the action.
Trump – petulant and impulsive as always – ruined his legal argument before his lawyers got a chance to make it.
He first announced the ban in a Sept. 18 social media post that made clear he just didn't like how CNN, MS Now and Politico covered him. The White House issued a Sept. 21 news release about the ban that complained about "the radical left" but made no claims about national security being at risk.
Instead, the White House news release justified the ban as the result of "years of false reporting."
Kelly, in his ruling, said nothing in Trump’s legal claims showed the media ban “was motivated by national security concerns.” Instead, Trump’s complaints were just about how he was covered by CNN, MS Now and Politico.
The media outlets sued Trump on Sept. 21, in part because Trump gave them no "due process" to challenge the ban.
USA TODAY was one of 50 media and journalism organizations that asked the judge on Sept. 23 to allow them to file a "friend of the court" brief in support of CNN, MS Now and Politico.
The Department of Justice, in a Sept. 22 court filing, attempted to retroactively create due process by including unsigned letters from the White House Press Office that day to CNN,MS Now and Politico that again complained about their reporting. Those letters set a 5 p.m. deadline on Sept. 25 to contest the ban.
That's not due process. That's what the kids call CYA. And the judge didn’t buy it.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on Bluesky, @bychrisbrennan.bsky.social, and on X, @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Thin-skinned Trump fails again. He should've learned from Nixon. | Opinion
