WASHINGTON – Lawyers for President Donald Trump and three media outlets he has tried to ban from the White House are due in court Oct. 8 for a hearing over whether the outlets will be able to access the White House in the weeks ahead.
Trump announced Sept. 18 that CNN, MS NOW and Politico, which he described as “fake news,” would be banned from the White House complex. They sued over the ban within days, arguing that it violated their constitutional rights to speak freely and to receive due process before losing White House access.
In a Sept. 24 ruling, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly – a Trump appointee – granted a temporary restraining order that required the administration to reinstate the press passes for two weeks. The Oct. 8 hearing will
center on whether Kelly will now issue a longer-term order protecting the news outlets' White House access until he issues a final decision in the case.
In the days since the White House was forced to readmit the news outlets into its complex, Trump has banned CNN and Politico from traveling on Air Force One.
An appeals court ruled in 2025 that Trump probably could restrict access to certain spaces, including Air Force One and the Oval Office, without violating the First Amendment. The ruling stemmed from the White House's effort to ban the Associated Press from specific areas early on in Trump's second term. The AP's lawsuit over that ban is ongoing.
The Trump administration has argued in court filings that access to the White House is a privilege, not a right, and that the targeted outlets pose national security risks due to their reporting on classified and sensitive information.
In his earlier ruling suspending the ban for 14 days, Kelly wasn't persuaded by that argument. He wrote that evidence from before the news outlets sued suggested that Trump's true motivation wasn't a concern for national security.
This isn't the first time Kelly has addressed tensions between Trump and the media when it comes to White House access. In 2018, he ordered the White House to restore press credentials for then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after they were revoked over a contentious exchange between Trump and Acosta at a news conference.
BrieAnna Frank's role covering First Amendment issues at USA TODAY is made possible by a collaboration among Freedom Forum, Journalism Funding Partners and the USA TODAY Network. Freedom Forum does not provide editorial input. Reach BrieAnna at bjfrank@usatoday.com and @brieannafrank on X and Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: CNN, MS NOW, Politico due in court for hearing on White House access
