CNN, MS NOW and Politico allowed back at the White House after judge blocked Trump’s ban

CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists were allowed back at the White House Thursday, nearly a week after President Donald Trump banned them. The reinstatement came after a judged ruled that the administration had to temporarily restore their access.

White House reporters Betsy Klein of CNN and Laura Barrón-López of MS NOW immediately began reporting live on the air after they were allowed onto the White House grounds Thursday afternoon. Both media outlets pointed to the on-air reporting when asked for comment. Politico wrote shortly afterward that one of its reporters was granted access, too.

The media outlets scored a victory overnight when U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly reinstated the outlets’ access for 14 days while their legal challenge proceeded.

Yet on Thursday morning, reporters from the banned outlets were still prohibited from entering the White House. Shortly after, Kelly then ordered the administration to respond in writing by 12:30 p.m. after journalists from the three media outlets were turned away. After receiving Stopperich’s filing, the judge denied the news organizations’ request for an emergency hearing.

It was not clear why the journalists were initially still barred from entering. The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment.

In the administration’s court filing shortly before the deadline, White House press operations director Micah Stopperich presented a timeline the administration’s activity to reinstate the journalists’ access.

Stopperich said her team was told at shortly after 7 a.m. to restore access “to affected reporters by turning on their hard badges,” and soon after, they began to do so. Secret Service indicated shortly after 9 a.m. that the journalists’ passes were “back on,” and they were dropped off at the entry gate for pick up within the hour.

Trump announced his ban on the three news outlets in a post on Truth Social on Friday, saying it was “a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”

Kelly wrote in his temporary restraining order that Trump’s directive was most likely unconstitutional. He wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their lawsuit against the administration, at least on the grounds that their credentials were revoked last week without due process.

Trump, the judge wrote, did not dispute that the outlets “did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before their hard passes were revoked.”

“This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law. We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action,” the attorney representing the news outlets, Ted Boutrous, said in a statement.

Thursday’s order rejected the White House’s argument that banning the outlets was motivated by national security concerns, saying the administration offered little proof to back up the claim.

“Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting,” Kelly wrote.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office a short time after the post, Trump referred to his directive as “the ban on the free press.”

“I don’t want them in my office. I don’t want them here,” he said.

CNN, Politico and MS Now joined forces to sue the Trump administration for violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, after the three outlets were banned from the White House. News4’s Erika Gonzalez speaks with NBC News reporter Gary Grumbach about the lawsuit and the decision to suspend White House pool coverage.

He said the policy was not in response to a particular report, but because of “cumulative stories over the last few years.”

“They purposely write negative news. And they do that because they want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration,” he said. “If they could straighten themselves out, I’d love it,” he added.

The outlets said in their suit challenging the ban that Trump’s remarks show the policy was motivated by “retaliation” and “intended to cow” the outlets “into changing their reporting and threaten other journalists lest they suffer the same fate.”

In letters to the news outlets on Tuesday, the White House accused them of publishing “sensitive security information, and misinformation,” which “undermines the President’s ability to safeguard the national security.”

The White House cited specific articles about munitions stockpiles impacted by the Iran war and sanctions against Russia, as well as one about a request for $1 billion in funding for East Wing renovations that the president had said would be fully funded by donors, and another about negative “vibes” at the recent Republican midterm convention.

Addressing the “extraordinary” standard that the government argued gave it the right to revoke the outlets’ passes without prior notice, Kelly wrote that the sorts of stories cited in the letters “are routine,” and stretch back months or even years.

NBC News previously reported that Trump’s Friday announcement caught a number of high-level White House aides off guard. A senior White House official defended the move to NBC News earlier this week, saying: “Nobody close to the President was surprised at his action to hold the fake news accountable.”

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents’ Association and a group of 49 news and media organizations — including NBCUniversal Media LLC, the parent company of NBC News — filed a legal brief in the case Wednesday backing the three outlets.

The filing said the president’s stated reasons for the ban “are transparently viewpoint discriminatory” and “inconsistent with the First Amendment.”

“The ban at issue in this case does exactly what longstanding D.C. Circuit precedent” has said the government can’t do, the filing said — “prohibited three news organizations from access to the entirety of the White House and its grounds due to the content of their reporting.”

It also clashes, the filing said, “with bedrock Supreme Court precedent, which recognizes that ‘even though a person has no ‘right’ to a valuable governmental benefit,’ the government ‘may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected interests — especially, his interest in freedom of speech.’”