News organizations ask court to enjoin White House’s enforcement of access ban: NPR
A logo on a CNN booth is seen in the press area of the White House, Saturday, September 26, 2026, in Washington.
Rod Lamkey/AP
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Rod Lamkey/AP
Three media outlets that President Donald Trump abruptly banned from White House grounds this month have asked a federal court to block the ban until the case is resolved, saying the administration has “persisted in implementing its ban in an unpredictable and inconsistent manner” despite a judge’s ban order — including selectively barring CNN from White House pool functions.
“The White House’s words and actions leave little doubt that it will immediately reinstate a comprehensive ban on CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO if given the opportunity,” lawyers for CNN, MS NOW and Politico wrote in a filing late Monday.
“Because the ban constitutes an unlawful encroachment on the most fundamental liberties of the First Amendment and will inflict irreparable harm on Plaintiffs and the public if left unchecked, this Court should preliminarily enjoin its enforcement pending resolution of this case,” the filing states.
It’s the latest development in the saga of back-and-forths between the Trump administration and the media during the second term of his presidency. It’s a contentious relationship that has raised numerous First Amendment questions, resulted in sanctions and restrictions on White House and Pentagon reporters, and led to several lawsuits making their way through the federal court system.
A two-week temporary restraining order regarding Trump’s ban on the three organizations, issued by U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly last week, restored media access to the White House, but expires on October 8. The preliminary injunction sought in Monday’s filing would extend access to the White House until the case is finally resolved.
In an emailed statement to The Associated Press immediately after the filing, the lead attorney for all three media outlets called the ban “a blatant violation of the First Amendment and due process.”
“The president and his administration have repeatedly made it clear that this ban has only one purpose: to punish reporting he does not like,” attorney Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. said.
“This is retaliation and viewpoint discrimination, pure and simple,” Boutrous said. “As the district court’s temporary restraining order expires this week, it is critical to ensure that the White House continues to be prevented from implementing this unconstitutional ban on press freedoms.”
The White House still says access is a privilege, not a right
The complaint comes a day after the Trump administration made clear it was not backing down from its assertion that the sudden ban, which took effect Sept. 19, was justified.
“When it comes to the White House, it’s the people’s house,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said on ABC on Sunday, invoking an argument the administration has made all along. “It’s a privilege, not a right, to be here.”
Monday’s 42-page filing reiterated many of the arguments the media outlets made in their original lawsuit against Trump and the White House, filed two days after the journalists were banned.
He also mentioned the turnover in the White House broadcast pool, which has become a battleground in recent days in the standoff between Trump and the media.
The White House, it says, “has persisted in enforcing its ban in unpredictable and inconsistent ways, including barring CNN from fulfilling its role as designated television network pooler on September 26 – to the detriment of CNN, its fellow members and, ultimately, the American public.”
When the ban was implemented, CNN was removed as a member of the broadcast pool, made up of the five major networks: CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News. In solidarity, the other networks decided to suspend the pool until CNN was allowed to return.
On Friday, CNN was cleared to cover the president with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the National Archives. But in a new setback Saturday, the White House banned the channel from Air Force One, preventing it from covering Trump’s trip to a college football game in Tennessee. The rest of the pool refused to provide a replacement, in solidarity with CNN.
Blanche also defended this decision. “The president has every right to decide who gets on his plane,” he said in the Sunday interview. He added that Trump was “fed up with some media outlets simply refusing to report accurate information.” He added that media coverage he called “misinformation” was a national security concern.
“That’s what constitutes a national security problem, when completely erroneous information comes from the White House,” he said.
Kelly threw cold water on that argument in his ruling last week granting the temporary restraining order against the White House ban. “The court is skeptical … that defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the true motivation” for removing access, Kelly wrote.
His decision did not directly concern the rotation of the TV pool. In the new filing, the plaintiffs describe the important function the pool serves and argue that it is an important part of the regular access to the president and his activities that the media has traditionally had — and must be restored.
This includes the case of Air Force One. “CNN has not received any official communication from the White House explaining its exclusion,” the filing said. “Because CNN was excluded and no replacement was named, no major television network accompanied the president on his trip.”
The problem of access to the pool has presented networks with difficult choices
For now, the pool’s networks have decided to approach the ongoing dispute on a case-by-case basis, according to a person familiar with the pool’s operations, speaking on condition of anonymity to provide details of the ongoing discussions.
On Sunday, Fox covered a pool event; On Monday, NBC covered the president in the Oval Office. CNN is not in the rotation until Thursday. If the network is excluded from a pool event again, the networks will decide together, likely based on the media interest of the situation, whether to come up with a replacement or refrain from coverage as they previously did.
The issues are difficult. On the one hand, the networks want to take a stand in favor of press freedom and against attempts to intimidate the press. On the other hand, the media has the obvious goal of providing information to its audience.
“There aren’t a lot of good options,” said David A. Schulz, director of the Clinic for Media Freedom and Access to Information at Yale Law School.
If the White House continues to ban CNN, Schulz said, the networks could choose “to exercise their market power and say, ‘We’re not going to mess with you.'”
The question, Schulz adds, is: “Who will back down first?”
The networks “may well feel like they’re between a rock and a hard place,” noted RonNell Andersen Jones, a law professor at the University of Utah.
“The capitulation could be seen as an abandonment of essential elements of press freedom,” Andersen Jones said. “But the practicalities of lengthy news blackouts at the White House are also complicated, and refusing to cover major news at the highest levels of government could itself feel like a failure to serve the purposes of democracy.”
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