Judge Blocks Trump's White House Press Ban on Reporters

The Trump administration's press ban on reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico cannot stand, a federal judge ruled late Tuesday. The outlets' access to the White House must stay in place while their lawsuit against the president moves forward.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump, issued the preliminary injunction on October 13, 2026. He found the news organizations are likely to win their case, agreeing that the ban probably violates the First Amendment's free speech protections and the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of due process. "When the President issued his 'ban on the free press,' he blatantly and explicitly violated due process and the First Amendment," Theodore Boutrous Jr., the attorney representing the outlets, said in a statement. He said the harm to his clients, the First Amendment and the public was profound.

Trump announced the bans in a Sept. 18 social media post, revoking the White House credentials of journalists from the outlets and describing their coverage as "fake news." Kelly wrote that, "to put it mildly," the administration gave no warning before the post. The judge ruled that without a preliminary injunction, the outlets "are likely to suffer irreparable harm, and that the balance of the equities and the public interest tip in their favor."

This is the second time Kelly has stepped in. On Sept. 24, he temporarily blocked the bans and ordered the White House to restore the reporters' "hard pass" credentials, the long-term passes that let journalists who cover the administration regularly enter the campus without requesting permission each time. That earlier order rested on due process grounds alone. Tuesday's injunction goes further by also finding a likely First Amendment violation.

Why the judge blocked the ban

Government lawyers argued that White House access is a privilege, not a right, and that the president could restrict it to protect national security and to stem the spread of misinformation. Kelly rejected both arguments. He found that the national security justification came after the fact and was unsupported, and concluded the ban stemmed from Trump's stated view that the outlets' reporting was inaccurate and biased.

"Simply put," Kelly wrote, "That is unlawful viewpoint discrimination." The judge drew a line between that finding and the administration's underlying grievances, adding that his order should not be read as dismissing Trump's concerns about accuracy and fairness in coverage, nor as suggesting the government is powerless when classified information is unlawfully disclosed.

The judge said the damage went beyond the affected reporters' individual assignments. The ban threatened to cut off the outlets' access to the White House press area, a space open to many of their competitors, which would restrict their ability to observe events firsthand, report on them immediately and engage with government officials. Kelly put the number of reporters affected at 78 across the organizations. The government asked him to suspend his own ruling while it appeals; he refused, finding the request unjustified.

What comes next for the White House press fight

Kelly's order leaves one question open. It does not say whether Trump can exclude the outlets from the rotating pool of broadcast networks that covers the president in tight spaces and shares the reporting with the wider press corps. After that pool stood by CNN and canceled its coverage of Trump, the Justice Department announced over the weekend that it was investigating whether those five companies violated antitrust laws by acting together.

The lawsuit sits inside a wider confrontation between the president and the press, according to reporting by the Associated Press. The administration has sharply curtailed Pentagon access for the press corps covering the Defense Department, fought in court and in policy with The Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press itself and The New York Times, and used the Federal Communications Commission against broadcast networks. The White House called Kelly's decision misguided and said it plans to appeal. The Justice Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

In their filings, lawyers for the outlets called the press ban "unprecedented and blatantly unconstitutional." They argued it inflicts an injury on every news organization, which now risks the same treatment for publishing fact-based, independent reporting the president deems insufficiently favorable. Read the Associated Press report on the ruling for more on the court filings, and a second AP account of the decision.

For more recent court fights involving government power, see our coverage of Florida's social media law winning a key court victory and eight states suing OpenAI over child safety claims.