WASHINGTON (September 24, 2026) – CNN, MS NOW, and Politico filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration after President Trump revoked their press credentials and banned their reporters from entering the White House. The outlets argued in a joint lawsuit that the ban was a violation of the First Amendment because they were being excluded based on the content of their reporting.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is standing by the President’s decision to ban these news outlets from the White House, saying access to the building is a privilege and that the ban is justified under national security concerns. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a 14-day temporary restraining order early Thursday morning, ordering the administration to immediately restore press credentials for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. Despite the judge’s order, the outlets are still denied access.
For more analysis on these developments, please consider Mary-Rose Papandrea, First Amendment, free speech, and media law expert. She has written extensively about government secrecy and the press, the reporter's privilege, defamation and privacy law, public employee speech rights, the government speech doctrine, speech issues in public schools, and free speech and academic freedom issues in higher education. Her work has appeared in Stanford Law Review, Supreme Court Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, and Minnesota Law Review, among others.
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