UUS MEDIA · WHITE HOUSE ACCESS
CNN, MS NOW and Politico reporters return six days after the ban was announced; the five-network TV pool sat out Xi Jinping's state visit while the White House launched its own 24/7 stream
The five networks that run the White House TV pool kept their pool cameras down during the ban. Graphic: K-EnterTech Hub
Reporters from CNN, MS NOW and Politico walked back onto the White House grounds around midday Thursday, six days after President Donald Trump announced he was barring the three outlets.
They returned under a 14-day temporary restraining order issued shortly after midnight by U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly in Washington. Kelly, whom Trump appointed in 2017, found the administration had likely violated the outlets' Fifth Amendment due-process rights by pulling their hard passes without prior notice or a chance to respond.
The ban also changed how Americans saw the president. ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News and CNN suspended the White House television pool on Monday, and when Chinese President Xi Jinping landed at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday evening, the major networks did not carry it live; the White House streamed it on YouTube and X. On Monday night, as the pool went dark, the White House launched its own round-the-clock channel, "Trump TV: The Essentials Station."
Kelly's order leaves the First Amendment question untouched. Whether a president may exclude outlets from press spaces because of their coverage is already before the D.C. Circuit in the Associated Press's 2025 lawsuit, and Kelly has given the plaintiffs until Sept. 28 to seek a preliminary injunction.
Passes pulled the morning after a Truth Social post; national security cited only after the suit
Trump announced the ban on Truth Social on the afternoon of Sept. 18, accusing the outlets of reporting "FICTION and LIES" about the president and warning that others would follow, without naming them (NBC News, Sept. 18). On Saturday morning the outlets' journalists were turned away, and Secret Service agents confiscated their badges at a security gate (Axios, Sept. 18; PetaPixel, Sept. 22).
The three organizations sued in federal court in Washington on Monday, arguing the ban was a "direct assault" on the First Amendment (CNN, Sept. 21; TIME, Sept. 24). Trump first raised national security as a justification in a social media post that same day (NBC News, Sept. 23). The Justice Department sent the outlets written explanations on Tuesday (CNBC, Sept. 24); letters from the White House press office accused them of spreading falsehoods about national security and publishing sensitive or classified information (NBC News, Sept. 23).
Eight-page order: no notice, no chance to be heard
At a roughly 45-minute hearing on Wednesday, Kelly focused on the process the journalists had — or had not — received (NBC News, Sept. 23). He noted that he had presided over the 2018 case in which Trump revoked the credentials of then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, and said he was bound by precedent (CNN, Sept. 24).
His eight-page ruling said the journalists got no advance notice of the bans and no opportunity to contest them (CBS News, Sept. 24). Kelly wrote that two D.C. Circuit decisions requiring notice and a hearing before a White House press pass is revoked controlled the outcome (CNBC, Sept. 24).
He was also skeptical that national security was the real motive, noting that nothing in the record predating the suit pointed that way and that the stories the White House flagged — on plans for the East Wing ballroom and the Iran war, among others — were "routine," some of them months old (CNN and CBS News, Sept. 24). The order directed officials to "immediately return, reinstate, and restore" the hard passes. "This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law," the outlets' lawyer, Ted Boutrous, told TIME on Sept. 24.
Turned away again Thursday morning; all three inside by 12:29 p.m.
Hours after the ruling, the outlets' reporters were still being refused at the gate. In an emergency filing, the organizations said Secret Service agents had also confiscated the hard passes of journalists whose credentials had not been taken earlier (TIME, Sept. 24). Kelly ordered the administration to respond by 12:30 p.m.
In a declaration, Micah Stopperich, director of White House press operations, said the White House was notified of the order at 7:10 a.m., began restoring access at 7:25 a.m., and made the confiscated badges available for pickup from 9:55 a.m. (Axios, Sept. 24). All three outlets were inside by 12:29 p.m. (CBS Austin/TNND, Sept. 24), and CNN's Betsy Klein and MS NOW's Laura Barrón-López went on air from the grounds (NBC News, Sept. 24). Kelly then declined to hold the emergency hearing.
