Judge Orders Trump to Restore Associated Press Access to White House
“No, the Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints.”
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to restore the Associated Press’s access to the White House.
“No, the Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution requires no less,” wrote McFadden.
The White House banned the AP from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other spots because it would not change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its stylebook.
The AP sued three people in the administration: Susan Wiles, chief of staff, Taylor Budowich, deputy chief of staff, and Karoline Leavitt, press secretary.
McFaddon noted:
Indeed, it has continued to admit outlets to the pool such as the New York Times, that “have been highly critical of the President and have continued to refer to the former name.” In fact, all members of the original press pool have continued to use the Gulf of Mexico name while noting President Trump’s order.
So why has the AP alone been penalized? The AP claims, and the Court now finds, that the Government has singled out the AP because of its refusal to update the Gulf’s name in its Stylebook, an influential writing and editing guid. eOn February 11, shortly after the AP refused to rename the Gulf, [Press Secretary Karoline] Leavitt summoned AP Chief White House Correspondent Zeke Miller to her office. “She told [Miller] that, at President Trump’s direction, the AP would no longer be permitted in the Oval Office as part of the press pool until and unless the AP revised its Stylebook” to use Gulf of America instead.
McFadden pointed out how the AP has “had two permanent spots—one print reporter and one photographer—for over a century” in the press pool.
*rolls eyes* Who cares?
Now, McFadden has a legitimate point here: “Local news outlets are particularly reliant on wire services for news from Washington, D.C.”
If you read your local news online you will more than likely see reproductions of AP reports.
However, those briefings and events are usually on TV. They can report on them like us normies do. I’m able to report on press briefings and everything else from my comfortable couch in my pajamas.
McFadden is apparently mad that Trump wants to give new media more attention:
But during this litigation, press pool procedures abruptly changed. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on February 25 that the Government—not the WHCA—would now choose which hard pass holders gained access to the press pool. She said that the Government wanted to promote
“new media” that “historically” “have long been denied the privilege” of participating in the pool. According to the AP, the practical result has been that the newly arranged press pool trades out one wire service seat and one photography seat for two “new media” seats, leaving one rotating wire service seat. The White House has permitted a second wire service reporter at some pool events—just not the AP. In fact, during the pendency of this litigation, one or both of the other two wire services have always obtained a press pool slot. The WHCA continues to assign, “at the White House’s discretion,” the seats in the Brady Briefing Room. In short, new media has benefitted at AP’s expense under the new management. Little else has changed.
Cry me a river.
Oh, no. Not being in the rooms means “the AP’s reporting quality suffered.”
“The foreign correspondent did not transmit photos and text updates live, so the AP had to wait for the long meeting to conclude before issuing photography, ’40 minutes behind’ competitors,” added McFadden. “More, because the foreign correspondent specialized in video rather than photography, he did not produce images that conformed to the usual AP standards.”
OK, but we managed to get AFP, Reuters, and Getty images just fine. We also got the AFP and Reuters write-ups quickly.
Did McFadden read anything he wrote? I could use his argument to fight for a press pass and attend all these briefings and events.
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By this reasoning, they cannot exclude anyone.
AP has other access to photos and facts. If they were going to allow AP back, I suggest a small sound proof time out room, with a laser projector that constantly projects a dunce hat.
Suppose it had no other access. Suppose loss of access to the White House would make it close down altogether. So f—ing what?
The point is to give AP access which makes fun of them.
Yes. RT should insist on being there now too. Would be hilarious
RT has more credibility than AP.
By this reasoning, a politician must give full access to everyone who wishes it. Let’s say Senator X gives a briefing to press outlets A, B, and C. There are over 3 million actual US citizens, each with the same rights to “be the press” as any other individuals or group of same. Senator X may theoretically have to hire a stadium and spend his entire tenure with him or his spokesperson doing nothing but giving in-person briefings to that stadium full of “press”. At great expense.
The judicial “reasoning” is ludicrous. Direct in-person access is by its very nature a limited resource. If the AP can still view press briefings and report on them – which they can – they have no standing to complain. There is no “constitutional right” requiring access to the press – otherwise the Biden puppeteers would never have been able to keep Crazy Uncle Joe insulated from press interaction so much, nor could the sainted O have relegated press coverage of some of his outings to adjoining closet space,
Even if they couldn’t, they’d still have no valid complaint.
(Though they do have standing, which simply means that they’re directly affected by the decision, not that their complaint is valid.)
LOL, Trump should invite 10 everyday people to sit in assigned seats that surround the 1 AP reporter.
And they should all be ex-NBA players. Yeah, the ones that always sit in front of me at the movies.
Simple solution. Disband the entire press pool. No entrance to the White House. Set up a studio elsewhere and let the press sit in that building. No Oval Office press.
No press on AF 1. We don’t need preening peacocks in the media. They can fly coach in another aircraft. Or let them sit in the back of a C-17. They can eat box nasties (inflight meals) notorious for yard bird and old apples.
Tell the media they can blame it on AP for being such pussies.
I think it has come to that.
Brilliant! Send it to Elon on X. He is mostly likely to see it and pass it on.
Correction: C-130
That’s just cruel. Depending on the length of the flight, the press wouldn’t get to the destination until several hours after the President.
Hmm… I’m not seeing a problem there.
Now that is cruel and inhumane! It is torture for the crew, but it would be nice to force the press to use the latrine in a 130!
I think that’s what Stalin did.
Riiiiight. Stalin was famous for making journalists ride in a different plane. His name will live in infamy for making journalists ride in a different plane.
No. Stalin memory holed them, after he disappeared them.
“I think…”
Facts not in evidence, your Honor.
No. Stalin actually murdered people indiscriminately.
Which makes me consider what would happen to you if you were born in the days of Stalin.
Thanks for your “daily dose of stupid.”
If, by Stalin, you mean Biden.
Trump should just take federal control of all media outlets. That’s what Stalin, Putin, Mao, Ortega, Hitler, etc. did.
Sorry. He is not going to satisfy wet dreams.
Check it out. JR *wants* Trump to be some kind of totalitarian dictator. Trump has always talked to the press more than any Democrat, but they clearly hate him and will NEVER give him a fair shake. But if he’s had enough gold ol’ reliable JR compares him to men who MURDERED MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.
Don’t ever change, JR, you Democrat hack.
why not. He already has complete control of your grey and white matter.
Wow! Even for you, that is a huge reach.
“Nurse! Junior needs his meds again!”
You should probably sit this one out, Biden-voter.
Government media (NPR, PBS) fearing for their jobs under WHAT president?
That would have been a solution to the decision in Jiim Acosta’s case in Trump’s first term. But it’s not a solution here, because the whole point in this case was that the President wants reporters in the Oval Office. He invites them there. But only the ones he likes. It’s no different from when your kid invites some classmates to his birthday party, and the teacher insists that he must invite the whole class or no one.
Great. No birthday party.
That would be an improvement
I think it has come to that.
There’s no room, the spot has been taken by One America or online podcasters or other new media. Calling a geographic feature by an archaic name is not a “view”. No diversity of opinion is lost by having AP get lost.
If they do have to admit AP, they should not be seated. Remember the One America person who had to stand in the back for a while, during Trump 1.
Yes, it is a view. And the name isn’t even archaic; the entire rest of the world still uses it, including everyone in the USA who isn’t either dependent on the government or making a point. And Trump isn’t entitled to retaliate against AP for expressing that view. But that’s not what happened here. He’s not required to invite people he doesn’t like to his private events, and that’s what these events are.
Journalists have special rights under the Constitution.
Journalist has the same root as diurnal. They write every day or write on the day. You may be a journalist.
Maybe that’s a typo in your first sentence. If so, I apologize in advance. Journalists do NOT have special rights under the Constitution. When Madison wrote the words, ‘Freedom of the Press,’ he wasn’t referring to journalists; ‘The Press’ used a euphemism for professional journalists wasn’t coined until very late in the 19th century or early in the 20th. Madison was writing about the printing press. The crown had weaponized access to the press, paper and printing ink in particular as a way to quash dissent. While they could control the newspapers through other means, it was the pamphleteers (the loudest voices for liberty) in Colonial America the Crown really feared. Those pamphleteers did it as a hobby, usually for free (or at great expense to themselves) and frequently anonymously for fear of retribution. When they wrote the words ‘freedom of the press’, they were quite literally trying to protect access to the printing for everyday Americans.
Unfortunately, too many courts have made the enormous mistake of ceding to ‘journalists’ special privileges and rights that were never intended by the Founders. These were created by judicial fiat, not rooted in constitutional intent.
Yes, but it’s a “collective right,” exactly like journalists insisted the Second Amendment was.
Make them get a permit, but make it just as hard as getting a permit for the other “right” mentioned in the adjacent amendment.
Ooh, I already know somebody who’s gonna fail the “good character” requirement.
What TargaGTS said. The “freedom of the press” is exactly parallel to that of speech. The constitution even combines them into the same sentence: “…the freedom of speech or of the press”; accordingly I would argue that they’re not even separate freedoms but two examples of the same freedom, which nowadays we call the freedom of expression. “Speech” means spoken expression, and “the press” means published expression. It’s like slander and libel, which are both examples of defamation, one spoken and one published.
Just as the freedom of speech doesn’t give any special rights to professional public speakers, the freedom of the press doesn’t give any special rights to those who write for publication. They have exactly the same right to express themselves, orally or in writing, as everyone else does, and no more.
He’s a Trump appointed judge. Well you can’t get them all right.
Given who he had working “for” him the first term, definitely not.
Simply incorrect. This implies all or none, with both options clearly fallacious. Simply put, they may allocate space as they chose. No one has a right to be in the press pool.
President Trump should assign each reporter a certain day of the month when they are allowed to enter the subject spaces. Assign AP Feb 29th.
Have a lottery each day. Only so many spots. pull only so many tickets. Completely random and completely fair.
Tickets? and make them purchase the tickets,…to reduce the debt
This should have been dismissed as nonjusticiable. Can Trump tell the Court how to run their court? No, he may not. This is why the Court almost always dismisses challenges to how Congress passed a particular bill as nonjusticiable. How Congress chooses to do things behind the doors of Congress is largely left to Congress by the Court. Only in the rarest of circumstances do they intervene. They should apply that same standard to how the Executive chooses to run his OWN HOUSE. No one has a ‘right’ to be INVITED to enter the White House.
“Can Trump tell the Court how to run their court? No, he may not.”
Perhaps he could quarter some soldiers in the judge’s home.
Strictly for his safety you understand.
I think Trump should issue an executive order requiring every federal judge to hold a press conference open to all-comers at least once a week.
No, he doesn’t have the authority to issue that order, but neither does the judge have the authority to dictate who gets into White House press conferences.
Congress could though. SCOTUS can decide how they operate but inferior Courts are an optional creation of Congress + Executive signing legislation. If they can create the inferior Courts or for that matter decide to dissolve them, then Congress can tell the inferior Courts how to operate. They could require media including cameras +audio in every District and Circuit Court, require access.for live streams all.sorts of crap. Heck they could probably require 30 minutes of media access to the Judges in a weekly press conference…. though the Judges could probably get away with doing what Marshawn Lynch did at the mandatory Superbowl player media day …but they’d still have to show up and sit there for 30 minutes. I’m sure the Judges would all love these reforms…since media access is so crucial.
Fine. Let the AP in. Ignore their raised hand.
No, don’t let them in. The order is ultra vires.
President Trump was inevitably going to lose this one. Time now to drop it.
Idiot.
It is time to appeal this case, not drop it. These judges are being overridden by the SCOTUS with regularity. As TargaGTS pointed out, this case is non-justiciable. The AP has no more right to be at every WH press conference or to be on AF1 every time it takes off than any other news organization accredited by the White House. UP and INS were at one time as large or larger than AP. Their time came and is gone. Many newspapers, such as Gannett, no longer use AP’s services because of their “style book” that changes word definitions or creates words out of thin air. The AP ‘s propensity to present commentary as news reporting is also a reason for their decline. It doesn’t matter who appointed the judge, the judge is dead wrong. He uses the age of the AP as a reason for it to be held above other media. The internet and the plethora of different news sources proves there is no further need for ancient organizations such as the AP. It is a empty shell that just won’t admit it’s dead, just like print newspapers and “Big 3” network news organizations. Trump should appeal this ruling. As Leavitt has said repeatedly, it is the WH that makes the rules on press access. Not the WHCA, not the AP, and certainly not a judge drunk with his own power. Just like Boasberg and Joun, McFadden needs to be taught where his powers and jurisdiction begin and end at.
Or than anyone else. I have the same right to be on AF1 as AP does. Even if I’m not interested in doing any reporting from there. Seats on AF1 are by the president’s invitation only. If he chooses to invite some reporters and not others, it’s the same as if he invites some reporters to dinner and not others.
“Time now to drop it.”
Just because you’re a lame-o who would roll over at the drop of a hat, that doesn’t mean Trump should.
“…the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints.”
So everyone all across the globe must be admitted, regardless? By this illogic a judge can micro-manage Trump’s daily appointments.
“…the Government opens its doors to some advisors, lobbyists, or interested parties—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other advisors, lobbyists, or interested parties.”
It’s all so stupid.
That point about the lobbyist is a legit a terrific point.
Thank you. My medication must be working.
so whats the criteria for being a journalist?
the court has members name kentaji who cant even define what a women is
The Marxists seem to be able to find a judge to stop anything the administration wants to do.
Would be if the situation was reversed, and in the past has it would be tough cookies to get a conservative reporter back in.
NYTimes say this judge was appointed by Trump. But then so was ACB to SCOTUS. He wasn’t as careful as he should have been, especially with the many district judges.
I’m out because I place a high value on honesty and facts.
The thing is, pretty much anyone can make up an entity and make themselves the CEO of that entity. I highly suspect that the more prestigious the name and title, the more insignificant that it really is. What is to keep any and all of us from making up organizations and titles and then submitting those to get a seat at a presser.
If it were me, I’d have the Press Secretary read the prepared statements with the press in a separate room. After this, they would have a 10 minute intermission and each person in the room would be allowed to submit one question, dumped into a big jar, and like a lottery, ten of these would be pulled out and each person who placed a question in the big jar would be allowed to come into the press room and read their question, one at a time. No followups. As everyone in the press would be equally dependent on the Q & A, there would be a self-policing of tom foolery. Ask a stupid baited question, get a beat down by fellow members outside for wasting their time.
AP has been caught housing Hamas in their Gaza Strip building. Declare AP terrorist aiders and abetters, and ban them from every federal building.
This is a good idea.
I don’t think so. As I understand it AP and Hamas both had offices in the same building. I very much doubt AP owns the building.
Like the United Methodist Church, the National Council to Ban Handguns (now Coalition to Stop Gun Violence), The National Council to Control Handguns (later Handgun Control Inc, now the Brady Center), the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, and the Violence Policy Project all having headquarters in the same building.
The United Methodist Building.
TOTAL coincidence.
From analysis I’ve seen, the judge’s decision left a big loophole for the WH. Yeah, AP can sit in the room, but it won’t obligate Leavitt to acknowledge them. And interviews with Trump or anyone else? Forget about it
Sit? They can stand like OANN had to do for a while during Trump 1.
Tell the court, “The AP’s spots have already been assigned to other journalists. Who do you want us to exclude to allow the AP back in? Because someone has to go and we’re not going to be responsible for their ejection.”
The WH should just stop admitting journalists altogether. It could still hold “pressers,” by filling the room with the people who are on a tour of the WH at the time of the event. Let them ask the questions.
You would get smarter questions that way.
Until the Keffiyeh NPCs started booking tours.
They should designate one place for AP and 6 other new media outlets, first come first served. AP can get in but is not preferred over others.
After all the judge said there should not be favoritism.
NY Slimes says this was a Trump appointed judge. Weird. Why would he force them to admit a particular press outlet, when there are already many others there?
Why is the Biden White House Kicking Reporters Out?
In July, the White House culled about 30% of the “hard passes” that allowed reporters into daily White House briefings.
https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/heritage-explains/why-the-biden-white-house-kicking-reporters-out
Where was this damn judge when Biden did the same thing?
This seems like another excellent case for the President to simply tell the judge “No, I will not invite these people into my office and my meetings, and you have no authority to make me do so”.
This is very different from the case in Trump’s first term, where the court found that there was an existing system of press passes already in place, which the White House was not proposing to alter, and under that system Jim Acosta had a property right to his pass, which could not be taken from him just because of things he’d said. That judge openly said that the White House was of course free to abolish or alter the system as it pleased, and if it did so it could exclude anyone it liked.
I don’t see it. So what if other people rely on AP’s reporting. How is that relevant? The first amendment does not give “reporting” any special status. A reporter has no more rights than a carpenter or any other tradesman. And just as the President may terminate his contract with the cleaning service that cleans the White House offices, or the company that supplies vegetables to the White House kitchen, or the plumbing service that clears clogs in the White House toilets, he may equally terminate any contract he may have with AP. He could even decide to close the press office altogether and send all the reporters packing. The first amendment doesn’t make them special.
That’s ok, let this one pass.
Tomorrow, though, ban the AP entirely for being a PR firm for the genocidal racist designated Terrorist Organization Hamas.
Aside from their insanely biased coverage, spanning decades, AP knowingly set up their offices in Hamas in the same building Hamas itself used for its HQ, the building itself was owned by Hamas – so they were AP’s landlord. They did this because they knew that their presence would shield Hamas’ leadership from attacks from Israel – no matter how grotesque their atrocities were.
And, it worked exactly as intended. Israel never levelled the building while AP was in there.
Don’t just ban the AP from the Oval office from this, ban them from the WH and every event where Trump or Vance appears. Ban them from all federal buildings also.
The Gavel Gestapo strikes again. This particular AP whine arose because it wasn’t being invited to the Oval Office anymore. The Oval office events are invitation only, and the AP has no more claim on being invited than any other outlet the Press Office might wish to invite. Now the Gavel Gestapo seems to have ruled that AP has to be there. That’s just stupid!
This will be a long and I hope interesting enough post. I expect to be the only commenter here who has been in the White House press facility and seen directly how it operated between 1985 and 1i990 when I was a reporter there. From everything I have read and heard, nothing has changed.
There was, and I think still is, a two-tier access system. One for reporters who weren’t there every day, and another for those who had a White House beat. Either way, the reporter needed to first be credentialed by the Standing Committee of Congressional Correspondents, which required that you work full-time as a reporter in Washington and were certified as such by your employer, which had to be a regularly publishing newspaper, TV, radio, or magazine operation, there being on-line outlets then.
Once credentialed there, you could apply for White House credentials, which had the same requirements as I just mentioned. Additionally, there was a Secret Service background check and fingerprinting. (As an aside, I suspect that my having done that is why my gun purchase checks have never taken more than a couple of minutes to be approved, but I can’t prove it.)
If you were an occasional visitor to the press room, which I was, you’d have to check in at the north gate of the White House, present your driver’s license, and they’d check the list to see if you were on it. If you were a fulltime WH correspondent, you’d get a laminated pass and would run it over a scanner and you were in.
The press room had, and still has, 49 movie theater style seats assigned to full-timers from various media outlets. From that group, the White House Correspondents Association assembled a small pool that would accompany the president on Air Force One.
Before I get to the dust-up involving the AP, I want to say that I only went there about a dozen times. The reason was that I thought the whole thing was a joke, that the White House press facility was the citadel of lazy, made-up journalism in America. I used to tell friends and family that every American should have the opportunity to go there a dozen times so they could see it for themselves.
Those “mood of Washington stories” were fabrications. There were racks of press releases in the facility, which was as I recall about as large as the briefing room with the seats and the podium. Many a “news” story was essentially copied and re-written from those releases.
So how did it really work in the briefing room? The answer is that the press secretary would call on reporters from a list. There was a logic to it: The bigger the circulation or TV audience, the more likely someone would be called on. It was entirely orchestrated. Nothing whatsoever was spontaneous.
Then there were the press secretary’s offices in back of that podium, where he and the staff would give their droppings “on background” or “deep background” or “embargoed” to be released after a date and time specified. The intrepid journalists would crowd back there like laboratory rats waiting for pellets of food.
So, after witnessing this utter charade, I stopped going. A reporter from the AP, as it should happen, saw me on the street one day and asked why he hadn’t been seeing me there. I answered that I had work to do, and that there was no work to be done at the White House.
Now to the AP today and the dispute. Spoiler: I have nothing but scorn for everyone involved, from Trump on down.
So Trump renames the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Sorry, wingnuts here, I laughed. I told friends that Trump must have mellowed because he didn’t name it the Gulf of USA! USA! USA! So it started as a petty, juvenile stunt. Okay, fine. Then he ousts the AP because they won’t go along with the charade.
Now, don’t think I am somehow pro-AP these days. Like the rest of the media, I think they have become a woke joke. It’s tragic, actually, because the Associated Press was long a real stickler for standards of practice involving neutrality and separation of fact and opinion. Not anymore. So when I call Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico a laughable stunt, and his exclusion of AP ridiculous, it is not out of one single bit of sympathy or regard from what AP has become.
So then, the AP and the White House Correspondents Assn. gets on its high horse and frames it as a first amendment issue, as if the constitution somehow mandates their admission to the White House press room. If anything of value emanated from that circus, I might take them seriously. But since nothing worthwhile comes from there, I don’t.
And now this grandstanding moron from a federal district court signs on, which only diminishes my respect for federal district courts. It couldn’t possibly be more bogus, in my opinion. Again, just how is it that the first amendment confers that right? Folks, I am about as pro-Bill of Rights as anyone you’ll ever find. But that? Bah!
Now for the real kicker: So the AP gets back in. Fine. Frankly, they never should have been excluded. Not because I like them (something I hope I made crystal clear above) but because I saw it, and still see it, as petty, juvenile, pointless and stupid.
Why is this so meaningless? Well, if Trump wants to exclude the AP, all he has to do is not recognize any of their “reporters,” and have his press people do the same. Let them sit there and stew. Some people will say that life in prison is more punishing than the death penalty. I go back and forth about that in my mind, but in this case, by analogy, to have AP “journalists” present at briefings but never recognized? Life in prison, baby.
So there you have it. This is Beavis and Butthead, Dumb and Dumber, rolled up into one Bullshit Sandwich. Hate me now. LOL
Assign the Associated Propaganda rep a chair at the back of the room, emblazoned with images of dunce caps.