A United States federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to immediately restore White House press access to CNN, MS NOW and Politico, temporarily blocking President Donald Trump’s decision to bar journalists from the three news organisations from the White House complex.
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U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order early Thursday, September 24, 2026, requiring the administration to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” hard-pass press credentials held by employees of the three organisations. The order is to remain in effect for 14 days unless the court orders otherwise.
Kelly found that the media organisations had demonstrated a likelihood of succeeding on their claim that their White House credentials were revoked without constitutionally adequate due process.
“The ‘general rule’ is that ‘individuals must receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the Government deprives them’ of a constitutionally protected interest,” the judge said, citing established precedent.
The judge noted that the affected journalists were not given notice and a meaningful opportunity to contest the decision before their hard passes were deactivated and confiscated. The administration did not notify them of an avenue to appeal until Wednesday, days after the ban had taken effect.
The dispute began on September 18 when Trump announced that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banned from the White House “effective immediately,” accusing them of persistently reporting what he described as “fake news,” “fiction and lies.”
The following morning, White House reporters from the three organisations were denied entry. CNN correspondent Betsy Klein, MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner and Politico correspondent Cheyenne Haslett were among journalists whose credentials were deactivated or confiscated when they attempted to enter the White House grounds.
CNN described the decision as an unlawful interference with its constitutional right to report on the government, while MS NOW and Politico said they would defend their First Amendment rights and continue covering the administration. The White House, for its part, maintained that access to the premises was a privilege rather than an absolute right and argued that the organisations remained capable of reporting from outside the White House.
On September 21, CNN, MS NOW and Politico, together with individual reporters, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The case, Cable News Network, Inc. et al. v. Trump et al., No. 1:26-cv-03287, alleges First Amendment retaliation and viewpoint discrimination as well as a violation of Fifth Amendment due-process protections.
The plaintiffs argued that the administration could not withdraw their credentials because it disagreed with or disapproved of their journalism.
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the organisations said in their lawsuit.
They asked Kelly for emergency relief restoring their credentials while the wider constitutional challenge proceeded.
During arguments, the Trump administration also relied on national-security concerns in defending the restrictions.
Kelly, however, said the evidentiary record before him did not substantiate that justification at this stage of the litigation.
“The record lacks factual support” for the contention that taking away the outlets’ hard passes would protect national security or that restoring the passes while the lawsuit proceeded would endanger national security, the judge found.
Kelly further observed that national security was not the reason Trump publicly gave when he initially announced the ban.
“Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House,” Kelly wrote, noting that Trump had instead focused on what he characterised as the lack of truthfulness and negativity in their reporting.
The judge also examined letters subsequently issued by the administration alleging that some of the outlets’ reporting had threatened national security or spread falsehoods. Kelly said the wording left ambiguity as to the actual basis for the credential revocations and found insufficient factual support, at this preliminary stage, for the national-security justification.
The court also questioned whether the government had established clear standards governing the conduct for which credentials could be withdrawn.
According to Kelly, the record lacked relevant “formally articulated standards” that were in place before the conduct relied upon by the government. He described one standard subsequently invoked by the administration relating to professionalism and decorum as too vague, at least on the record then before the court.
The ruling does not finally decide the entire lawsuit or permanently guarantee the organisations access to every presidential event. Rather, it grants temporary emergency relief while their constitutional claims continue to be litigated.
The First Amendment claims alleging retaliation and viewpoint discrimination therefore remain part of the underlying case. The immediate order principally rests on the plaintiffs’ showing that they were likely to succeed on their procedural due-process claim concerning the manner in which their hard passes were withdrawn.
The White House press controversy had already disrupted coverage of the presidency before Thursday’s ruling.
After CNN was prevented from performing a scheduled television pool assignment, the television networks that participate in the White House pool suspended network pool coverage rather than replace CNN. The dispute also prompted expressions of support from other major news organisations.
The White House press pool is a rotating group of journalists responsible for providing reports, photographs and audiovisual material from events where space prevents the entire press corps from attending. Pool material is then shared with other news organisations.
The dispute centres not on an unrestricted right for every journalist to enter every presidential space, but on the constitutional limits governing how the government may distribute and withdraw press access once a credentialing system has been established.
The current controversy follows earlier court battles over White House press credentials.
During Trump’s first administration in 2018, the White House revoked CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s hard pass after a confrontation at a presidential news conference. Kelly the same judge handling the present case ordered Acosta’s credential temporarily restored, with the litigation focusing substantially on whether adequate procedural protections had been provided.
A separate dispute involving the Associated Press arose during Trump’s second administration after the news agency declined to adopt the administration’s preferred name, “Gulf of America,” for the Gulf of Mexico. In that litigation, a federal appellate court drew distinctions between access to limited presidential spaces such as the Oval Office and broader White House press facilities, illustrating that presidential press access can depend on the particular location and circumstances involved.
Trump had said on Tuesday, before Kelly issued the latest ruling, that he would “probably” allow CNN, MS NOW and Politico back into the White House if a court ruled against his administration.
Thursday’s temporary restraining order now requires the administration officials covered by it and their agents to restore the credentials immediately while the litigation proceeds.
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