Judge Orders White House to Restore CNN, MS NOW and Politico Access. It Still Took Half a Day.
A federal judge found the White House violated due process when it stripped three outlets' credentials on September 20. The order took effect within hours, but CNN and MS NOW reporters were still turned away from a state dinner for China's Xi Jinping, and the last time a court ruled this way, an appeals panel undid it two months later.
By Jonah Reyes, Politics & Policy
· 4 min read · Updated
Key Takeaways
- •Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House on September 24 to restore press credentials for CNN, MS NOW and Politico that were confiscated on September 20, with the order running 14 days.
- •The White House took more than two hours to physically restore badges after the order, and CNN and MS NOW reporters were still blocked from a state dinner for Xi Jinping hours later despite their reinstated credentials.
- •Kelly ruled on Fifth Amendment due process grounds rather than the First Amendment theory that won an almost identical case for the Associated Press in April 2025, before a divided D.C. Circuit panel stayed that ruling 2-1 two months later.
- •Judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, both Trump appointees, wrote that the White House retains discretion over which journalists to admit; dissenting judge Cornelia Pillard warned the theory would let any administration exclude unfavorable coverage by viewpoint.
- •Kelly, himself nominated by Trump in 2017 and confirmed 94-2, still found the credential revocation lacked constitutionally adequate due process and called the administration's justification too vague.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House overnight Thursday to immediately return, reinstate, and restore the press credentials it stripped from CNN, MS NOW and Politico five days earlier. The temporary restraining order runs 14 days while the court decides whether to make the reinstatement permanent. The White House did not fully comply until midday, and even after badges came back, CNN and MS NOW reporters were still turned away hours later from covering a state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The short answer
Judge Kelly's order requires the White House to restore the press credentials of CNN, MS NOW and Politico that were confiscated on September 20. It runs 14 days from September 24 while the court weighs a preliminary injunction. Kelly ruled the outlets are likely to win their Fifth Amendment due process claim, not a First Amendment claim, a narrower legal theory than the one that won and then lost on appeal in a nearly identical case last year.
The credentials had been deactivated at the White House gates the prior weekend, after President Trump ordered the three outlets banned over coverage he called unfair. Kelly's order followed an emergency hearing Wednesday and was signed in the early hours of Thursday morning. According to PBS NewsHour, White House staff did not restore the outlets' physical access badges until more than two hours after the order took effect, and by Thursday evening CNN's reporter and MS NOW correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez were still blocked from the arrival ceremony for Xi's state visit, even though their credentials had already been reinstated on paper.
Due process, not free speech
Kelly built his order on narrower ground than the theory most First Amendment lawyers had expected. Rather than ruling on free speech, he found the outlets are likely to win a Fifth Amendment procedural due process claim, meaning the government cannot strip a benefit like a press credential without notice or a chance to respond. He called the administration's stated justification, that the outlets' coverage was inaccurate or unfair, "so vague it hardly does the trick," according to Al Jazeera. Justice Department attorney Michael Velchik argued in Wednesday's hearing that access to the White House is a privilege, not a right, which goes to whether the outlets had any process due to them at all.
“We'll go for appeal, because fake news people ... shouldn't be allowed access.”
A pattern going back to the AP
This is not the first Trump-era press ban to land in front of a judge, and the outcome of the last one is a reason to treat Thursday's order as provisional rather than final. In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that barring the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One, after it refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico, violated the First Amendment. Two months later, a divided D.C. Circuit panel stayed that ruling 2-1, letting the ban against the AP stand while the appeal played out. Judges Neomi Rao and Gregory Katsas, both Trump appointees, wrote that the White House retains discretion over which journalists it admits to restricted spaces. Judge Cornelia Pillard dissented. "Each and every member of the White House press corps would hesitate to publish anything an incumbent administration may dislike," she wrote. "Factually accurate journalism unflattering to the incumbent administration would not long endure."
2-1
D.C. Circuit vote that stayed a nearly identical ruling for the Associated Press in June 2025
The AP's White House access has remained restricted while that appeal continues, more than a year later.
What happens next
Kelly's order sets an expedited schedule for both sides to argue a preliminary injunction, the next step that would either keep the outlets' access in place for the duration of the lawsuit or let the ban resume. Whichever side loses that round can appeal to the same D.C. Circuit that stayed the AP ruling last year. Theodore Boutrous, representing the three outlets, called Thursday's ruling "a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press" and said "the law is just clearly on our side here." Velchik's privilege argument, if it prevails on appeal, would apply well beyond these three outlets.
The rest of the White House press corps did not wait for the litigation to run its course. Camera crews from Fox News, CBS and NBC showed up to a Joint Base Andrews event on the same trip and declined to shoot video, joining CNN and MS NOW in sitting out the daily pool coverage in solidarity, according to Al Jazeera. Trump, describing the boycotted arrival ceremony, wrote online that the networks had refused to cover one of the biggest and most beautiful events.
The due process theory behind Thursday's order is narrower than the First Amendment argument that won the AP case and then lost on appeal, which may make it harder to draw the distinction Pillard warned about, an administration picking its own press pool by viewpoint. Narrower is not the same as final. The preliminary injunction fight is still ahead, the same appeals court sits over this case too, and the credentials back in reporters' pockets right now carry a 14-day expiration built into the order that restored them.
- White House press access
- CNN
- MS NOW
- Politico
- Timothy Kelly
- First Amendment
Sources
- 01Judge orders White House to restore access to CNN, MS NOW and Politico; reporters say they're still blocked, PBS NewsHourpbs.org
- 02Judge Orders White House to Restore Access for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. What Happens Next?, TIMEtime.com
- 03White House restores CNN, MS NOW, Politico access after hours of chaos, Al Jazeeraaljazeera.com
- 04Trump-appointed judges restore White House ban on AP, Courthouse News Servicecourthousenews.com
- 05Timothy J. Kelly, Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
Corrections
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