A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump has ordered him to hand back the White House press credentials he stripped from three news organizations, granting an emergency order at roughly 1 a.m. on Thursday, September 24, 2026.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted CNN, MS NOW and Politico a 14-day temporary restraining order, finding the outlets were likely to prove that their hard passes had been revoked without due process. He directed that the passes be returned immediately. The three had sued the president, arguing that the ban violated the First Amendment.
A Ban Announced on Truth Social
Trump, 80, barred the three outlets from the White House on Friday, September 18, in a Truth Social post accusing news organizations of routinely publishing falsehoods in their coverage of the presidency, his administration and the country. He signaled in the same post that other outlets he regards as fake news would be next.
Once the ban took effect, the president and his lawyers offered a different rationale, saying the credentials had been revoked because of earlier reporting that flagged national security concerns. Kelly rejected that explanation.
“For one thing, nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” Kelly wrote.
Ted Boutrous, the First Amendment attorney representing CNN, MS NOW and Politico, said on the morning of Thursday, September 24: “This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process, and rule of law. We greatly appreciate the court’s decision.”
Networks Went Dark for the Xi Visit
The ban had already provoked an extraordinary response from the rest of the press corps, with competing networks declining to cover the president’s events as a show of support for the three excluded newsrooms. On the White House grounds, a sign outside the Associated Press booth carried the names of CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
The cost to the president was on display when he welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping at Joint Base Andrews. The arrival featured a 100-foot red carpet and a military flyover. None of the five major networks covered it.
CNN host Kaitlan Collins described a spectacle engineered for television that almost nobody watched, with none of the five major networks — whose audiences run to millions of people a day — recording the moment. CNN media analyst Brian Stelter said the pictures and the ceremonial trappings matter enormously to Trump, and he called the rival networks’ blackout unprecedented.
A 14-Day Window and a Threatened Appeal
Speaking on CNN at 1:30 a.m., Stelter said he suspected the banned journalists would have to be let back onto the White House grounds later that day, and he predicted a partial restoration of coverage. He also said Boutrous had warned that the White House might still find ways to impose new restrictions or retaliate against news organizations after the ruling.
Trump had preempted the outcome, saying he would appeal and arguing that outlets he considers fake news — publications he says write only negatively and endanger national security with false and defamatory stories built on unknown sources — should not be allowed access to the presidency. Before the decision came down, he used Truth Social to describe the judge hearing the case as disloyal.
The restraining order runs 14 days, leaving the underlying lawsuit unresolved and the credentials of the three newsrooms dependent on what the court does next.
Appropriators Target an Ad and an Arch
Congress has been pressing the administration on two other fronts. On September 22, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, led colleagues in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum demanding the administration halt work on the president’s proposed 250-foot Triumphal Arch. The National Park Service (NPS) concluded that the structure could adversely affect 37 historic sites in and around the capital. Three of them would bear the brunt of the damage: the Arlington National Cemetery Historic District, the Arlington Memorial Bridge and the cultural landscape of the Memorial Avenue Corridor. The senators say the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall, the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument are also among the landmarks at risk.
On September 24, four senior appropriators wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles over a government-sponsored political advertisement that aired on Fox News. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee; Rep. Steny H. Hoyer; Patty Murray of Washington, the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee; and Jack Reed copied Office of Management and Budget Director Russell T. Vought on the demand.
The spot was labeled “Paid for by the U.S. Government” and set a montage of photographs of Trump and the American flag to singers repeating the words “love me” from JMSN’s song “Love Me.” The lawmakers say it breaches Section 718 of Division E of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, which bars federal money from funding publicity or propaganda inside the United States, and that it also appears to violate the Hatch Act and other federal ethics laws. They want the ad pulled, the employees who worked on it disciplined and a full accounting of every dollar spent.
“If President Trump wants people to love him, he can pay for it himself,” the lawmakers wrote.