U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One as it departs from the South Lawn of the White House on October 12, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Brendan Smialowski AFP | Getty Images
A federal judge late Tuesday night indefinitely extended an extension that had barred the White House from enforcing a ban on three media companies announced by President Donald Trump in mid-September.
The preliminary injunction by Judge Timothy Kelly replaces a preliminary injunction against President Trump banning MS NOW, CNN and Politico from the White House complex, pending an ongoing lawsuit challenging the ban.
“President Trump’s own comments suggest that he intended to revoke the plaintiffs’ hard pass in order to change the reporting about him,” wrote Kelly, who was nominated by President Trump to a seat on the U.S. District Court in Washington.
Kelly said in a written opinion that the three media outlets are likely to prevail in pending lawsuits in which they claim they were denied due process by being quickly shut down by Trump without giving them a chance to respond.
The judge cited two existing opinions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that establish due process rights for journalists whose White House passes are subject to revocation. These appellate opinions are binding on the judges of the Federal District Court in Washington, DC.
The judge also said that for the first time in this case, a news organization is likely to prevail on two First Amendment claims in a civil case alleging retaliation and viewpoint discrimination.
Kelly’s order Tuesday is not a final ruling on the merits of the case. It also does not force the White House to restore access to the Oval Office and Air Force One.
In addition to concerns about inaccurate news stories, Kelly dismissed the Justice Department’s claims that President Trump had decided to revoke media access to the White House on national security grounds.
“There is no evidence in the record that President Trump made the decision to revoke Plaintiffs’ hard passes on national security grounds in the first place, nor has he ever directly stated that national security was the reason for his decision,” Kelly wrote.
The judge said the Justice Department’s national security arguments appeared to be “nothing more than an after-the-fact rationalization of the decision” after news companies filed suit.
MS NOW reported Wednesday that the Justice Department declined to comment on the ruling.
“Yet, no one should interpret the court’s decision to suggest that President Trump’s concerns about the accuracy and fairness of media reporting are unfounded or that the government is powerless when its true purpose is to protect national security when classified information is unlawfully disclosed,” Kelly wrote.
“Nevertheless, for reasons explained below, the court will extend the relief it has already ordered, and the status quo will continue while this litigation proceeds,” Kelly said, referring to an earlier order restoring media access to the White House.
The judge said that without a preliminary injunction, the retailer “is likely to suffer irreparable harm.”
His ruling came on the heels of a court hearing last Thursday in which the Justice Department defended the ban, which reportedly revoked the so-called hard passes to the White House for 78 journalists and then ordered Kelly to reinstate them in an earlier temporary restraining order.
President Trump said last month that he would appeal any decision to block Kelly’s ban. CNBC has reached out to the White House and Department of Justice for comment.
“We are grateful that the court ruled in our clients’ favor,” Theodore Boutras Jr., an attorney for both media outlets, said in a statement.
“When the president issued the ‘free press ban,’ he clearly and unequivocally violated due process and the First Amendment,” Bootles said. “Since then, the president has repeatedly, candidly, and consistently acknowledged in public that he banned clients from the White House to punish reporting he didn’t like and to force journalists to cover stories he preferred.”
“The harm this ban has done to our clients, the First Amendment, and the nation as a whole is profound,” the attorneys said. “The court was right to restrain the White House from enforcing this ‘unconstitutional press freedom ban’ for the time being.”
President Trump said on September 18 that he would ban three news organizations because of how they covered him.
In a post on Truth Social the same day, Trump wrote that news organizations “should not be able to constantly write and report fiction and lies when reporting on the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America.”
President Trump said on the same day that he was “tired” of the “cumulative coverage” by the news media.
The ban went into effect the next day, September 19, when journalists were denied access to the White House grounds and had their permanent passes confiscated by Secret Service agents.
On September 21, the outlet filed a civil suit against Trump, alleging that “this ban is a more direct attack on the First Amendment and a more blatant violation of the Constitution’s most fundamental principles.”
Two days later, Kelly filed a restraining order temporarily revoking the ban for at least 14 days. Journalists from the three news organizations were allowed back into the White House on Sept. 24, and Mr. Kelly has since extended the restraining order to give him time to consider whether to issue a preliminary injunction on Tuesday, with no expiration date set.
— Justin Papp contributed to this report.
