Transcript
Courts, Chaos, and Credentials: First Amendment Showdown
Amicus: A Law Review · Fri Sep 25, 2026
My name is Jim Santel.
I'm your host in this broadcast, also a podcast in which we, every week, talk about the major issues in civics law enforcement.
The aspiration for justice, the operation of government, and the pursuit of the rule of law in Wisconsin, in America, and sometimes even across the globe.
I'm once again delighted, honored you have chosen to spend some time in discovery and exploration with me of those major issues.
And yes indeed,
to the late hours of this past week, lots of things going on in the broad category of rule of law.
We're going to talk about those fairly briefly at the top of this podcast and then do something which we have sometimes done in the past and that is dive deep into an order that was issued just several days ago by a federal district court judge in the area of the First Amendment, a constitutional concept
Telling the president of the United States of America that he does not have the capacity, does not have the right, does not have the prerogative to exclude the media, and three particular news organizations, CNN,
MS Now and Politico from the White House, from coverage of him at the White House.
Lots of developments in that story in the brief number of hours, Candidly, since that particular order was issued.
We're going to dive deep into that order, as I said, to give you some sense about exactly what the judge
in that particular case said what he didn't say and what we can anticipate in the future.
It is important from time to time to go beyond the headlines and you know what those headlines are and get a feel for exactly what it is of the judges and the parties, including the government and the representatives of these news organizations have been wrestling with.
We're going to spend some time, a lot of time in this broadcast, this podcast examining exactly what the judge
did in that case, how he wrote some language that's very important.
Coming from the pen of Timothy Kelly, again, a U.S.
District Court judge in the District of Columbia.
We spent a lot of time talking about those judges there and our nation's capital.
He had before him this challenge by those news organizations to the decision by the president about a week or so ago that was blocking these particular news organizations from having access to him in the White House.
House has consequences, of course, in connection with something called the pool, the media pool.
And even as we are recording and broadcasting and podcasting in this particular segment, more developments as the president this weekend is headed off on one of his many johns from the White House.
He is headed to a particular location.
again during the course of this coming White House and announcing that in Tennessee as he arrives there that one of those news organizations is not going to be a part of that particular excursion and so we get to that as well CNN in particular excluded even in the wake of everything that's happened in recent days which includes an awful lot of vacillating back and forth
from the president between the White House, the federal district court judge, and these news organizations.
It is one of those stories that continues to provide an awful lot of focus to all of us.
You quite literally have to keep up from moment to moment on what's going on.
And again, this latest development late in this week, affecting the president's travel this coming weekend to Tennessee.
Before we get there, however, and before we spend some time talking about exactly
what the judge in that sem important case has done.
Sp talking about what the Un
important decisions.
We're going to put those in the category of a little bit of headline reading and a bit of a public service announcement.
We're going to revisit some of this in connection with what we're going to be doing next weekend.
Next weekend in the Amicus Law Review podcast broadcast, we're going to be anticipating the start of the new term of the United States Supreme Court first Monday in October.
That's going to be happening in just a few days, even as the court finishes up its
present term, which is again the 2025, 2026 term, a lot of activity coming out of the Supreme Court late at night during the course of the last couple of days.
Let's talk about some of what's going on right there.
Supreme Court on Friday, telling the Trump administration that they can, in fact, giving permission to the Trump administration to deploy what's being described as an expansive online system
that effectively combines some citizenship information, some social security numbers, and other sensitive data about millions of Americans, including to allow states to use it to hunt for ineligible voters.
Again, a part of one of the president's many directives as he tries once again to become involved in, in this case, at least in this particular area, the Supreme Court permitting him to do this, becoming involved in elections.
We know from our past discussions,
The Constitution provides that it's the Congress that makes these all important decisions with respect to large issues, but it's the states, reserved the states.
They are the ones who make decisions about practical things, including issues about the entitlement and the capacity of people to vote, citizens to vote.
Critics, of course, fearing that this system could result in the purging of large numbers of valid voters from the state rules, even if states choose to use it.
ahead of the midterm elections that are now, as we all know, just days away.
It is the latest stunning development in the back and forth on this particular issue.
The majority concluding late this past week that a lower court, a lower court ruling that had blocked the Trump administration from doing this, from rolling out this particular system was improper.
because according to the Supreme Court, it inhibited the federal government's efforts to assist, assist, is what the Supreme Court has said, state and local agencies in the proper administration of the midterm elections.
As always, this is again the shadow docket, the emergency application docket, hard at work, even in the last hours and days of this term, the ruling undeniably another victory for the Trump administration.
as it tries, again, unconstitutionally to engage in this kind of behavior, marshaling the resources of the federal government to shape who can vote and how they can vote.
Again, lots of challenges coming out of that in dissent, just as Katanji Brown-Jackson emphasizing that the majority's decision here, permitting this particular aspect of what the president is doing to go ahead, creates these conditions for the states to cancel the voter registrations of at least some
recently naturalized citizens or to force them to provide proof of citizenship before voting.
She was joined in these words by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the three of them saying, the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the non-existent harm that the government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take.
That's from the dissenters.
Again, major news coming out of the Supreme Court late this week, Friday of this week, permitting this expansive voter screening tool ahead of the midterms.
We haven't heard the last of that as the midterms rapidly approach.
In the area of voting, once again, we're back to Missouri.
We have recovered this story up and down, left and right.
Supreme Court again on Friday.
blocking blocking you may recall our past coverage of Missouri blocking Missouri from using a congressional map in November in the course of the upcoming midterms that was you will recall once again was redrawn fairly recently at the president's encouragement to give republicans in that state an edge in these midterm elections this is the third time by my count this month that the justices have intervened
And in fact, not intervened, it turns out, with respect to the Missouri Supreme Court.
And what can only be described as a back-and-forth legal battle over Missouri's beleaguered voting map, the court's order landing less than two months before a general election, in which a few seats could determine control of the Congress.
Each time, each time the court has issued orders that would achieve the same result, requiring, requiring once again,
that the state of Mississippi used an older map, an older map, not the new one authored by the Republicans encouraged by the president, this older map that would basically posture the Democrats to retain a seat in what is basically the Kansas City area.
The dispute over that map continues to these days, to these hours, and that goes on in the lower courts, this long enduring struggle.
the court again issuing this decision a win for the opponents of this new redistricting who had waged a year-long fight over against the new district lines which were redrawn in 2025 again at the encouragement of the president of the united states of america this one once again an undecided design decision no dissents the justices warned of electoral chaos
if the state were to change course now, so close to an election and the use of the 2025 map.
The five-pay decision, skeletal as these always are, says this, the election is not merely upcoming, it has already started.
Ballots using the 2022 map, it's the old map, have been printed and mailed, and the Supreme Court goes on to say absentee voting has already begun, as has military and overseas voting.
the order, once again, a strong statement that the court doesn't have much patience and not much interest in reversing the unanimous decision of the Missouri Supreme Court itself.
Again, reaffirming what the Missouri Supreme Court had said, which had earlier concluded that the state law required using that older map, have we heard the last coming out of Missouri almost certainly not as, again, the midterm elections approach likely more back and forth?
This, according to my count, at least the third time that this has gotten to the Supreme Court will continue to monitor that here on Amicus.
A lot of you watch your news for more of that as that develops.
In other areas, another area that the Supreme Court, again, an awful lot focused on as it has throughout this past term, deportations back in the news late this past week, the Trump administration this time late this week, this past week, not getting an order yet.
but late this past week on Thursday, asking the Supreme Court to allow it, the government, the Trump administration, to continue a program that, again, we've talked about at some length here, deporting immigrants to countries other than their own, other than their places of origin, other than places with which they have any heritage connection.
The administration lawyers filed an emergency application.
Here we go once again, the shadow docket.
To the justices, again, we need to follow all of this bouncing ball after a lower federal court on Wednesday of this week upheld a block following that, upholding a restraint on the government's program, finding that people subject to this regime, this particular plan, could not be deported without being given a chance to contest their cases.
That's basic due process in America.
And the Supreme Court now has on its docket on its inbox, not yet resolved, but this request from the Solicitor General saying overturn that lower decision to block what the administration has wanted to do and permit the administration to go ahead and deport immigrants to countries other than their own.
In that emergency application, this fellow we've talked a lot about, John Sauer, you know him, he's the Solicitor General.
urged the court to allow the administration to continue these deportations.
He said he called the effort an essential tool to remove certain aliens, including some of the worst criminals.
That's in the application to the Supreme Court.
No order on that yet.
Katanji Brown Jackson, who handles emergency applications from this appeals court that blocked the program, asked the challengers to respond.
in just days, Monday at 4pm.
So presumably sometime next week, the Supreme Court is going to rule on that emergency application.
And of course, we'll cover that.
We'll talk about that.
And all of the implications, not only with respect to the shadow docket, all these emergency applications, some of them being resolved just late this past week, some of them lining up for resolution, even as this term comes to an end and the next term opens.
No short number of emergency applications before the Supreme Court, and it continues into this new term.
With that by way of a very speedy review of some of the latest action happening before the Supreme Court, let's turn to what I promised at the start of our broadcast, our podcast this time around.
Let's do a bit of a deep dive into this.
Back and forth situation involving CNN, MSNOW, and Politico.
We all know what has happened here.
We know that the president are plainly upset by what those particular news agencies have been saying about him and reporting about him.
He's made it clear that he doesn't like other nature of the reporting.
He has said that they're banned.
They're banned from the White House, CNN, MSNOW, and Politico.
What happens is, of course, is that lawyers for those particular agencies, they go to the court.
They don't go to the Supreme Court right away, although this could eventually end up there.
But they go to a federal district court right there in Washington, D.C., right down Pennsylvania Avenue.
And the case is assigned, again, to a federal district court judge.
His name is Timothy Kelly.
You should know that.
Timothy Kelly, U.S.
District Court in Washington, D.C.
And Judge Kelly takes to look at this, and here's the headline.
As you know, Judge Kelly looks at all this and enters a 14-day, a two-week emergency restraining order, a restraining the government, restraining the White House from going ahead with its plans, telling the White House they can't do this, telling the president that his banning of CNN and MSNOW and Politico cannot stand.
And he tells the White House to immediately, these are his words,
reinstate and restore the press credentials held by the employees of those three outlets.
Now you know what happened in the immediate aftermath of that.
Some of the reporters showed up and at least initially they were told maybe they'd get access.
Some of them denied access.
maybe heading back to the judge.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court does not have to get involved this time around, but District Court Judge Kelly's decision is upheld when the Supreme Court says, yes, we'll let those reporters into the White House and we'll follow in this instance what the District Court judge has done.
the judge finding that although this is a preliminary injunction, it's going to last for two weeks, and basically ordering the parties to come back and argue this case more, perhaps entertaining the possibility of a permanent injunction based upon the language which we're going to review in just a few moments or so, indicating that they're likely to succeed, not only in this preliminary basis, which they have, getting a reentry into the White House.
But also a finding that the president's decision to ban them initially is a violation of their due process rights.
They're due process rights.
And yes, I know you're thinking, gee, doesn't that mean this is a First Amendment violation?
The judge will get to that.
But he spends a lot of time, as we will see, talking about the failure of the White House, even to give these news organizations a chance to be heard on this proposal and this action.
which was in effect revoke their press credentials.
Here's the rub without advanced notice or an opportunity to respond.
That basic notice opportunity that being told what you're being charged with and the opportunity to respond, thus the core of due process.
He also rejected for now the administration's argument that revoking the outlets, press credentials was necessary to protect national security.
So let's get into exactly what this is all about.
And let's talk at some length about this eight-page order.
It is accessible.
It's online.
We're going to review it right now because it's so important to understand what the judge did and did not say.
He notes that on the afternoon of September 18th, the president did just this, effectively banning immediately CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House.
And what happens, of course, as I just said, is their lawyers going to court and move for a temporary restraint.
Stop the president, they say, from doing this.
Let us back into the White House.
The court immediately launches into, of course, the basic standards on any restraining order where it's permanent or certainly temporary, but noting that the plaintiff, in this case, the cable news network and Politico and MSNOW have to show that they're likely to succeed on the merits when there's actually a trial, a merit-based review of this.
that they're likely to suffer some irreparable harm in the absence of this immediate relief.
And the balance of equities, fairness, basically, it tips in favor of public interest here.
The court finds all of that.
And let's talk about exactly what the judge has done in this case.
I'm going to read to you some sections of his words.
He says, first, plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of excess
at least on their Fifth Amendment procedural due process claim.
Again, note, he's not right now invoking, he will down the road, his First Amendment issues, but noting due process under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
The merits of the claim, he says, assessed in two steps.
The first acts, whether there is a liberty or property interest that has been interfered with by the state, in this case by the White House.
The second thing you look at, the judge says,
is whether the procedures attended upon going along with that deprivation were constitutionally sufficient.
And here, here's the language that the judge articulates.
Plaintiffs here, and again, they're the news agencies, have shown that they're likely to succeed on both steps.
He says, Ash, the first, the DC circuit held in a case called Cheryl versus Knight, he cites that case repeatedly as authority, that the interest of a bona fide Washington correspondent.
in obtaining a White House press pass undoubtedly qualifies as a liberty interest, which may not be denied without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.
That's the basic core finding the judge articulates based upon this case coming out of the DC circuit.
It goes on to say, and if there were any doubt about what that case means, the DC Circuit more recently reaffirmed this very conclusion in another case.
And the judge cites it as called Karem versus Trump, holding that a duly issued hard pass, a hard pass may not be suspended without due process.
So right at the start, we're on page two of what is basically a seven plus order, the judge signaling that the government, the White House,
The Department of Justice is not successful in going ahead on its merits.
The plaintiffs are.
Plaintiffs are also likely to see it in showing that their hard passes were revoked without constitutionally adequate due process.
Again, here, the judge says there's a general rule.
That rule is that individuals must receive, they've got to receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the government deprives them of a constitutionally protected interest.
We have talked about that in a lot of different settings.
Once again,
Here is your law school piece, the basic core due process elements.
Notice of what you're facing, what the charges are, what the allegations are, what the issues are.
You've got to tell me what's going on.
And then you've got to have an opportunity to be heard.
And that's what the judge spends a lot of time addressing here.
He says the Supreme Court has described the root requirement of due process as being that an individual be given an opportunity to be heard.
And here's the rub.
He says before, and that's italicized, before he or it or she, they are deprived of any significant property interest.
Note the timing of that.
Notes that these previous cases that the judge has cited also hold that because of the substantial interest at stake, and he is talking about the access of
of the media to the presidency and to news.
Before the government, the judge says, can revoke the White House issued hard paths of a reporter to get in and out, it must promulgate rules or standards governing the conduct that will lead to the revocation.
That's the notice piece.
You've got to have rules, processes, procedures, things that someone can look at and say, this is what I've got to comply with.
And the reporter, the judge goes on to say, has to receive fair notice
Not only of the conduct would subject him to punishment, but also of the magnitude of the sanction the White House might impose.
In other words, you've got to be told what the punishment will be, and what is the magnitude of that?
What are the possible options here the White House might impose?
Interestingly, again, as we approach the middle of this order, as the judge goes very, very methodically through all of these standards, he says, the defendants here, president and others, they're not disputing that the president's, the plaintiffs did not, did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard.
That's big.
That's huge.
That's at the threshold of all of this.
The judge says, as in Karem, which is this other case, the record is bereft.
He says, B-E-R-E-F-T absent of any relevant formally articulated standards in place.
And once again, this word before is italicized before any of the conduct for which the defendants had their hard passes revoked.
None of these standards in place.
One standard the defendants appear to offer.
And here the judge describes it as reflected in letters.
that they, the defendants, the president, sent to the plaintiffs and new organizations on September 22nd, identifying their objection reporting.
In other words, these are letters in which the president says, I don't like what you're saying about me.
The judge describes those letters as so vague that they hardly do the trick.
And the trick once again is a due process.
The letter says, your organization has exhibited behavior in violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House complex.
Judge finds simply complaining about it, letting him know the president doesn't like what they're saying is not, is not sufficient to establish this formally articulated standard so that the news media knows what they're talking about.
And the judge goes on to say, moreover, defendants renewed plaintiffs' hard pass several months, a particular reporter named Betsy Klein, renewed her hard pass several months after, after she published some of the identified reporting, undercutting any argument the judge says that she or her employee, for example, had the requisite notice that the conduct at issued violated a relevant standard.
Once again, the judge saying,
The timing on this is just too late.
It doesn't make sense.
And again, this phrase doesn't do the trick, speaks volumes about what the judge is doing here.
Judge goes on to say at the sort of conclusion of this portion, finally, nothing put plaintiffs on notice of the magnitude, the impact, the bigness, if you will, of the sanctions that the defendants, in this case, the White House, are imposing.
That's a lot.
That's a lot to take in.
But again, shutting down this judge is virtually everything, everything that the president and the White House have said, especially this notion that we've given them notice, judge saying no.
When you simply complain about reporting, you're not telling them that you're about to rescind their passes and you're not telling what the consequences of that will be.
To that same tune, judge goes on to say, none of the defendants arguments convinced this court
that the plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on their due process claims.
Again, this is anticipating at some point the judge taking a look at all this and making a determination ultimately of whether they succeed on the merits after this 14-day period has passed.
Defendants, the President, the White House, say that these cases, Sheryl and Karem, were wrongly decided.
In other words, the president knows that these cases are not helpful.
And instead of taking them on and trying to distinguish them in some way, the White House simply saying, well, the judges before, the courts before, they were wrong in making those decisions, bad standards, bad law.
And the judge interestingly says this, well, it says maybe, maybe they may be wrong, but this court is bound by DC circuit president, president, full stop.
Putting an end to this argument that those cases upon which he's relying should be overturned.
Judges at lower courts are not about to overturn the decisions of an appeals court that sits obviously above them in the pecking order.
Judge Kelly goes on to say, defendants also point to the letters that we've also referenced in which they assert that the plaintiff's post deprivation notice of the revocations and an opportunity to be heard were there.
Defendants cite these cases that suggest that a post-deprivation process suffices in extraordinary circumstances.
There are extraordinary circumstances, the President says here, and therefore this post-deprivation process is sufficient.
These are circumstances, the President argues, because plaintiffs have endangered, and here we go into the next argument.
national security through their reporting.
Again, recognizing that because they're losing on all of these counts, realistically, they're not going to be successful.
So we're going to turn to national security.
So what does Judge say about that?
He says, the circumstances here are not so extraordinary as to remit deviation from the essential purpose of due process, that a deprivation of liberty be preceded by notice and an opportunity, and it cites a case here.
that post-deprivation due process may suffice in unusual circumstances, the extraordinary circumstances that the president is invoking, such as when providing notice before blocking the assets of international narcotics traffickers would create a substantial risk of asset flight.
None of that that judge says applies here.
This is exactly what he says about the timing.
He says nothing in the record suggests the need for such urgency here.
Indeed, some of the reporting identified by the president in the letters to the newest organizations stretch back months or even years.
The sorts of stories the president identifies in these letters are routine.
As discussed further when he talks about national security, the court is skeptical.
The court says,
at least on this record, that the defendant's interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation or even advanced by the revocation of the plaintiff's hard passes.
Court's saying, I doubt that this is really the reason you're arguing national security, but I don't think so.
Finally, even if the circumstances here provide for some post-deprivation process, the defendants here are still left with a problem that before the reporting at issue,
plaintiffs did not receive this for a notice of either the conduct that would lead to the sanction or the magnitude that it would impose.
And then we get to this irreparable harm issue, which again, we cited, the judge cited at the outset of all this.
In the DC Circuit, the judge says, long established at the loss of constitutional freedoms for even minimal periods of time.
Unquestionably, constitutes irreparable harm.
When constitutional harm is the basis for irreparable harm, the likelihood of success on the merits, which is what the judge is looking at, overlaps heavily with irreparable harm inquiry.
Sounds an awful lot like law school, and it is.
The final two factors, the balance of equities and the public interest, also favor the news organizations.
Those two factors merge.
when the government is the opposing party.
And the court goes on to say this, as this court has concluded, the revocation of the plaintiff's hard passes likely violated their constitutional process rights and enforcement of an unconstitutional law is always contrary.
And here's the language to the public interest or over the plaintiffs and the public, the public have an abiding interest in maintaining the status quo, given the importance of the free press.
Here we get the First Amendment argument, which stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people.
We'll get back to that undeniably as this case goes forward.
The defendants, the plaintiffs, response to the plaintiffs, the defendants are saying that these hard passes, the revocation, excluding them from the White House, serve this important national security purpose and
The sites, this interest that the president now maintains in protecting classified and sensitive national security information.
No doubt, the judge says, national security is a weighty interest indeed.
And courts have limited competence in the era of national security.
And so review those kinds of things with a great deference to the president.
Still, the judge says on this record,
The president has offered little to back up his asserted national security interest to justify revocation of the plaintiff's hard passes.
So this interest does not tilt the favors, factors in their favor, especially given that the plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits.
For one thing, and then the judge really does go into the final aspects of this, nothing in the record predates the suit.
suggesting that the revocation of plaintiff's hard passes was motivated by national security interests.
Once again, calling the president's bluff.
Certainly that is not what the president said when he announced that he was banning plaintiffs, the news organizations from the White House.
Instead, the judge calls him out and says he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of the plaintiff's reporting and even the justifications provided to the plaintiffs after the case was filed.
are ambiguous about the true purpose of the revocation.
It goes on to say, well, the defendant's letter is to the plaintiffs.
That is the president's letter to the news organizations mentioned national security concerns.
They purport to identify reporting that threatened national security and or spread falsehoods, leaving open the possibility that all the stories fall into the latter bucket rather than the former.
That's the judge talking about this.
And he goes on to say once again, calling all of this, calling the bluff on all this, he says, for another simply put reason, the record lacks factual support to support the defendant's contention, the president's position, that revocation of these hard passes will in fact protect national security.
or that national security will somehow be endangered if the court orders that their passes be reinstated while this litigation proceeds.
No declarations or other support, classified or unclassified, explain how any of this reporting in the letter is described there.
Damage national interests, the declarations, the judge says, do not provide anything which the court can.
find otherwise, they do provide general background information about classified information.
She says that's helpful.
But the declarants are senior officials in the Department of Defense who have no direct knowledge of how reporters operate the White House or any of the facts here.
In other words, I've been given some very basic information about national security.
You could probably guess at that, but none of this helps me at all.
Nothing about this identifies anything about these letters.
and do not implicate these hard passes and the revocations of them.
The court then concludes that the factors that the judge has identified are simply not there and therefore support this temporary restraining order.
It says two final points.
The court declines to stay the order right now, not going to do that while this goes up in appeal, feels strongly about it.
and says it's going to remain in order, in effect, the order for about 14 days, and says, listen, I'll schedule an expedited hearing on this, a motion for a preliminary injunction, and then we'll consider any additional time for a fuller record, and also goes on to talk about what's called a security interest.
Notes that rule 65c of the federal rules of civil procedures says the court can issue a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order Only if the movement the party here the news organizations give security basically money In an amount that the court considers proper to pay Here again law school stuff the costs and damages sustained by any party found who have been wrongfully enjoyed in other words What is the cost to the presidency to the white house if in fact?
Turns out the president's right.
What is that amount of money?
And the court, fascinating, goes on to say, so given the lack of representation of the defendants, that they will sustain any economic injury, even presently, even down the road, and the important rights, the First Amendment rights, the plaintiffs, the news agencies seek to vindicate here, the court will impose a nominal small bond of, here we go, $1.
What does that mean?
Now, the judge is going to say that explicitly, but he basically is saying the value of the loss to the presidency, to the White House, the harm done to the White House by keeping these particular reporters at bay.
What is the real value of that?
It's one buck.
And he cites another, again, a case from another district court there in the District of Columbia finding the defendants had not sufficiently demonstrated any likelihood.
of suffering costs or damages if they are later found who've been wrongfully enjoined.
That's no small thing because once again it signals, it signals very strongly that this particular judge while he's keeping an open mind will have this subsequent hearing and will do those things calling the parties back in to argue more about this, more information, more filling in the blanks of all the things that judge says are not here.
At least now he is pretty much convinced
that the losses being suffered by the presidency by the White House do not amount to anything more than one dollar.
And again, he says, we'll revisit all of that.
But for now, the White House has to return those hard-pressed credentials to the employees, CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, that were revoked.
and remains in effect for 14 days, a $1 bond to be posted by those news agencies to secure the future.
Now, what has happened in the wake of that?
Well, again, some initial reporting that even after the judge did that late this past week, some reporters are being denied admission into the White House.
There is the sense of going back to the judge once again and saying, we're asking you to enforce your order.
Eventually, it looks like the White House blinked.
and said yes indeed you can come in and you can be a part of this.
All of this also along the way as this is going on affects this thing called the White House pool and we had other news organizations supporting what CNN and MSNOW and Politico were doing here and said we're no longer going to participate in the White House pool and that's why you did not get
some of the reporting as the president is out and about in the nation, in Washington DC and other places, not giving him the coverage because of the decision of other organizations not to do that in solidarity with him.
And so as I said at the outset, what has happened now is that as we have again just gone on to begin our broadcast, although the Trump administration kind of all over the map on this,
originally barring their porters, but then saying they have access to the grounds, come back in late in the morning.
Now, as the president is apparently heading off to Tennessee, it appears that at least CNN is being prohibited from getting on Air Force One, which again, for these purposes, is the White House.
And we'll see how that plays out.
And again, arguably in violation of what the judge has done in this particular case.
All of this once again indicates the huge amount of back and forth on this.
This should not be a big issue.
We know as well that this has also been an issue with the Pentagon where likewise the Secretary of Defense has been told by a federal court that you can't impose limitations on the ways in which reporters are reporting there.
We know that there's also historical precedent in the past.
for other judges to impose upon the White House the obligation to restore press credentials to remember the Jim Acosta event of a number of years ago in which, again, that reporter was told to get out, but then reinstated.
He was a CNN journalist at the time.
This has become a staple of this presidency.
It appears that there is this decisive order from a district court judge.
We'll see.
as the week goes on and as the president continues apparently to now have a pool of reporters back in place.
We'll see how that plays out and how this latest apparent snub to CNN getting on the White House again the plane heading off to Tennessee telling the CNN that they can't join.
how that will play out as all of this comes forward.
Undeniably, we will continue to monitor this story as this goes forward.
important as we do from time to time to dig deep and to show you the things that the judges do.
They're not simply ordering things in a one page or one sentence order.
They're analyzing the facts under the law and that's what is great about this nation and that's why we should have confidence regardless of the decision making that results in a particular decision or judgment.
Decision making process itself
undertaken by good and decent and legitimate judges like this particular judge who applies the law to the facts and simply says there's no basis here for doing any of this denies denies the president's position on this and orders that under the First Amendment these reporters have the right to do this.
My strong sense is if the president again
backtracks on Air Force One as he heads around the country.
Those same lawyers were back in front of this judge seeking the enforcement of this temporary order in the days, the hours, the weeks just ahead, plainly anticipating a return to Judge Kelly as this matter proceeds in the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C.
Important to understand all that as we go forward in understanding First Amendment issues and the implications
The reason for the judge doing this, basically rejecting this national security interest, finding the timing on this is curious and saying, you know what?
It's a due process violation, Mr. President, something that this administration again has run afoul of as we have talked about in so many areas, including in immigration and deportation.
We'll revisit all of this in our next broadcast next week.
For now, I thank you once again for engaging with me on these important issues.
We'll be back again, especially next week, anticipating the start of the new term of the Supreme Court.
We'll be doing some analysis of the major cases.
And as the Supreme Court continues to issue these emergency application orders on its shadow docket, we'll be on top of those as well.
Thank you everybody for being with me and continue to monitor what's going on in the area of rule of law, administration of justice.
And yes, the operation of government in these very challenging times.