Judge Blocks Trump’s ‘Ban’ on Three News Outlets

White House’s After-the-Fact Justification For Ban Falls Apart

Overnight, U.S. district court judge Timothy Kelly granted the temporary restraining order sought by three news organizations — MS NOW, Politico and CNN — that President Donald Trump had “banned” from the White House.

Kelly, a first-term Trump appointee, found that the White House’s assertion that the stories either “threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods,” left open “the possibility that all the stories fall into the later bucket, rather than the former.” The news organizations, he found, were likely to succeed in their arguments that the White House did not use any kind of process in deciding to revoke reporters’ access.

A further bit of absurdity surrounded the White House’s effort to show these reporters were up to no good. All three of the banned outlets got letters saying that they were “trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues and publishing sensitive or classified information,” and noting their reliance on “anonymous sources”; the letters then included examples of stories it took issue with.

At least one of those stories, however, was based on a press call the White House set up, and that a White House aide told reporters to attribute to a “senior administration official.”

“The contents of this call are on background, attributable to a senior administration official,” an aide said, according to a recording of the call obtained by the Washington Post. “By remaining on the line, you agree to those terms.”

The media newsletter Status later reported that the “senior administration official” was none other than JD Vance himself.

This may seem odd, but this kind of stuff happens all the time. Government offices and agencies hold formal calls with the press, but ask that the information be kept on background — not attributed to a particular person. I’ve been on dozens of such calls. It’s a little weird that the vice president was the source in this case, and that he was described, somewhat misleadingly, as a “senior administration official.” But the relevant thing here is: These were not leaks jeopardizing national security. They were not leaks at all: the “anonymous source” was speaking at a carefully managed event set up by the White House itself.

This ridiculous twist is not mentioned in Kelly’s middle-of-the-night ruling, but it seems he was nonetheless unimpressed with the amount of due diligence that the White House put into its claims that reporters behaved inappropriately. He had a comical bit of analysis noting that the stories the White House deemed problematic don’t in any way support its solution of banning particular members of the White House Press Corps.

Defendants offer no declarations or other support—classified or unclassified—explaining how any of the reporting they identified in their letters to Plaintiffs damaged the national security. The declarations they do provide include general background about classified information, but the declarants are senior officials in the Department of Defense who have no direct knowledge of how reporters operate in the White House, or about any of the facts at issue here. And supplemental declarations filed by Plaintiffs show that, in most cases, the reporters who authored the stories Defendants identify in their letters did not even hold hard passes. In the remaining cases, Defendants afford no reason to believe that the reporter’s possession of the hard pass was integral to the stories identified.

ICE Operations in Kansas Become a Midterms Issue

Increased ICE activity in Southwest Kansas is prompting backlash.

• Agents in unmarked vans are staking out meat processing facilities and stopping traffic, NPR affiliate KCUR reports.
• “A message sent from Dodge City Public Schools asked families to update contact information and alert the district if people not on a student’s emergency contact list would need to pick up children,” KCUR reports. “We may have students whose family members have been detained,” a message from school administrators obtained by the paper read. The message also noted some students may no longer have anyone to care for them, per the Wichita Eagle. “Please help us keep our students safe and cared for,” it said.
• At least one meatpacking facility shifted its operation schedule, KCUR reports, and other local businesses closed entirely, according to local NBC affiliate KSNW. “We refuse to pretend it is business as usual,” one business noted by KSNW wrote on Facebook. “We refuse to pressure employees into risking separation from their families just so we can sell another plate of food.”
• Democrat Adam Hamilton, the megachurch pastor running for Senate in Kansas, is doing surprisingly well in recent polls. Republican incumbent Roger Marshall addressed the ICE activity in a carefully calibrated X post yesterday, writing, “When ICE operates in Kansas, it needs to coordinate with our local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.”

Tabs

• The Senate will vote again today on whether to end the Iran war, as Republicans become increasingly wary of it amid dismal midterms poll numbers.
• Reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon, a prolific donor in 2024, has closed his wallet because Congress didn’t pass the SAVE Act, the New York Times reports.

Men of the Hour

They’re Michael Whatley and Mike Collins, who the GOP appears to be abandoning in their respective Senate races. While Whatley was a flat candidate up against an extremely popular one — former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper (D) — Collins self-sabotaged in Georgia by failing to eject and condemn the many extremists uncovered in his orbit.