Judge Orders Temporary Restoration of White House Access for CNN, MS NOW and Politico

U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly for the District of Columbia ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore White House access for CNN, MS NOW and Politico under a 14-day temporary restraining order issued shortly after midnight Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. NPR

The order lasts 14 days. It directs White House representatives to "immediately return, reinstate, and restore" press credentials to reporters for the three outlets.

The credentials at issue are White House hard passes. The three organizations said their journalists' passes were revoked on Saturday, after the outlets were banned from covering White House events last week. They filed a joint lawsuit against President Donald Trump on Monday challenging the access ban.

Kelly held an emergency hearing Wednesday afternoon on the request to undo the ban. In granting temporary relief, he wrote that the outlets were likely to succeed in showing their hard passes were revoked without constitutionally adequate due process.

The suit was brought as a First Amendment lawsuit seeking restoration of access. CNN

Kelly was nominated to the District of Columbia bench by Trump in 2017. He is now presiding over a challenge to White House credentialing decisions made by the same administration.

For credentialing lawyers, the distinction Kelly drew matters. The temporary order turns on due process around revocation of existing hard passes, not a final ruling on the broader First Amendment claim over access to White House events. That keeps the immediate question narrow. It asks what process accompanied the revocation, rather than settling the scope of press access itself.

The broader context here is procedural. A temporary restraining order preserves the prior position for a short, defined period while the court considers further briefing and argument. The 14-day window gives both sides time to develop the record on how the ban and revocations were decided, communicated and applied. It does not resolve liability or set permanent access terms.

Looking at what this means for newsroom operations, the practical effect is restoration of working access pending the next court action. Hard passes control day-to-day movement and pool eligibility, filing logistics and staffing. Without them, outlets must work around the credentialing system to cover the building. With them reinstated, even temporarily, assignment desks can return to normal rotation for White House coverage.

The sequence also matters for future disputes. Revocation on Saturday followed a ban from events last week, followed by a joint suit Monday and an emergency hearing Wednesday. That compressed timeline is typical when access is cut off close to news cycles, and courts often respond with short-fuse hearings and interim orders. The record of notice, standards and opportunity to respond will likely remain central as the case moves past the restraining order stage.