Judge rejects AP’s challenge to new White House press policy, for now

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing an Executive Order and a proclamation in the Oval Office at the White House on April 17, 2025. The judge said that he needed more time to determine whether the new policy was discriminatory, but said that the elimination of rotating access for newswires was “facially neutral.” (Eric Lee/The New York Times)

By Minho Kim

A federal judge in Washington late last week denied a request from The Associated Press to enforce his order requiring the White House to restore the outlet’s full access to President Donald Trump.

Lawyers for the AP had accused the White House of defying the order, at first by continuing to bar its journalists from presidential events, then by issuing a policy eliminating the regular, permanent spot in the press pool shared by three independent newswires.

Even though AP journalists had been allowed into some events in recent days, the lawyers said, their access had not been equal to that of reporters from Reuters, one of the other newswires.

The press pool is a small, rotating group of journalists who cover smaller events at the White House and press briefings on Air Force One, as they follow the president on trips in and outside of Washington. The new policy puts the newswires into a larger group of print media outlets that includes The New York Times — effectively reducing the AP’s access.

The judge who ruled Friday, Trevor N. McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who was appointed by Trump, said that he needed more time to determine whether the new policy was discriminatory.

For now, he said, Trump and the White House could be seen as acting in “good faith” to comply with his order, with the new policy being “facially neutral.” But he added that he would consider it problematic if the policy resulted in “viewpoint discrimination.”

Earlier this month, McFadden found that the Trump administration had violated the First Amendment by excluding the AP from the press pool since February, after the news organization said that it would continue to use the term “Gulf of Mexico” to refer to the body of water that Trump renamed the Gulf of America.

The Associated Press is considered one of the world’s leading newswires, distributing articles, photographs and videos to thousands of U.S. news outlets, as well as 900 international sites.

During a hearing Friday, McFadden appeared skeptical that the new policy was not intended to continue excluding the AP in defiance of his order.

He warned the government of “consequences” if evidence emerged that the White House was not complying with his order.

“That would be a way more serious problem,” he said. “There could be consequences.”

At one point, he raised his voice with a government lawyer, Jane M. Lyons, after she cut him off midsentence. He grilled Lyons over how he could ensure compliance from the government and asked when he would know whether the Trump administration was defying his order.

“It’s very hard to see how there is compliance when records show that nothing changed for three days,” McFadden said, referring to records from the past few days, when AP journalists were excluded from participating in the White House pool.

He added: “I don’t have many experiences with parties violating my injunction.”