Six Citizens Sue Trump Over White House Media Ban

The Trump administration has once again been sued for banning CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House Press pool. While the three newsrooms were already victorious in their preliminary injunction against the administration, this recent lawsuit—filed on Monday by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute and Yale Law School’s Freedom & Information Access Clinic—advocates for the American public as well. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of six plaintiffs who rely on credentialed White House reporters to do their own jobs: Yale professors Kenneth Roth and Beverly Gage, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes, Press Watch editor Daniel Froomkin, student journalist Ethan Young, and New York City high school teacher Peter Schmidt-Nowara.“The Policy violates the First Amendment. The White House has long maintained a protected forum for certain members of the press to engage in the First Amendment activities of newsgathering and reporting,” the lawsuit reads. “The Policy is unconstitutional because it conditions access and participation in the White House Press Forum on criteria that are viewpoint based and unreasonable.”“The ultimate injury here … is to the democratic public,” says the lawsuit, which was filed in New York.“The White House cannot decide what information Americans receive by punishing critical reporting,” said Knight First Amendment Institute deputy litigation director Katie Fallow. “When the White House expels reporters because of their coverage and threatens others with expulsion, it isn’t just the press that suffers — the public loses access to independent reporting and gets something closer to government propaganda.”This debacle first began on September 18, when Trump dramatically denied CNN, MS NOW, and Politico access to the White House due to unfavorable coverage of his administration. Since then, they have been granted a temporary injunction allowing them to return to the press pool—but Trump has defied them, continuing to deny CNN access to his Air Force One jet. Only time will tell how Trump reacts to this most recent legal action against him. This story has been updated. Elsewhere in the White House:Norwegian officials are dumbfounded after President Trump suggested banning Norwegians from the U.S., calling Norway a “shithouse country” during a Michigan rally on Sunday.Trump made the comments while complaining to the audience in Port Huron, Michigan, that the Nobel Prize was won by a “woman nobody had ever heard of.”“I said ‘What about me? Do they do two of them?’ Think of it, I settled, so I’m not in love with Norway. Frankly, Norway sucks. Norway has become a shithouse country actually,” Trump said to laughter.Trump on Nobel Prize: Norway has become a shithouse country actually https://t.co/yQoD8kBgmd— Acyn (@Acyn) October 25, 2026 “Denmark? Take ‘em. Sweden. Norway, I don’t think so because I didn’t get the Nobel Prize,” Trump continued. “I don’t want anybody from Norway, I don’t want anything to do with Norway.”Norwegian officials are shaking their heads.“He knows very well that the Nobel committee is independent,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said to NRK, the country’s public broadcaster, on Monday. “We have reminded him of that, in case anyone is wondering, and that is still the case.”It’s funny that Trump is so annoyed, considering that he said in January that he actually doesn’t care. He still railed against Norway at the time, claiming, “If anybody thinks that Norway doesn’t control the Nobel Prize, they are just kidding. They have a board, but it’s controlled by Norway, and I don’t care what Norway says.”Even funnier is the fact that way back in his first term, Trump reportedly complained in an Oval Office meeting about accepting immigrants from “shithole countries” like Haiti and places in Africa, and instead suggested the U.S. should take in more people from countries like Norway, mentioning that country in particular. He said similar words at a rally last December. To Trump, though, being snubbed for an award is enough to override his racist preferences for immigrants.A judge ruled Monday that Maurene Comey was wrongfully terminated from her position as the former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, ordering the Justice Department to reinstate her with back pay.Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, was fired in July 2025. The DOJ did not provide a rationale for her ouster at the time, simply citing Donald Trump’s authority to do so as the sole justification.In a federal lawsuit, Comey argued that her firing was part of the president’s political retribution campaign against her father, who testified before Congress during Trump’s first term regarding the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.In a 55-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman declared that Comey’s termination was not only unfounded, but it was also illegal as it fundamentally violated the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.The government’s other defense, which cited Article II of the Constitution barring Congress from regulating the removal of assistant U.S. attorneys, was similarly fraught, as it “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent,” according to Furman.“Indeed, to accept Defendants’ argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system,” Furman wrote.Comey was involved in several high profile cases prior to her firing, including prosecutions against musician Sean Combs (also known as P. Diddy) and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. She is expected to receive back pay dating from the time she was fired to December 2025, when she obtained a new job in private practice.Trump has been very public about his contempt for James Comey. The president fired Comey during his first term in the midst of the Trump-Russia probe, prematurely ending the director’s 10-year term. His decision to do so prompted a follow-up investigation by Comey’s predecessor, special counsel Robert Mueller, who determined that Russian influence in the 2016 election was “sweeping and systemic,” and found substantial (if non-prosecutable) evidence that Trump had obstructed justice by firing Comey.In April, a grand jury in the Eastern District of North Carolina indicted Comey on two felony charges relating to a seaside photo the former FBI director shared on Instagram that depicted seashells in an arrangement reading: “86 47.” Eighty-six is a popular phrase used in the restaurant industry to signify that an item has been crossed off the menu.Yet the Department of Justice claimed that the message would be interpreted by any person “familiar with the circumstances” as a “serious expression of an intent to do harm to the president,” according to Comey’s indictment.Whether or not the government’s case against the elder Comey will pan out remains to be seen. However, recent revelations regarding Trump’s personal involvement in the initial investigation could unravel the suit.This story has been updated.Read more about Trump’s attacks on the Comey family:President Donald Trump can’t stop talking about other people’s posteriors during his midterm campaign blitz. At a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, Saturday, Trump continued to rave about Ohio Senator Jon Husted’s buttocks. “I looked at his ass, and I’ve never done that with a man before,” Trump said. “Off the record, women yes, men no.”Then Trump decided to ogle someone who was actually in the state instead.“By the way I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before: Nicki Minaj!” Trump said, as the crowd cheered. “That’s hard to miss! That’s—stand up! That’s hard to miss!”TRUMP: I looked at his ass, and I've never done that with a man before. By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before: Nicki Minaj. That's hard to miss. https://t.co/LPLeZlL4L3— Acyn (@Acyn) October 25, 2026 The rapper-singer joined Trump onstage, telling the president that she’d support him if he ran a third time. It’s not clear what any of this had to do with Michigan’s Senate race. Trump did eventually turn his attention to making wildly Islamophobic remarks against Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed, calling him a “jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists.”The president’s frequent fantasizing about other people’s bodies has become a mainstay of his weird political rallies, which have started to feel more like a farewell tour than a campaign blitz. Even if Trump isn’t impeached following the midterm elections, it’s not looking likely that the 80-year-old president will hit the campaign trail again. Read about Trump’s weird interest:Two Catholic bishops have expressed intense regret at their recent photo op with President Trump, calling the widely-circulated images of their White House meeting an exploitative act that was “publicized by the administration without the consent of the participants.”“The meeting was in no way an endorsement of the president, his policies, or his party.... We were told the meeting was to be a private discussion, that several Catholic members of the cabinet might make an appearance, and that there could be an opportunity to pray privately with the president,” Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob wrote Sunday in a statement titled “A Public Apology.”“We were then directed to stand behind him and pray. After which several photos were taken and we were ushered out. Unbeknownst to the group of bishops a video was also taken. But permission for the public distribution or posting of either the video or photos was not given by the bishops,” Grob continued. “It did not take long thereafter for the White House to post a video and photos of the prayer. I soon began receiving messages of serious concern over the possibility that I had inadvertently participated in a political event less than two weeks before a national election. I also heard from some who felt wounded because of the ways they or their family had been harmed by the president’s policies.”Iowa Bishop William Joensen expressed similar sentiments.“I wish I had been more shrewd and less simple, like those who exploited our meeting for partisan political purpose,” he wrote. “I pray I am more prudent and wise going forward, even as I remain resolute in my openness to engaging and praying for political leaders at all levels.”Catholic Archbishops and Bishops pray with President Trump in the Oval Office ❤️ https://t.co/facV5wTGQQ— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) October 22, 2026 The White House meeting was organized by the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation. And Trump is about as pious as his policies (not very). This made the images from the meeting and the shady nature in which it unfolded all the more questionable—and regrettable—for some of the clergymen involved.“I feel a heavy sadness, not only over the pain I caused, but also for the fact that something so sacred to a group of religious leaders, prayer to our Heavenly Father, would be manipulated in that way,” Grob continued. “We came in good faith to try to work for the betterment of our fellow human beings, to ease their suffering, to build up the common good, and to pray with a president, not to pose for a political photo opportunity to benefit the few. We should never have been put in that position by the White House.”