Judge Blocks Donald Trump's Media Ban After It Hands His Critics a 'Brand Moment,' Expert Says

President Donald Trump’s attempt to exclude three news organizations from the White House gave CNN, MS NOW and Politico a prominent First Amendment fight, and then a federal judge ordered their press credentials restored.

Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a 14-day temporary restraining order at approximately 1 a.m. Thursday, September 23, finding the outlets were likely to succeed in arguing that their “hard passes” were revoked without adequate due process.

Kelly found no evidence predating the lawsuit that national security concerns motivated the ban, as Trump’s attorneys argued.

“That is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House,” Kelly wrote. “Instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”

Attorney Ted Boutrous, who represents the three outlets, called the decision “a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process, and rule of law.”

“The most underleveraged angle in this story is not the legal one. It is the communications one,” said Amore Philip, founder of Apples and Oranges Public Relations.

“What a presidential media ban actually accomplishes from a communications standpoint is the opposite of what it intends. Banning a news outlet does not silence it. It amplifies it,” she explained.

“The moment you restrict press access, you hand the restricted outlet the most powerful story they will run all year: the story of their own exclusion,” she continued. “That is not a loss for the outlet. That is a brand moment.”

The ban also prompted ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News and NBC to suspend television pool coverage of the president rather than replace CNN during its assigned rotation.

Consequently, none of the five networks provided live pooled footage when Trump welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping at Joint Base Andrews with a red carpet and military flyover.

“The legal ruling is almost secondary to what has already happened in the court of public opinion,” Philip noted.

“The White House handed its critics a constitutional drama with themselves as the villain. Late night and influencers did not have to work hard to make this entertaining. The administration wrote the script for them,” she added.

“Press freedom showdowns become entertainment-driven narratives because they combine two things audiences find irresistible: an underdog and an authority figure overreaching,” she said. “That formula has driven human storytelling since before the printing press. It is not going to stop working now.”