AP Blocked from Trump’s Oval Office Press Gaggle — Ignoring Recent Court Ruling
(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Despite a recent injunction reinstating access, an AP spokesperson confirmed their journalists were denied access to an Oval Office press event on Monday.
“Our journalists were blocked from the Oval Office today. We expect the White House to restore AP’s participation in the pool as of today, as provided in the injunction order,” as first reported by The Washington Post’s Jeremy Barr via social media.
President Donald Trump took questions from assembled White House press corps members in an unusually contentious gaggle while sitting next to El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.
The White House has refused universal access to the Associated Press over the news service’s refusal to call the body of water south of the nation long known as the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America,” as Trump has insisted via Executive Order. AP has insisted that it is an international concern and that many of its clients are nations that do not abide by Trump’s nationalistic fiat.
On Tuesday, a federal judge ordered the White House to restore The Associated Press’ full access to cover presidential events, on April 8th, citing First Amendment grounds that the government cannot punish the news organization for the content of its speech. AP’s David Bauder reported at the time:
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that the government can’t retaliate against the AP’s decision not to follow the president’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico. The decision, while a preliminary injunction, handed the AP a major victory at a time the White House has been challenging the press on several levels.
“Under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints,” McFadden wrote. “The Constitution requires no less.”
The injunction stated that the government was required to “immediately rescind the denial of the AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool,” and “immediately rescind their viewpoint-based denial of the AP’s access to events open to all credentialed White House journalists.” The terms of the injunction added that it was to “remain in effect until further order of this Court.”
This is not the first time that the Trump administration appears to be flouting court orders, most recently the Supreme Court unanimously ruling that Kilmar Abrego Garcia have his return to the United States “facilitated” by the Trump administration after his mistaken deportation to El Salvador.
