Trump administration calls banned journalists’ White House access ‘a privilege, not a right,’ brands coverage a security risk
In a new legal filing in the case over a trio of new outlets barred entry to the White House, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice repeatedly defended the president’s ban by saying journalists were not entitled to access to the building.
“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” the filing stated.
The filing went on to assert that the three outlets – by publishing sensitive or classified information obtained through its reporting – constituted a national security threat, giving the president the right to ax their credentials.
Trump banned the three outlets – CNN, MS Now, and Politico – last Friday in a snap decision announced via social media. He branded the three outlets “fake news” and threatened future bans against other outlets could follow.
Early the following week, the three publications filed a joint lawsuit asking a federal judge to restore their access, alleging that the action was an illegal act of retaliation that violated their First Amendment rights. A president, they argued in their complaint, can’t bar access to journalists based on reporting he doesn’t like.
Since then, Trump has found himself in an escalating tit-for-tat with the press, which has responded to the ban with measures of solidarity. Several outlets have declined to publish any images or video of the president so long as the three outlets are denied access to the White House. And the members of Trump’s standard TV pool – five channels, including CNN, who take turns traveling with the president, filming his daily activities, and distributing that footage – have ceased their duties.
Key events
Trump’s threat to annihilate Iran to UN general assembly is stunning, even for him – analysis
Robert Tait
Donald Trump has a habit of discomfiting delegates to the United Nations general assembly. But this year, he may have upstaged the ghost of Nikita Khrushchev by openly contemplating the annihilation of a fellow UN member state.
Eleven minutes into a 40-minute address, the US president announced he had “a big decision to make” over Iran, which has staged a much more determined resistance than Trump anticipated when he decided to go to war against the country in February.
“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild, and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” he asked. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”
Possibly not since Khrushchev, the late Soviet leader, brandished his shoe and allegedly banged it on a desk in 1960 in protest at a fellow delegate’s speech has the annual gathering witnessed such a display of bellicosity from a superpower leader.
But this seemed more shocking.
The world may have become inured to Trump’s dire threats to send Iran “to the stone age” or end its civilization – so often have they been issued, only to sometimes be followed by a ceasefire or negotiations. But hearing them voiced in a forum created in the aftermath of the second world war, with the explicit aim of preventing future conflicts, was disconcerting.
Iran was the focal point of much of Trump’s speech, which began with a catalogue of familiar boasts of his supposed achievements that seemed better fitted to a domestic audience.
Whether or not the latest threat should be taken literally, little of what he said about Iran seemed reassuring. He appeared to play fast and loose with the facts, consciously or otherwise.
Trump administration set to defend its White House press ban in court
Trump administration lawyers will face the three new outlets banned from the White House by the president – Politico, CNN, and MS Now – in court today, as the organizations ask a federal judge to restore their access.
Trump banned the three outlets late last week via a post to Truth Social, sparking a scuffle with the Washington press. The three banned outlets swiftly sued, and other news organizations have halted some coverage of the president in solidarity, including the other rotating members of the president’s standard TV pool (which take turns filming the president’s press-open events and distributing the footage to others).
The three barred news organizations have accused the president of violating their First Amendment rights by retaliating against them over coverage he disliked. The Trump administration, in a new filing, countered by saying that White House access is a “privilege,” not a right, and that the three outlets’ reporting of information the administration deems sensitive constitutes a national security threat.
Trump himself has said he’ll “probably lose” the lawsuit, which has landed in the courtroom of a judge he appointed.
Iran and Ukraine leaders set to address UN after Trump’s departure
Trump won’t be back at the United Nations today, but world leaders speaking after him on day two of the General Assembly’s gathering will be reckoning with the international order he’s shaped.
In particular, the leaders of both Iran, the nation Trump started a war with, and Ukraine, whose war with Russia Trump staked his 2024 campaign on ending, will feature in Wednesday’s lineup of speakers.
The President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, is slated to speak first, a day after Trump used his address to the body to threaten to “annihilate” his country and drive its people “into Hell” if Iranian leadership refused to strike a deal to end the war.
Around the same time Trump delivered those remarks, members of Trump’s team, including Middle East envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, held a snap meeting with the Iranian delegation, Trump later said. The President reported that the meeting went “very well,” though Iran has since pushed back on claims that it dropped some preconditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz during those talks.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, will also take the podium, a day after he also met with President Trump. His address will follow a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine. Both will give Zelenskyy a platform to rally international support for the defense of his country from a Russian invasion that has endured for well over 4 years.
In remarks to reporters before his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy said he wanted to see the war ended before winter.
“I hope we will end this war, and President Trump will help us end this war. We need to do it as quickly as possible, before winter,” he said.
Trump administration calls banned journalists’ White House access ‘a privilege, not a right,’ brands coverage a security risk
In a new legal filing in the case over a trio of new outlets barred entry to the White House, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice repeatedly defended the president’s ban by saying journalists were not entitled to access to the building.
“Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right,” the filing stated.
The filing went on to assert that the three outlets – by publishing sensitive or classified information obtained through its reporting – constituted a national security threat, giving the president the right to ax their credentials.
Trump banned the three outlets – CNN, MS Now, and Politico – last Friday in a snap decision announced via social media. He branded the three outlets “fake news” and threatened future bans against other outlets could follow.
Early the following week, the three publications filed a joint lawsuit asking a federal judge to restore their access, alleging that the action was an illegal act of retaliation that violated their First Amendment rights. A president, they argued in their complaint, can’t bar access to journalists based on reporting he doesn’t like.
Since then, Trump has found himself in an escalating tit-for-tat with the press, which has responded to the ban with measures of solidarity. Several outlets have declined to publish any images or video of the president so long as the three outlets are denied access to the White House. And the members of Trump’s standard TV pool – five channels, including CNN, who take turns traveling with the president, filming his daily activities, and distributing that footage – have ceased their duties.
The Trump administration is refusing to work with the newly appointed deputy head of the United Nations refugee agency, Reuters reported.
Tressa Rae Finerty, an American who took up the role of deputy high commissioner at UNHCR earlier this month, has taken leave as she seeks a waiver from the US government that would allow her to carry out aspects of her duties, according to seven diplomatic sources.
Her treatment by Washington, which previously considered cutting ties with the agency, is seen by several of the diplomats as a retaliatory response after UNHCR opted against Washington’s preferred candidate, Simon Hankinson.
A State Department spokesperson said it could not comment on pending legal issues. “We work with and through UNHCR when doing so advances US foreign policy interests,” the spokesperson said.
Trump to meet with China’s Xi as Congress mulls bill banning artificial superintelligence
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump will meet with the Chinese president Xi Jinping later today, ahead of a three-day visit that will undoubtedly see artificial intelligence (AI) high on the agenda.
António Guterres, the UN secretary general, has called on the two countries to establish a dialogue on AI similar to the communication between the US and the Soviet Union during the cold war.
“Governments with the greatest AI capabilities have the greatest responsibilities to humanity, to establish channels for dialogue, transparency, trust and cooperation,” Guterres said.
Tech executives including Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Tim Cook of Apple, Elon Musk of Tesla, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jensen Huang of Nvidia will reportedly attend a state dinner at the White House on Thursday evening.
It comes as two leading progressive US lawmakers, senator Bernie Sanders and representative Greg Casar, were due to unveil legislation later today that would ban artificial superintelligence and create a federal agency to oversee advanced AI.
The bill, provided first to the Associated Press, would also pause advanced AI development until guidelines are implemented while creating the Department of Artificial Intelligence. Multiple employees at leading AI companies are endorsing the bill.
“It doesn’t take a genius to say, ‘slow it down,’” Sanders said in an interview with AP. “Do we really want to develop a super intelligence that when it becomes smarter than human beings could act independently of human control? I don’t think we do.”
Congress has so far done little to rein in the AI industry even as some of its most prominent leaders warn about potentially catastrophic risks.
Xi departed Beijing on Wednesday, state media said, heading to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, where he will be met by Trump on the tarmac.
“President Xi Jinping left Beijing by special plane for a state visit to the United States” accompanied by his wife Peng Liyuan, his right-hand man Cai Qi, and foreign minister Wang Yi, among others, state broadcaster CCTV said.
In other developments:
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Speaking at the UN general assembly, Donald Trump re-issued his threat to “annihilate” Iran and “drive them into Hell” if the regime didn’t capitulate and make a deal.” He also said he was “working closely with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine” to end the disastrous war, defended his administration’s actions in Latin America – including the midnight raid to arrest former Venezuelan president Nicólas Maduro, defended his drone strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, accused Mexico of being effectively controlled by the cartels, and said it was “unacceptable” for the US to share a border with a nation under such conditions, pointed to regime change in Cuba and said he would reject any calls for a “globalist scheme” to control artificial intelligence.
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Shortly after his UN address, Trump signed a Greenland deal, which Greenland’s prime minister Jens-Frederick Nielsen said “underlines the importance of the Nato alliance.” In tricky, carefully worded paragraphs, she said the agreement “recognises the US defining historical and ongoing contributions to the security and defence of Greenland,” but it also “respects the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark, as well as Greenland’s right to self-determination.”
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Trump told a CNN reporter at the UN general assembly on Tuesday that he was “surprised” the outlet was covering him, saying it ‘shouldn’t be here’ after he banned the network alongside Politico and MS Now from the White House on Friday.
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At a joint press conference on Tuesday, vice-president JD Vance and Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced that the federal government was removing 760,000 enrollees from Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces.
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