CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists, who were banned by Trump from White House grounds this month, asked a federal court to block the press ban until the case is resolved.
Page B1From§Eachthe early evening edition — 29 September 2026
White House denies press passes hours after being ordered to restore them 'immediately,' then lands back in court.
As it ran on the front
I went down to renew the emissions sticker — they moved the window in March and nobody tells you — and the clerk said I had the wrong form, the one with the carbon copy, and would I mind stepping to Window 4. I didn't mind. I had nowhere to be. I stood in that line with my raincoat over my arm because the sky looked like it might do something, and while I waited I took out my notebook to write down my number — 214 — and there, two pages back, was a word I'd copied down the Thursday before, the 24th. I'm not going to pretend I went to the DMV to write about a federal judge. It just sat there in my pocket the whole time, waiting for a line long enough to read it back to myself.
The word was "immediately." I wrote it down because that's the word Judge Timothy Kelly used, early that Thursday morning, the 24th, when he ordered the White House to give CNN, MS NOW, and Politico their press passes back. A federal judge, a Trump appointee, put that word in an order. I'm sorry, I keep coming back to it — it's not a complicated word, I use it myself, I told my wife I'd get to the fan belt immediately and that was back in June — but here's the date again, because it matters: early Thursday morning, the 24th. That's when the word went into the order.…
…(cont) I'm sorry, I keep going back to this, but the same Thursday morning, 8:40 a.m., reporters from those same three outlets showed up at the gate and were turned away. Denied. On the record. Not the next day, not the next week — the same Thursday the word was already sitting in the order. If the order came early that morning, and the denial came at 8:40, which one happened first? The receipts don't hand me a clock, just a morning and a number, and I'm not going to invent a gap I can't back up — but I can tell you the gate was shut after the word "immediately" was already on paper.
I'm sorry, I want to come back to it once more, from a different angle, because of what happened after. The passes didn't come back that same morning. They came back hours later, after the story was already out, after people were asking about it — hours, on a day that opened with a judge's order using the word immediately. I carried my own renewal papers from Window 4 to the notary table, maybe forty feet, and it took less time than that. I'm not saying that proves anything. I'm saying I carried a piece of paper across a room faster than the White House complied with a federal order that already had the word immediately written into it.
They finally got their passes back. That's supposed to be the end of it — sticker on the windshield, case closed, everybody drive safe.
Except before you go — and I almost didn't put this in, because it looked like its own story — this past Tuesday, the 29th, CNN, MS NOW and Politico went back into that same courthouse. Not for a thank-you. They asked the judge to keep blocking the ban until the case is resolved. I'm sorry, I know I keep coming back to this, but the order they're standing on is the same order from the 24th — the one where the word was "immediately return, reinstate, and restore." So here's my question, and it's the only one I've got left: if the passes are already back in their hands, what is there left for a court to decide, except whether anyone in that building believes, the next time that word appears in an order, that it means immediately?
“A federal judge told them, in writing, give the passes back immediately — and they didn't, they got caught denying reporters at the gate the same morning, and only handed the passes back once the story was already out. Now the same three outlets are back in that courtroom asking the judge not to take the White House's word for it a second time. That's not paranoia, that's just somebody who read the docket.”
“Look, they complied — maybe not the exact minute the order dropped, there's a process, compliance takes some — did I just say a federal order is a suggestion with a process? That's not what I — forget process, they said immediately, and hours later is a version of immediately if you don't watch the clock too closely.”
The receipts
· Violating Federal Judge's Order, Trump White House Denies Access to Politico, MS NOW, CNN Reporters from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
· Trump-Appointed Judge Orders President to Restore White House Access to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
· Supreme Court won’t restore Trump’s mail-in voting plan for midterms from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· Appeals court denies Trump administration's mail ballot restrictions from the morgue, 10 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.