April 19, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge who ordered the Trump administration to stop blocking The Associated Press from presidential events refused Friday (April 18, 2025) to take immediate steps to get White House officials to comply — an incremental development in a two-month dispute between the global news agency and administration officials over access.
The case, which has significant free-speech implications under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, centers on the government blocking AP’s access to cover events because the outlet won’t rename the Gulf of Mexico in its reports.
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who handed the AP a victory last week in its efforts to end the ban, said it’s too soon to say that President Donald Trump is violating his order — as the AP suggests.
“We are not at the point where we can make much of a determination one way or another,” said McFadden, ruling from the bench. “I don’t intend to micromanage the White House.”
The AP’s lawyer, Charles Tobin, wouldn’t comment about the judge’s decision after the proceedings. The White House issued no immediate comment.
The decision comes after a new press policy at the White House
For two months, the White House has essentially banned AP reporters and photographers from their traditional spot covering events in smaller spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One. The AP says it’s a violation of its free-speech rights, enshrined in the First Amendment, to punish a news outlet for an editorial decision — an argument McFadden has endorsed.
In response, the White House this week issued a new press policy that occasionally lets the AP and other wire services into events it used to routinely cover at all times.
Since McFadden’s ruling took effect, an AP photographer was allowed into the Oval Office on Thursday after three days of being blocked. A reporter has yet to be allowed back in, but the White House said an AP reporter will be part of the coverage rotation on Saturday — when reporters will follow Trump in a van to where he plans to play golf.
In court, Tobin said the new policy is gamesmanship designed to diminish the outlet’s influence. “We think that the new policy really is a thumb in the nose at The Associated Press and this court,” he told McFadden.
The White House took clear steps to put last week’s ruling into effect, said Jane Lyons, an assistant district attorney who was representing the Trump team. “It is way too soon … to say that it is a problem,” Lyons said.
The judge said he had concerns about the government’s actions
McFadden said that the first few days since his order took effect gave him concerns that Trump’s team is “not proceeding in compliance here, or perhaps malicious compliance.” But the judge, appointed to the court by Trump during the president’s first term, said he has to assume that the administration is operating in good faith unless time proves otherwise.
He also wasn’t swayed by the AP’s argument that it’s unconstitutional for the president to have sole discretion over who covers him at these smaller events. The AP, mindful that a dispute over journalists’ access isn’t likely to move many in the public, has cast it as a broader issue of freedom of speech.
The AP’s decisions on what terminology to use are followed by journalists and other writers around the world through its influential stylebook. The outlet said it would continue to use Gulf of Mexico, as the body of water has been known for hundreds of years, while also noting Trump’s decision to rename it the Gulf of America.
It’s an issue likely to take months to wend its way through the courts The AP went before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals Thursday on the same issue about compliance. The Trump administration has said that it will appeal McFadden’s initial ruling.
April 16, 2025:
Story Body
April 9, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration said Wednesday (April 9, 2025) it would appeal a federal court decision that ordered it to re-admit Associated Press journalists to White House events on First Amendment grounds.
The government filed a notice of appeal early Wednesday afternoon on behalf of the three officials sued by the AP — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, White House chief of staff Susan Wiles and deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich. The one-page notice of appeal gave no other details.
The defendants “respectfully provide notice that they hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,” the notice said.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled in favor of the AP, whose reporters and photographers had been excluded from White House events since February because the news agency had decided not to follow the president’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
McFadden ruled that the government can’t retaliate against the AP’s decision. Citing a principle known as “viewpoint discrimination,” the judge wrote that the administration cannot punish the news organization for the content of its speech. 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 AP has been blocked since Feb. 11 from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room.
Trump has dismissed the AP, which was established in 1846, as a group of “radical left lunatics” and said that “we’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree it’s the Gulf of America.”
The AP’s decisions on what terminology to use are followed by journalists and other writers around the world through its influential stylebook. The outlet said it would continue to use Gulf of Mexico, as the body of water has been known for hundreds of years, while also noting Trump’s decision to rename it the Gulf of America.
April 8, 2025:
Story Body
March 28, 2025:
Story Body
February 25, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says its officials “will determine” which news outlets cover President Donald Trump. That departs from a century of tradition in which a pool of independent news organizations go where the chief executive does and holds him accountable on behalf of regular Americans. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday (Feb. 25, 2025) that the changes would rotate some traditional outlets from the group and include some streaming services. She cast the change as a modernization of the press pool, saying the move would restore “access back to the American people” who elected Trump.
February 24, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Monday (Feb. 24, 2025) refused to immediately order the White House to restore The Associated Press’ access to presidential events, saying the news organization had not demonstrated it had suffered any irreparable harm. But he urged the Trump administration to reconsider its two-week-old ban, saying that case law “is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.”
U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden’s decision was only for the moment, however. He told attorneys for the Trump administration and the AP that the issue required more exploration before ruling.
McFadden peppered both sides with questions during arguments over a lawsuit the AP filed Friday saying that its First Amendment rights were being violated by the ban, which began gradually two weeks ago. President Donald Trump said it was punishment for the agency’s decision not to entirely follow his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
McFadden, discussing the composition of the “press pool” that is chosen by the White House Correspondents’ Association, questioned why the government was obligated to follow those choices. “It feels a little odd that the White House is somehow bound by the decisions this private organization is making,” the judge told AP attorneys.
He also questioned AP’s noting of its longtime membership in the White House press pool. “Is this administration somehow bound by what happened with President McKinley?” the judge asked. But he noted that the correspondents’ group had been tasked by the White House to choose the members of its pool.
“The White House has accepted the correspondents’ association to be the referee here, and has just discriminated against one organization. That does seem problematic,” McFadden said in an exchange with government attorney Brian Hudak.
Later, McFadden warned the government’s attorney to reconsider its position, saying “case law in this circuit is uniformly unhelpful to the White House.”
The AP says it is adhering to the “Gulf of Mexico” terminology because its audience is global and the waters are not only in U.S. territory, but it is acknowledging Trump’s rechristening as well.
AP says the issue strikes at the very core of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which bars the government from punishing speech. The White House says access to the president is a privilege, not a right.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration began barring the AP from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other areas that have been open to the agency for a century as part of the White House press pool. The dispute stems from AP’s refusal to change its style in referring to the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump decreed the “Gulf of America” via an executive order.
The AP named three Trump officials – White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and press secretary Karoline Leavitt – as defendants. The agency, a nonprofit news outlet in operation since 1846, called the White House’s move a “targeted attack” of the sort barred by the First Amendment.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in its lawsuit.
The White House says its move to restrict AP is not an infringement of free-speech rights. “The only person who has the absolute right to occupy those spaces is the president of the United States,” Wiles wrote to Julie Pace, AP’s executive editor, in an email included in the agency’s lawsuit. “For the rest of us, it’s a privilege, and to suggest otherwise is wrong.”
Dozens of news organizations signed a letter last week urging the White House to reverse its policy. The signees included Trump-friendly outlets like Fox News Channel and Newsmax.
Trump has dismissed the AP as an organization of “radical left lunatics” and said: “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America.”
It isn’t the first case of its kind, nor even the first to involve Trump. In Trump’s first term, reporter Jim Acosta of CNN had his White House credentials revoked. After CNN sued, another federal judge appointed by Trump ruled in Acosta’s favor to restore access.
February 22, 2025:
UNDATED (AP)- The Associated Press sued three Trump administration officials Friday (Feb. 21, 2025) over access to presidential events, citing freedom of speech in asking a federal judge to stop the blocking of its journalists. “We’ll see them in court,” the White House press secretary said in response.
The lawsuit was filed Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., 10 days after the White House began restricting access to the news agency. It was assigned to U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump nominee.
The AP says its case is about an unconstitutional effort by the White House to control speech — in this case not changing its style from the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” as President Donald Trump did last month with an executive order.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in its lawsuit, which names White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich and press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the First Amendment,” the news agency said. “This court should remedy it immediately.” The Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, speech and religion and bars the government from obstructing any of them.
Leavitt said that she learned about the lawsuit Friday while driving from the White House to an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“I wanted to get the White House counsel on the phone before taking this stage to see what I can and cannot say but, look, we feel we are in the right in this position,” she said. “We’re going to ensure that truth and accuracy is present at that White House every single day.”
Trump directly cited AP’s editorial decision
In stopping the AP from attending press events at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, or flying on Air Force One in the agency’s customary spot, the Trump team directly cited the AP’s decision not to fully follow the president’s renaming.
“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” Trump said Tuesday.
This week, about 40 news organizations signed onto a letter organized by the White House Correspondents Association, urging the White House to reverse its policy against the AP. They included outlets like Fox News Channel and Newsmax, where many of the on-air commentators are Trump supporters.
“We can understand President Trump’s frustration because the media has often been unfair to him, but Newsmax still supports AP’s right, as a private organization, to use the language it wants to use in its reporting,” Newsmax said in a statement. “We fear a future administration may not like something Newsmax writes and seek to ban us.”
While AP journalists have still been allowed on White House grounds, they have been kept out of the “pool” of journalists that cover events in smaller spaces and report back to its readers and other reporters. The AP has been part of White House pools for more than a century.
The lawsuit said the AP had made “several unsuccessful efforts” to persuade the administration that its conduct was unlawful. Julie Pace, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor, traveled to Florida this week to meet with Wiles.
The AP Stylebook is a sticking point
In an email to AP, Wiles said the news organization was targeted because its influential stylebook is used as a standard by many journalists, scholars and students across the country, the lawsuit said. She said the administration was hopeful the name change would be reflected in the AP Stylebook “where American audiences are concerned.”
The Stylebook is used by international audiences, as well as those within the United States. The AP has said that its guidance was offered to promote clarity, and that even though Gulf of Mexico will continue to be used, journalists should also note Trump’s action to change the name.
A Trump executive order to change the name of the United States’ largest mountain back to Mount McKinley from Denali is being recognized by the AP Stylebook. Trump has the authority to do so because the mountain is completely within the country he oversees, AP has said.
Wiles also wrote to the AP that its stylebook’s influence “has been misused, and at times weaponized, to push a divisive and partisan agenda,” according to the lawsuit.
In an Axios story last week, Budowich noted other AP Stylebook entries that have rankled some conservatives. They include the decision to capitalize Black but not white in racial references, guidance on gender-affirming medical care and direction not to use the term “ illegal immigrants.”
In a radio interview with Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Friday, Trump referred to the Associated Press as “radical left lunatics.” He said that “Associated Press is a third-rate outfit with a first-rate name.”
He said “just about everybody” accepted the Gulf of America name change but “AP wants to be cute.” There has been a mixed response from other news organizations: The New York Times and Washington Post are continuing to use Gulf of Mexico, while Fox News has switched to Trump’s choice. Google Maps is using Gulf of America for users in the United States.
February 15, 2025:
UNDATED (AP)- The White House barred a credentialed Associated Press reporter and photographer from boarding the presidential airplane Friday (Feb. 14, 2025) for a weekend trip with Donald Trump, saying the news agency’s stance on how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico was to blame for the exclusion. It represented a significant escalation by the White House in a four-day dispute with the AP over access to the presidency.
The administration has blocked the AP from covering a handful of events at the White House this week, including a news conference with India’s leader and several times in the Oval Office. It’s all because the news outlet has not followed Trump’s lead in renaming the body of water, which lies partially outside U.S. territory, to the “Gulf of America.”
AP reporters and photographers travel with the president virtually everywhere as part of a press “pool” and have for decades. AP journalism serves millions of readers and thousands of news outlets around the world.
Journalists consider the administration’s move a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment — a governmental attempt to dictate what a news company publishes under threat of retribution. The Trump administration says the AP has no special right of access to events where space is limited, particularly given the news service’s “commitment to misinformation.”
AP calls that assertion entirely untrue.
“Freedom of speech is a pillar of American democracy and a core value of the American people. The White House has said it supports these principles,” AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton said Friday night. “The actions taken to restrict AP’s coverage of presidential events because of how we refer to a geographic location chip away at this important right enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for all Americans.”
The body of water in question has been called the Gulf of Mexico for hundreds of years. AP, whose influential stylebook is used by news outlets as an arbiter of language and usage, advised that because of its broad set of global customers, it would both refer to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico and also reference Trump’s order changing the name to the Gulf of America within the United States.
At the same time, the AP switched style last month from Denali to Mount McKinley for the mountain in Alaska that Trump ordered renamed. That location lies entirely within U.S. jurisdiction.
Taylor Budowich, White House deputy chief of staff, said in a post to X Friday — one that was later released as a White House statement — that the AP “continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America. This decision is not just divisive, but it also exposes The Associated Press’ commitment to misinformation.”
While the First Amendment protects the AP’s “right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting,” it doesn’t ensure unfettered access to limited spaces like the Oval Office and Air Force One, Budowich said. He said AP would retain its credentials to the White House complex overall.
On Friday, an AP reporter and photographer had traveled to Joint Base Andrews for their participation in the traveling press pool to Trump’s Florida residence. But, after clearing security, neither was allowed to board Air Force One, a decision they were told was “outlet-specific.” Meanwhile, reporters in the press pool who were permitted on the plane sent the AP journalists pictures of cards with their names saying “welcome aboard” on their empty seats.
Other news organizations, like The New York Times and Washington Post, have also said they would primarily use Gulf of Mexico. Fox News said that it was switching to Gulf of America.
The White House Correspondents Association has issued statements condemning the action against AP. Although there are talks going on behind the scenes, individual news outlets have been relatively quiet.
The Times, through spokesman Charles Stadtlander, said on Friday that “we stand by The Associated Press in condemning repeated acts of retribution by this administration for editorial decisions it disagrees with. Any move to limit access or impede reporters doing their jobs is at odds with the press freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.”
In a statement, the Washington Post said that the AP’s “access to the administration is central for all journalistic organizations, including The Washington Post, in serving millions of Americans with fact-based, independent journalism each day.”
The issue was gaining some international attention.
“We would never kick out a news agency out of the press room of our Chancellery,” said Friedrich Merz, the top opposition leader in Germany and front-runner in polls ahead of the country’s Feb. 23 elections. He spoke Saturday at a security conference in Munich also attended by U.S. Vice President JD Vance and top Trump administration officials.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who on Wednesday used the word “lies” in describing AP content, posted on X Friday afternoon about executive orders Trump had signed before his departure. She ended her post: “The @AP was not invited.”
February 13, 2025:
NEW YORK (AP) — The White House says news organizations that refuse to use President Donald Trump’s new name for the Gulf of Mexico are telling “lies.” It insists it will continue to bar Associated Press journalists from presidential events. Trump has decreed that the international body of water be called the Gulf of America. It borders Mexico, the United States and other nations. In its influential Stylebook, the AP said it would continue to use Gulf of Mexico while also noting Trump’s decision. The White House’s attempt at regulating language used by independent media — and the punitive measures attached to it — mark a sharp escalation in Trump’s dealings with news organizations.
Story Body
February 12, 2025:
NEW YORK (AP) — The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office on Tuesday (Feb. 11, 2025) after demanding the news agency alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump has ordered renamed the Gulf of America.
The reporter, whom the AP would not identify, tried to enter the White House event as usual Tuesday afternoon and was turned away. Later, a second AP reporter was barred from a late-evening event in the White House Diplomatic Room.
The highly unusual ban, which Trump administration officials had threatened earlier Tuesday unless the AP changed the style on the Gulf, could have constitutional free-speech implications.
Julie Pace, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor, called the administration’s move unacceptable.
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” Pace said in a statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”
The Trump administration made no immediate announcements about the moves, and there was no indication any other journalists were affected. Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the media. On Friday, the administration ejected a second group of news organizations from Pentagon office space.
Before his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump announced plans to change the Gulf of Mexico’s name to the “Gulf of America” — and signed an executive order to do so as soon as he was in office. Mexico’s president responded sarcastically and others noted that the name change would probably not affect global usage.
Besides the United States, the body of water — named the Gulf of Mexico for more than 400 years — also borders Mexico.
The AP said last month, three days after Trump’s inauguration, that it would continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico while noting Trump’s decision to rename it as well. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP says it must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.
AP style is not only used by the agency. The AP Stylebook is relied on by thousands of journalists and other writers globally.
Barring the AP reporter was an affront to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bars the government from impeding the freedom of the press, said Tim Richardson, program director of journalism and misinformation for PEN America.
The White House Correspondents Association called the White House move unacceptable and called on the administration to change course.
“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decision,” said Eugene Daniels, WHCA’s president.
This week, Google Maps began using “Gulf of America,” saying it had a “longstanding practice” of following the U.S. government’s lead on such matters. The other leading online map provider, Apple Maps, was still using “Gulf of Mexico” earlier Tuesday but by early evening had changed to “Gulf of America” on some browsers, though at least one search produced results for both.
Trump also decreed that the mountain in Alaska known as Mount McKinley and then by its Indigenous name, Denali, be shifted back to commemorating the 25th president. President Barack Obama had ordered it renamed Denali in 2015. AP said last month it will use the official name change to Mount McKinley because the area lies solely in the United States and Trump has the authority to change federal geographical names within the country.
Comments