JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The Trump administration found itself playing defense in court today as a federal judge made clear he thought the White House had violated the constitutional rights of reporters. This during a hearing here in Washington, D.C., in a lawsuit filed by CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Those three news outlets sued President Trump after the White House banned their journalists because Trump said he was fed up with their stories. NPR's David Folkenflik was listening and is with us now. Hi there.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Juana.
SUMMERS: David, tell us what happened in court today.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, so we've seen all the headlines about this as being a major First Amendment case. And it is that. But this lawsuit filed by CNN, MS NOW and Politico has another element. And the judge, Timothy Kelly, right off the bat said, look, I think there are real problems. There's strong indications that the federal government, the administration, violated the Fifth Amendment rights of these media outlets. And that's the due process clause.
That is, the president sort of announced he wanted to do these things on social media on Friday. He said so again to reporters later that afternoon. And then over the weekend, the White House scrambled to make it so. That's not a process by which the reporters and their outlets learn what they may have done to offend. And do they have a process to appeal this? So you saw the media's lawyer, Ted Boutrous - Theodore Boutrous Jr. - he's represented NPR in another First Amendment case earlier last year.
FOLKENFLIK: But he's basically said, hey, judge, I agree with you. But let's also focus on the First Amendment here. By going after the courtroom - excuse me, the White House press passes because he was upset about the coverage, he's violating their right to free speech. And in fact, he's doing so in what's called viewpoint discrimination, that is, what they have to say that he doesn't like. And by treating other reporters differently, he's revealed his hand. One point, Boutrous said the president is our key and best witness for our case.
SUMMERS: David, what did the Justice Department lawyers say to justify the case, why the White House pulled these journalists' credentials?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, it was interesting. So Trump, when he announced that he was going to do this, said, no, no, it's the accretion of, you know, basically two years of frustrations. It's not any particular stories. In their filings, the Justice Department said and repeated in court the idea that there were national security implications to reports, that they also, these journalists had spread falsehoods. And they stressed the idea that this was a privilege to report from the White House and not a right.
You know, there was some pushback from the judge, Timothy Kelly. He is, in fact, a Trump appointee. But he was around for a 2018 ruling that also involved CNN, in which he found against the president and the White House on similar grounds - that is, once you grant these press passes, you can't pull it back - on First Amendment issues. But again, the due process thing has been a major element for this judge all along. That said, you've seen a lot of reporters pushing back against the White House's case, even in the last few hours.
SUMMERS: Right.
FOLKENFLIK: Where they're unraveling the idea that there are national security implications to reporting on the war broadly, criticisms of the war, on these questions of building a bunker beneath...
SUMMERS: Right.
FOLKENFLIK: ...The new ballroom being constructed at the White House, and so on.
SUMMERS: And, David, the judge has not actually made a ruling here yet. What's ahead? And also, what is President Trump playing for here in the meantime?
FOLKENFLIK: So even the president has acknowledged ahead of this hearing that he thought it was likely he would lose and indicated he would appeal. He said so on Truth Social. But he's enabled us all to be talking about this. This is a real issue with First Amendment implications.
SUMMERS: Right.
FOLKENFLIK: As well as due process implications. And yet, we're not talking so much about how the war is going, whether or not gas and oil are getting out through the Strait of Hormuz. We're not talking about his underwater approval ratings. We're not talking about Republicans who are in tight races running away from him. We're not talking about the economy. Right now, that may be a net plus for the president, even as, in court at the moment, he's on the back foot.
SUMMERS: Well, here at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, we're talking about it all. That is NPR's David Folkenflik. Thanks.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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