First Amendment Does Not Permit Excluding Disfavored Journalists from Covering the White House

The New York County Lawyers Association’s (NYCLA) President, Ronald C. Minkoff, today issued this statement urging the President to allow journalists with three news organizations—CNN, MS NOW, and POLITICO—to immediately resume working in the White House.

On Friday, September 18, 2026, the President announced that he and his administration were “banning” those journalists from the White House “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!”  In an Oval Office press conference the same day, he justified the ban because those journalists “purposely write negative news. And they do that because they want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration. And honestly, we’ve done a fantastic job. Look at the numbers, look at the economic numbers. We have more money coming into our country today than ever before.”  It is not fake news that many Americans are very troubled by the country’s economic performance, particularly its high inflation.

I must express even more alarm and concern than NYCLA did almost a year ago when we criticized the Chair of the Federal Communictations Commission for his actions against the satirist, Jimmy Kimmel.  Government bans directed at journalists doing their jobs put at risk one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution and rule of law— our right to freedom of speech and freedom of press under the First Amendment. Those rights are designed to protect the rights not just of the speakers and writers, but of those who would listen to or read their works.

The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that these rights are part of “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).  The Court later stated that, “this Court has many times held, in many contexts, that it is no job for government to decide what counts as the right balance of private expression—to ‘un-bias’ what it thinks biased, rather than to leave such judgments to speakers and their audiences.” Moody v. NetChoice, LLC, 603 U.S. 707, 718–19 (2024). The fact that Fox News and other conservative outlets have supported lifting the ban against the three networks illustrates the universal acceptance of this view.

We again urge everyone committed to the Rule of Law to join us in supporting our right to obtain information about this and any other administration, from journalists willing and able to question, challenge, and report on the administration’s narratives, such as the three news organizations expelled from the White House.  That is the fundamental underpinning of both free speech and a free press, guaranteed by the First Amendment.

FirstAbout the New York County Lawyers Association
The New York County Lawyers Association (www.nycla.org) was founded in 1908 as one of the first major bar associations in the country that admitted members without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Since its inception, it has pioneered some of the most far-reaching and tangible reforms in American jurisprudence and has continuously played an active role in legal developments and public policy.

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This statement has been issued by the NYCLA President. It has not been reviewed by NYCLA‘s full Board of Directors and does not necessarily represent its views.