Donald Trump's Press Ban Would Empower 'a Next President,' Legal Analyst Warns

Elie Honig, CNN's senior legal analyst, argued Wednesday night on CNN's The Source that the constitutional case against President Donald Trump's ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico does not depend on which outlets were targeted, because any power a president claims to reward or punish newsrooms passes to his successors.

"If you let, forget about this president, a president, pick and choose favorites and grant or restrict access based on who he likes or doesn't like, there's going to be a next president and a president after that," Honig said in a clip of the segment circulated by the Acyn account on X. "And if we let a president pick and choose, not only does it violate the First Amendment, but it takes us down a very dangerous path."

The remarks aired hours before U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, in an order issued at 2:04 a.m. Thursday, directed the White House to immediately restore the three outlets' hard passes. Kelly, a Trump appointee who ordered CNN's Jim Acosta reinstated in 2018, ruled on Fifth Amendment due process grounds and explicitly declined to reach the First Amendment claim at this stage, according to the text of the order.

Honig is employed by CNN, one of the three plaintiffs, and disclosed in a newsletter post Wednesday that he is also friends with colleagues at MS NOW and Politico.

Elie Honig: First Amendment 'Doesn't Much Care Who the Outlet Is'

Honig was recapping Wednesday's emergency hearing, where Theodore Boutrous Jr. argued for the outlets and Michael Velchik for the Justice Department. "Boutrous, who was the lawyer for the media outlets, basically said, don't let them now try to invent some process after the fact, because it's just gonna be something that they're fabricating and it's gonna drag on indefinitely," Honig said. "And that's why the lawyer for CNN urged the judge to also rule on the basis of the First Amendment."

He then made the case that the protection is viewpoint-neutral. "The beauty and power of the First Amendment is that it doesn't much care who the outlet is," Honig said. "It doesn't matter if the outlet is far left. It doesn't matter if the outlet is MS NOW or MeidasTouch. It doesn't matter if the outlet is far right. If it's Newsmax or Fox News, what have you. It doesn't matter if it's an independent journalist or an established international cable network, the First Amendment protects you."

Forget about this president, a president, pick and choose favorites and grant or restrict access based on who he likes or doesn't like, there's going to be a next president and a president after that.

That framing, Honig said, explains the "not unanimous, but very widespread support" for the plaintiffs "from across the media." A friend-of-the-court brief filed Wednesday by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents' Association and 49 other organizations, including Fox News, The New York Times and The Associated Press, called the ban "constitutionally repugnant" and "transparently viewpoint discriminatory."

What the DOJ Asked the Court to Overrule

Honig did not name any precedent in the clip, but the Justice Department's brief did. The government asked the court to discard Sherrill v. Knight, a 1977 D.C. Circuit decision that has governed White House credentials for nearly five decades. That case held that once the White House opens its press facilities, access may "not be denied arbitrarily or for less than compelling reasons," and that an applicant is owed notice, a chance to respond, and a written statement of reasons, according to the opinion.

The Justice Department argued that "access to the White House is a privilege -- not a right," that Sherrill "is wrong and should be overruled," and that the outlets had failed to meet "standards of professionalism and decorum" by "trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information," the brief said. That national security rationale was not part of Trump's original announcement: when he announced the ban Friday, he wrote on Truth Social that the outlets engaged in "constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS," and later called it a response to "cumulative stories," according to his posted statement. Kelly's order found "nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs' hard passes was motivated by national security concerns," and that the plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of success "at least on their Fifth Amendment procedural due process claim," according to the order.

The AP Case Is the Direct Precedent

This is the second time in roughly 18 months a federal court in Washington has been asked to bless a Trump White House press exclusion. In February 2025, the White House told The Associated Press it would lose Oval Office and Air Force One access unless it adopted "Gulf of America" in its stylebook. Judge Trevor McFadden granted a preliminary injunction in April 2025, writing that "if the Government opens its doors to some journalists ... it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints," according to the case docket. The D.C. Circuit later stayed most of that injunction, ruling the Oval Office and similar restricted spaces "are not First Amendment fora," though it still recited Sherrill as binding on hard passes, according to the order.

That distinction is why the current case differs: the AP lost a seat in the press pool, while the three outlets lost their hard passes outright — the credential the Sherrill line of cases most directly protects.

What Happens Next

Kelly's restraining order lasts 14 days, and he declined to pause it for an appeal while he weighs a longer preliminary injunction. Before the hearing, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he expected the "totally disloyal" Kelly to rule against him and that "we'll go for appeal," and told reporters in the Oval Office, "I don't want them in my office. I don't want them here," according to his post and remarks. Boutrous called the ruling "a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law." Whether the Sherrill framework survives an appeal will determine the answer to Honig's question: what the next president, of either party, can do to the outlets he likes least.