Judge orders Trump White House to lift access restrictions on Associated Press

A US judge on Tuesday ordered the White House to restore full access for the Associated Press to presidential events, after the news agency was punished for its decision to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage.

The order from US district judge Trevor McFadden, an appointee of Donald Trump’s, requires the White House to allow the AP’s journalists to access the Oval Office, Air Force One and events held at the White House.

The White House “sharply curtailed” the AP’s access to media events with the US president after he renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”, and the news agency did not follow suit, McFadden wrote in a 41-page decision.

“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 sued three senior Trump aides in February, alleging the restrictions violated the US constitution’s first amendment protections against government abridgment of speech by trying to dictate the language they use in reporting the news.

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Lawyers for the Trump administration have argued that the AP does not have a right to what the White House has called “special access” to the president.

On the first day of his second administration, Trump signed an executive order directing the US interior department to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The AP said it would continue to use the gulf’s long-established name in stories while also acknowledging Trump’s efforts to change it.

“For anyone who thinks The Associated Press’ lawsuit against President Trump’s White House is about the name of a body of water, think bigger,” Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “It’s really about whether the government can control what you say.”