Technologies
Trump media ban lawsuit set for Wednesday court hearing
President Donald Trump said he banned the three media outlets because of what he called “cumulative stories,” saying, “You get sick of it.”
MS NOW, CNN and Politico sued President Donald Trump on Monday morning in Washington, D.C., federal court, seeking to reverse his total ban on those three media outlets from the White House.
Journalists from the outlets were prevented from entering the White House on Saturday and had their credentials taken away, a day after Trump announced he would bar them from working there.
Judge Timothy Kelly later Monday ordered the Department of Justice to respond to the outlets’ request for a temporary restraining order against the ban by Tuesday.
Kelly scheduled a videoconference hearing on the outlets’ request for 3:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. The judge was nominated by Trump to the federal bench in 2017.
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the lawsuit says, arguing that the ban has already “severely impeded the ability of” the three outlets to cover Trump and his administration.
“Presidents from the earliest days of the Republic have disagreed with and complained about the tenor and content of press coverage of their administrations,” notes the civil complaint.
But “the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public,” the suit says.
“No official can deprive Plaintiffs of those interests on a whim — with no notice, no process, and no warning — as the President did here.”
Trump, in announcing the ban in a Truth Social post Friday, accused the outlets of writing fiction and lies about him, and warned, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.” The president cited what he called “cumulative stories” by the three news organizations, adding, “You get sick of it.”
On Monday morning, after the lawsuit was announced, Trump in a Truth Social post said, “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish.”
“It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America,” Trump wrote. “It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control.”
“It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!” he said. Trump had not previously cited national security in justifying the ban. The president gave no examples to back up his claim.
The suit alleges the ban violates the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution by failing to give the outlets advance notice and an opportunity to challenge it, without establishing clear standards for Trump’s decision.
The complaint also says the ban violates the Constitution’s First Amendment by retaliating “against protected newsgathering and speech.”
And it says the ban violates the First Amendment for a separate reason: It bars the three media outlets “from a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons.” Those reasons include so-called viewpoint discrimination, or targeting the outlets for their perceived “motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective.”
In a joint statement Monday, the three outlets said, “This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement said. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
Theodore Boutrous Jr., the attorney for the three outlets, said in a statement, “The law is on our side across the board, and we look forward to presenting our arguments to the court as soon as possible.
The White House, in a statement later Monday, said Trump removed the three outlets “from the White House grounds after years of false reporting.”
“The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool,” the White House said. “Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never ‘every outlet gets in.’ It was always ‘our side stays in.’”
Kelly, the judge, in November 2018 ordered the White House to restore the press pass of then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, which the White House revoked after the journalist had a contentious exchange with Trump earlier that month. CNN sued Trump to get Acosta’s credentials restored.
Trump referenced Kelly by name, and mentioned his ruling on Acosta, in a Truth Social post later Monday that suggested the president believes the judge will ruling against him in the new lawsuit.
“The Judge’s name is Tim Kelly, and he was, sadly, appointed by “TRUMP,” the president wrote.
“In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal because Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World.”
In addition to Trump, the defendants named in the complaint include Steven Cheung, his assistant for communications, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, and Sean Curran, director of the U.S. Secret Service.
The named plaintiffs are the three outlets and three White House reporters: Akayla Gardner of MS NOW, Betsy Klein of CNN, and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett. The three journalists were denied entry to the White House on Saturday and their hard passes were taken away by a Secret Service officer there, the suit says.
On Sunday night, the White House removed CNN from its scheduled rotation as the pool television network for the White House travel pool. The pool was set to travel Monday with Trump for his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
The lawsuit cites the White House’s removal of CNN from Monday’s pool schedule as an example of the ban “causing irreparable harm to” the outlets.
After the suit was announced Monday, members of the White House television press pool decided not to cover Trump ahead of his trip or in New York because of the action targeting CNN.
The suit is being filed in the same court where The Associated Press has a pending lawsuit against the White House for a ban on that wire service’s journalists working in certain restricted spaces in the White House, including the Oval Office and on Air Force One. The White House’s partial ban on the AP came in February 2025 after the wire service refused to reflect Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” in how it routinely refers to that international body of water.
Trump told reporters Friday that the latest ban is worth implementing, even if it is overturned by a judge.
“I think it’s good to point it out, whether it survives or doesn’t,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, during an interview Monday morning in New York with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said, “I don’t know much about it,” when asked his opinion of the ban.
But Bessent also suggested the ban was justified, saying “legacy media” is unpopular with the public “because of the perceived bias.”
Asked by CNBC’s Joe Kernen about a possible “off-ramp” from the ban, Bessent said, “We’ll see. Maybe it’s a change in coverage at the White House.”
Bessent also said, “The one thing I’m sure of: The press cares more about the press than anything else,” claiming news media focused more on the personal experiences of journalists at the aborted White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April than a gunman’s would-be assassination of Trump.
“One thing I’m sure is that this [ban] will be covered by the press,” Bessent said. “And, you know, I think we could get back to something that is a little more, I can’t even remember which network it is, fair and balanced.”
Fox News, a media outlet that is often criticized as being biased toward Trump and his administration, previously used the slogan “Fair and Balanced,” before discontinuing its use about a decade ago.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a statement Monday, said, “We’re glad to see that these news organizations are suing.”
“The president’s decision to bar them from the White House for the content of their reporting is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment,” Jaffer said. “It’s an attack both on press freedom and the public’s right to independent information about the government. We will support these news organizations in court.”
White House Correspondents’ Association President Jacqui Heinrich, in a statement Saturday, said, “The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.”
“That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting,” said Heinrich, a Fox News correspondent.
In the AP’s lawsuit, Judge Trevor McFadden ruled in April 2025 that Trump’s partial ban of the agency’s journalists violated the First Amendment and ordered that the AP be given the same access as other members of the presidential press pool to the Oval Office, other restricted areas of the White House and Air Force One.
“The Court simply holds that 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,” wrote McFadden, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump.
“The Constitution requires no less,” the judge said.
Rather than allowing the AP access to places the White House press pool goes to cover the president, the White House said it would abolish the so-called wire pool, which included the AP, Bloomberg and Reuters. The wire pool for decades had traveled with presidents to bring news coverage to news consumers around the world. It has not been reinstated.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 vote in June 2025, blocked McFadden’s ruling from taking effect while Trump appealed it.
The panel heard oral arguments in the appeal in November but has not issued a decision.
Disclosure: CNBC and MS NOW are divisions of Versant Media.
Technologies
U.S. strikes Greenland deal at UN to expand military presence at Arctic outposts
Trump said the agreement with Greenland and Denmark would give the U.S. “permanent control over security” in the Danish island territory.
President Donald Trump and the leaders of Greenland and Denmark signed a deal Tuesday allowing the U.S. to expand its military presence in Greenland, while maintaining the sovereignty of Denmark and its autonomous island territory.
“This is tremendous for Europe and for the United States and for everybody and for Greenland,” Trump said at a signing ceremony with the other leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. “It’s going to be incredible.”
The deal builds on an existing defense agreement from 1951, under which the U.S. established a presence at Pituffik Space Base. The amended deal signed Tuesday lets the U.S. expand that base and establish two new ones, and leaves the door open for additional defense areas to be built.
The two new sites are at Narsarsuaq, home to just a few dozen residents after the U.S. shut its Bluie West One base in the 1950s, and Mestersvig, a military outpost used by the Sirius Patrol, a Danish special forces unit, Reuters reported.
Trump had announced the deal on Truth Social on Friday, saying it would give the U.S. what he described as “permanent control over security, and all other needs” in the Danish island territory.
Trump has repeatedly insisted during his second term that the U.S. must take control of Greenland for national security reasons, at times declining to rule out the possibility of using military force to acquire it. Trump’s demands alarmed Greenlanders and other Europeans and opened a rift between the U.S. and NATO, of which Denmark and the U.S. are both members. Greenland has maintained it is not for sale, and the European Union earlier this year united to rebuke Trump over his push to acquire the island.
Trump signaled in Friday’s post that he was satisfied by the new deal, asserting that it addresses “ALL of our many U.S. concerns” and at no cost to the U.S.
The agreement gives the U.S. “the complete ability to do what is necessary to defend the American continent, and also Europe and other places,” Trump said during his address at the UN general assembly Tuesday morning before signing the pact.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Friday that the deal “strengthens our common security in the Arctic and the North Atlantic area and therefore is great for NATO and Europe as well.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday pressed allies of the U.S., including Canada, Denmark, Greenland, Norway and Sweden, to raise defense spending in the Arctic region, his spokesman said.
The deal signed Tuesday would bar non-NATO nations, such as China and Russia, from establishing a military footprint in Greenland. It would also prohibit sensitive investments by non-allies that may pose national security threats.
Retreating sea ice has opened new shipping lanes and exposed mineral deposits across the Arctic, drawing the U.S., Russia and China to bolster their presence in the region and raising concerns international rivals.
Technologies
AI stock valuations may have peaked. Trivariate Research thinks these shares can keep working
Revenue growth could more than offset anticipated contractions in stock multiples for some key AI stocks over the next few years
It may all be downhill from here for valuations of artificial intelligence-related stocks, but that doesn’t mean investors need to start fleeing the space en masse, according to Trivariate Research. Revenue growth could more than offset anticipated contractions in multiples for some key AI stocks over the next few years, the firm said. “We think that the interest rate cycle, and policy direction on AI both yield the same answer – that multiples for AI-related names are likely to continue to decline, and maybe have permanently peaked,” wrote Trivariate founder Adam Parker. Still, “we continue to want exposure to this group.” On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve raised its overnight interbank borrowing rate to a range of 3.75% to 4% – the first hike in more than three years. The hike followed a hot August jobs report that exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, as well as an inflation uptick in August. Higher interest rates can hurt AI stocks as many companies involved in the ongoing buildout of computing power are heavily indebted. As rates rise, these companies will have to pay more to borrow money. AI companies are also facing political pushback on multiple fronts. Multiple states are considering bans on data center construction, with 71% of Americans opposing construction projects in their area, according to a Gallup poll published in May . Trivariate said Sunday that job losses due to AI expected next year could also mean additional regulation of the technology that could have consequences for stock returns. Still, Trivariate’s Adam Parker thinks investors shouldn’t give up on the space completely. The research firm put together a list of AI stocks over the weekend whose revenue expansion could more than make up for declining valuations. Among them are data center operator Iren , along with cloud providers Nebius and CoreWeave . Chipmakers AMD and Marvell Technology and database manager Oracle also made the list. CoreWeave popped more than 6% Monday as the broader AI trade outperformed to start the week. Still, shares are down more than 26% over the past three months. Oracle rose slightly on the day, but is down more than 19% over the three six months. To be sure, it trades at a slight discount to the broader market. Oracle has a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 16.4, per FactSet, while the S & P 500 has a multiple of 19.3. AI chipmaker Marvell has been on a fairly steady rise since the end of August and is up about 200% year to date. AMD, which jumped 9% on the day, has also rallied 184% in 2026. “We remain directionally optimistic for the near-term,” Parker said. “The earnings narrative of continued upward earnings revisions, remains intact.”
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Technologies
Trump media ban lawsuit set for Wednesday court hearing
President Donald Trump said he banned the three media outlets because of what he called “cumulative stories,” saying, “You get sick of it.”
MS NOW, CNN and Politico sued President Donald Trump on Monday morning in Washington, D.C., federal court, seeking to reverse his total ban on those three media outlets from the White House.
Journalists from the outlets were prevented from entering the White House on Saturday and had their credentials taken away, a day after Trump announced he would bar them from working there.
Judge Timothy Kelly later Monday ordered the Department of Justice to respond to the outlets’ request for a temporary restraining order against the ban by Tuesday.
Kelly scheduled a videoconference hearing on the outlets’ request for 3:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. The judge was nominated by Trump to the federal bench in 2017.
“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the lawsuit says, arguing that the ban has already “severely impeded the ability of” the three outlets to cover Trump and his administration.
“Presidents from the earliest days of the Republic have disagreed with and complained about the tenor and content of press coverage of their administrations,” notes the civil complaint.
But “the Constitution protects the liberty and property interests that news organizations and White House reporters have in their press credentials and the access those credentials afford them to cover the White House for the benefit of the public,” the suit says.
“No official can deprive Plaintiffs of those interests on a whim — with no notice, no process, and no warning — as the President did here.”
Trump, in announcing the ban in a Truth Social post Friday, accused the outlets of writing fiction and lies about him, and warned, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.” The president cited what he called “cumulative stories” by the three news organizations, adding, “You get sick of it.”
On Monday morning, after the lawsuit was announced, Trump in a Truth Social post said, “The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish.”
“It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America,” Trump wrote. “It is corrupt, purposeful, pervasive, fully coordinated, and totally out of control.”
“It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!” he said. Trump had not previously cited national security in justifying the ban. The president gave no examples to back up his claim.
The suit alleges the ban violates the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution by failing to give the outlets advance notice and an opportunity to challenge it, without establishing clear standards for Trump’s decision.
The complaint also says the ban violates the Constitution’s First Amendment by retaliating “against protected newsgathering and speech.”
And it says the ban violates the First Amendment for a separate reason: It bars the three media outlets “from a nonpublic forum for unlawful reasons.” Those reasons include so-called viewpoint discrimination, or targeting the outlets for their perceived “motivating ideology or the opinion or perspective.”
In a joint statement Monday, the three outlets said, “This morning, we notified the government that we are filing a lawsuit today to protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes.”
“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting,” the statement said. “Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference.”
Theodore Boutrous Jr., the attorney for the three outlets, said in a statement, “The law is on our side across the board, and we look forward to presenting our arguments to the court as soon as possible.
The White House, in a statement later Monday, said Trump removed the three outlets “from the White House grounds after years of false reporting.”
“The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool,” the White House said. “Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never ‘every outlet gets in.’ It was always ‘our side stays in.’”
Kelly, the judge, in November 2018 ordered the White House to restore the press pass of then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, which the White House revoked after the journalist had a contentious exchange with Trump earlier that month. CNN sued Trump to get Acosta’s credentials restored.
Trump referenced Kelly by name, and mentioned his ruling on Acosta, in a Truth Social post later Monday that suggested the president believes the judge will ruling against him in the new lawsuit.
“The Judge’s name is Tim Kelly, and he was, sadly, appointed by “TRUMP,” the president wrote.
“In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we’ll go for appeal because Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown ‘sources,’ shouldn’t be allowed access to the most important Office anywhere in the World.”
In addition to Trump, the defendants named in the complaint include Steven Cheung, his assistant for communications, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, and Sean Curran, director of the U.S. Secret Service.
The named plaintiffs are the three outlets and three White House reporters: Akayla Gardner of MS NOW, Betsy Klein of CNN, and Politico’s Cheyenne Haslett. The three journalists were denied entry to the White House on Saturday and their hard passes were taken away by a Secret Service officer there, the suit says.
On Sunday night, the White House removed CNN from its scheduled rotation as the pool television network for the White House travel pool. The pool was set to travel Monday with Trump for his visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.
The lawsuit cites the White House’s removal of CNN from Monday’s pool schedule as an example of the ban “causing irreparable harm to” the outlets.
After the suit was announced Monday, members of the White House television press pool decided not to cover Trump ahead of his trip or in New York because of the action targeting CNN.
The suit is being filed in the same court where The Associated Press has a pending lawsuit against the White House for a ban on that wire service’s journalists working in certain restricted spaces in the White House, including the Oval Office and on Air Force One. The White House’s partial ban on the AP came in February 2025 after the wire service refused to reflect Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” in how it routinely refers to that international body of water.
Trump told reporters Friday that the latest ban is worth implementing, even if it is overturned by a judge.
“I think it’s good to point it out, whether it survives or doesn’t,” he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, during an interview Monday morning in New York with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” said, “I don’t know much about it,” when asked his opinion of the ban.
But Bessent also suggested the ban was justified, saying “legacy media” is unpopular with the public “because of the perceived bias.”
Asked by CNBC’s Joe Kernen about a possible “off-ramp” from the ban, Bessent said, “We’ll see. Maybe it’s a change in coverage at the White House.”
Bessent also said, “The one thing I’m sure of: The press cares more about the press than anything else,” claiming news media focused more on the personal experiences of journalists at the aborted White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April than a gunman’s would-be assassination of Trump.
“One thing I’m sure is that this [ban] will be covered by the press,” Bessent said. “And, you know, I think we could get back to something that is a little more, I can’t even remember which network it is, fair and balanced.”
Fox News, a media outlet that is often criticized as being biased toward Trump and his administration, previously used the slogan “Fair and Balanced,” before discontinuing its use about a decade ago.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a statement Monday, said, “We’re glad to see that these news organizations are suing.”
“The president’s decision to bar them from the White House for the content of their reporting is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment,” Jaffer said. “It’s an attack both on press freedom and the public’s right to independent information about the government. We will support these news organizations in court.”
White House Correspondents’ Association President Jacqui Heinrich, in a statement Saturday, said, “The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably.”
“That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting,” said Heinrich, a Fox News correspondent.
In the AP’s lawsuit, Judge Trevor McFadden ruled in April 2025 that Trump’s partial ban of the agency’s journalists violated the First Amendment and ordered that the AP be given the same access as other members of the presidential press pool to the Oval Office, other restricted areas of the White House and Air Force One.
“The Court simply holds that 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,” wrote McFadden, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump.
“The Constitution requires no less,” the judge said.
Rather than allowing the AP access to places the White House press pool goes to cover the president, the White House said it would abolish the so-called wire pool, which included the AP, Bloomberg and Reuters. The wire pool for decades had traveled with presidents to bring news coverage to news consumers around the world. It has not been reinstated.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in a 2-1 vote in June 2025, blocked McFadden’s ruling from taking effect while Trump appealed it.
The panel heard oral arguments in the appeal in November but has not issued a decision.
Disclosure: CNBC and MS NOW are divisions of Versant Media.
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