• by Ray Schultz , February 24, 2025

A federal judge has declined to order that Associated Press have its access restored to White House events — at least for now. 

U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden opined that AP has not suffered irreparable harm from the two-week exclusion, AP reports.

But McFadden said the Trump administration should reconsider its ban, which was started in apparent retaliation for AP adhering to the name “Gulf of Mexico” instead of the “Gulf of America” that Trump mandated in an executive order.

The judge observed that case law does not favor the Trump administration during the Monday hearing.

Still, McFadden seemed to question AP’s long membership in the White House press pool. “Is this administration somehow bound by what happened with President McKinley?” the judge asked, according to AP.

AP filed suit on Friday, challenging its exclusion from events on First Amendment grounds.

The suit names Susan Wiles, chief of staff, Taylor Budowich, deputy chief of staff, and Karoline Leavitt, press secretary. 

“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” AP argues in the suit on file with the U.S. District Court for the District of Washington. 

The AP says it will continue using the “Gulf of Mexico" because the gulf is not only in U.S. territory. But it is acknowledging Trump’s new name for it.

An AP photographer had been blocked from boarding Air Force One, and an AP reporter was excluded from an executive order signing.