US judge refuses to overturn Trump's AP White House ban amid 'Gulf of America' row

A US federal judge has denied a request by the Associated Press to immediately restore its access to presidential events after President Donald Trump's White House blocked the news agency's journalists in a row over the term "Gulf of America".

US District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, on Monday declined the AP's request for a temporary injunction restoring its access — saying that the agency had not demonstrated that it had suffered any "irreparable harm" from the two-week-old ban.

Yet McFadden told lawyers for the Trump administration that the law wasn't on their side in barring the AP for continuing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico in coverage, rather than the "Gulf of America" as the US president decreed in an executive order last month.

The news agency has refused to change its style and said last month that it would keep using the gulf's long-established name in stories while also acknowledging Trump's efforts to change it. The White House banned AP reporters in response.

McFadden told the court that the issue required more exploration before ruling and set another hearing for the case for 20 March. In the meantime, the White House is free to continue barring AP journalists from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and other areas.

After the ruling, the White House released a statement saying that "asking the President of the United States questions in the Oval Office and aboard Air Force One is a privilege granted to journalists, not a legal right". It also displayed a pair of monitors in the briefing room reading "Gulf of America" and "Victory".

'Targeted attack'

An AP spokeswoman said the news agency will "continue to stand for the right of the press and the public to speak freely without government retaliation".

"This is a fundamental American freedom," she added.

The AP's lawsuit — filed last Friday — names three senior Trump administration officials as defendants: Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The news agency called the White House's ban a "targeted attack" that "strikes at the very core of the First Amendment".

"The Constitution prevents the president of the United States or any other government official from coercing journalists or anyone else into using official government vocabulary to report the news," Charles Tobin, a lawyer for the AP, said during a court hearing.

Lawyers representing the Trump administration said that the AP does not have a constitutional right to what they called "special media access to the president".

"They do not have a constitutional right to continue that access in perpetuity," said Brian Hudak, a government lawyer. "The president can choose who to speak with."

Last Tuesday, Trump told reporters that we're going "to keep them (AP journalists) out until such time as they agree that it's the Gulf of America".