In making this ruling, the judge did not rule on the underlying merits of their removal but ruled that they had not been given due process and the opportunity to contest the order that revoked their White House press credentials. Trump has 14 days to appeal the judge's ruling.
Who knows if Trump will appeal; he may do something else reckless and stupid to simply change the subject. He is good at that. Maybe he will rename another body of water, intensify a trade war, or invade another country and will forget all about this. He is good at doing another outrageous thing so we cannot stay focused on the current outrageous thing.
If Trump pursues his attempt to ban these three outlets, I contend the news outlets will win on First Amendment grounds. Not everyone who claims to be a reporter can be granted access to the White House, of course, but viewpoint discrimination will not pass Constitutional muster. And, Trump said exactly why he was doing it. He might have gotten away with this if he had come up with some lame excuse about seeking greater diversity in the press corps and modifying the process of who gets White House credentials or some other BS, but he was in-your-face saying he was removing them because they were "Fake News," and they never said nice things about him.
To all my Facebook "friends" who were adamant that Trump had an absolute right to do this, I just wanted to say I was right and you were wrong. I still contend that if this is pursued, the news outlets will win on First Amendment grounds.
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