The reporters are back, but the television coverage isn’t.
Journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were allowed back into the White House around noon on Thursday. Their return came after a chaotic morning in which the Trump administration had blocked them from entering, despite an overnight order from a federal judge that required the immediate restoration of their access.
It was another twist in a nearly weeklong standoff between President Trump and his press corps that has not yet been fully resolved.
Mr. Trump abruptly barred the outlets from the White House last week, citing coverage he deemed “fake.” In response, the major TV networks suspended the White House television pool, which provides video footage for daily presidential events.
As of Thursday afternoon, the TV pool remained suspended. The networks had indicated that they would not resume coverage of the president until the White House had formally agreed to allow CNN to participate once again in the pool.
The result, on Thursday, was a bizarre spectacle: a president hosting China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for a pomp-filled summit at the White House, with no American network airing any live footage.
“Normally we’d be watching an elegant affair on the South Lawn,” the Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer told viewers, “and we don’t get access to that now.”
The Chinese government has cracked down on independent news media and evicted foreign journalists whose coverage it dislikes. Chinese state television was on hand for the proceedings in Washington on Thursday.
Around 1 a.m. Eastern time on Friday, Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the press credentials held by journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
Hours later, when journalists from those outlets arrived at the White House, they were still not permitted to enter. Lawyers for the three news organizations requested an immediate hearing on the matter, and Judge Kelly ordered the Trump administration to respond by 12:30 p.m.
Betsy Klein, a CNN correspondent, said that she tried three times on Thursday morning to enter the White House and was repeatedly turned away. One CNN producer was allowed in. “It’s an open question right now whether this is a matter of bureaucracy, a clerical error or if the White House, the Trump administration, is in open defiance of a court order,” Ms. Klein said during an on-air interview.
Around noon, Ms. Klein was allowed back in. “Very happy to be getting back to work here,” she said when she returned to the air.
Lawyers for the Trump administration said in a filing with the federal judge that the White House operations team had been instructed to restore reporters’ access at 7:10 a.m. on Thursday, and that confiscated press passes were made available for reporters to pick up at 9:55 a.m.
It was not clear why the reporters continued to have trouble passing through the security checkpoint after that.
With the television pool out of action, Mr. Trump’s summit with Mr. Xi was covered by still photographers and print and radio journalists. The Associated Press, which is not part of the network TV pool, provided video coverage of the leaders at a military review in the Rose Garden, and planned to film an event later on Thursday at the North Portico.
A New York Times spokesman, Charlie Stadtlander, said that the publication would resume publishing and distributing photographs of Mr. Trump’s events now that a judge had heard the case brought by the banned outlets. For the past few days, The Times had stopped publishing the images in support of the outlets.
When Mr. Trump met with Mr. Xi in the Oval Office, the White House allowed a limited number of photojournalists, but no print reporters, to attend. During the event, Mr. Trump made a remark about how the Chinese had the friendliest press corps, according to photographers who were present.
Erik Wemple and Katie Robertson contributed reporting.
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