Trump tried to ban three news outlets. A judge said no. What happens now? Let’s go Off Script

Hello, everyone. I'm Simone del Rosario. Welcome to Unbiased Updates Offscript. We spend all

day reporting the news. Now we get to kick back and talk about it. Coming up on the podcast

who gets to cover the president and does the president get a say? Trump's media ban lasted

less than a week before a judge stepped in. But when the media becomes the story

does it distract from everything else? Whether or not Trump loses in court seems almost immaterial

What the fight does is reinforce the idea of us and them

We're breaking down the ban, the ruling, and the bigger questions. Plus, you know Christian Bryant as our new morning anchor of Unbiased Updates

But who's the guy behind the desk? We're about to find out. I hope that people learn that I am a serious journalist, but an unserious human being

And what if you could see Trump's truth social posts before everyone else? Turns out you can if you're willing to pay up to $100,000 a month

Why that tiny head start is raising some very big questions. Well, let's start where we always do, and that's what matters

What matters today is the First Amendment, the free press, and whether media outlets have a right to cover the White House from the inside

While you were sleeping, those alerts went out. A federal judge temporarily blocked President Trump's ban of CNN, Politico, and MSNOW from the White House

a ban that kicked in nearly a week ago. I want to say not just me, but also our photographer had their badge taken this morning

A judge ruled this morning, saying the White House must return those badges right away

for the next two weeks while the case plays out. Now, when making the decision to ban them, Trump used a familiar phrase

Because they're fake news. You get so tired of reading and seeing fake news

Is there a particular reason? No, no reason. No, just because, no, no, it's really just cumulative stories

But when it came to court, the administration argued it was actually due to national security reasons

We have the articles they used to make their case on our website, san.com

It's called These Stories Triggered Trump into Banning CNN, MSN Now, and Politico

Anyway, the federal judge from Wednesday's hearing wasn't convinced, and hours ago granted a temporary restraining order on the ban

The White House continues to maintain access to the White House is a privilege, not a right

Straight Arrow senior political reporter Ozzie Pabra listened to the hearing yesterday, joins me today

Ozzie, the top line here, though, is that this is just temporary

So why did the judge side with the outlets this round? Is it a First Amendment right to get into the White House

So what Judge Timothy Kelly ruled on was first that the administration violated the journalist Fifth Amendment

which is due process. Basically, he said that the president banned the outlets before telling them

why he was doing it or giving them a chance to respond. Fifth Amendment, you can't do that

Order matters. Secondly, he said it looks like the national security grounds was not going to

pass muster when this case gets considered more permanently. So Fifth Amendment, First Amendment

And then we'll see what happens after this. The temporary restraining order being granted

It just kind of means they need more time to look at the case. He did give some hints, obviously, in his ruling about where he was leaning on it

But this also wasn't a surprise to the Trump administration. No, I think what may have been a surprise is that Timothy Kelly had been appointed to the bench by Donald Trump

but he had already ruled against a prior effort when they tried to ban Jim Acosta from CNN and take his press pass in the first term

So it's a judge they know. He's ruled like this before. This wasn't entirely unexpected

dozens of news outlets banded together to support these banned outlets. They were

you know, refusing to cover Trump or to cover their days on the TV pool

While the White House quickly learned that broadcasting isn't as easy as it looks, even in

2026, but audio issues can get sorted out eventually. Do you think media outlets proved

the president needs them to get his message out? Or do you think the president's learning how to make

Better Stride sidestepping traditional media? You know, that's a great question. I think in the

near term, he needs them. There's technical elements you need, and people still have a sense

that when they get information directly from a principal, it is their version rather than

independently being verified. That's why we have an independent press. But those technical elements

the sound issues that the president was having, those can be fixed. Now, what is happening is that

it is easier to produce content and share it online, which is where most people are getting

their information from. So the president launched Trump TV, which is their latest effort to have

government funded content go directly to the public without having anyone verify it or double

check it. And we've seen from high profile incidents where information from the government

hasn't been, let's just say, accurate. Having independently verified news is critically

important. And this administration is the latest to try to circumvent the media when they're

unhappy with it. Former President Obama weighed in on what happened. Let's take a quick listen

I'm trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News

Get out of here. It's unimaginable. OK, not so fast because it's not totally unimaginable

It's definitely not apples to apples here, but especially early on in his presidency and even before that, during his campaign, Obama was known for slamming Fox News and giving it fewer opportunities than others

Oh, yeah. Even as senator, when Inside Magazine reported that he attended a quote unquote madrasa in his childhood when he was living overseas, Fox News picked up that story

And Obama really doesn't have any kind of relationship or need to ostracize Inside Magazine, although he did at the time

But he really went after the New York Post and Fox for picking up that story

For years every person who ever been in office has been annoyed with the independent press that covers them And usually what happens is there some kind of gamesmanship not enough room in the press van not enough room in the press briefing room Hey we just don have time to take your questions things like that

What Trump attempted here and with Jim Acosta in the first term was something more blunt and more formal, which is what sort of gives journalists an opening to go to court and say, taking a press pass, banning us from the complex of the White House

That's too far. When it's the little like one-offs, it is harder to build a case and say that you're being discriminated against

Well, the media really jumped on this story for obvious reasons. I think we really care about what goes on in the media and we very much care about the First Amendment and access and being able to hold government and people in power accountable

We're talking about it today as our top story here in Offscript. I wanted to know, though, are we all part of some scheme that's actually distracting us from something else

You know, it's fascinating. Why did Trump even do this? Why now

You have the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, set to arrive. You have midterms coming up, and he's already said, pretend I'm on the ballot, so he's obviously very vested in it. Why now? And the stories that were cited were, in some cases, months old

One thing that helps understand Trump's behavior and actions is the idea that he can flood the zone and just create so much content that it overwhelms institutions and organizations

There are so many scandals that in a prior administration would have derailed them for weeks or months

Trump has stacked them so repetitively one after another after another that it's almost hard to keep your mind around

Remember, it's only been a few days since the president's oldest son acknowledged that a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin paid for part of his wedding reception

Just think about that one. There have been questions about Trump, which is still ongoing, trying to sell early access to his social media posts for $100,000 a month to people on Wall Street. That is sort of shocking. And each one of these times that he has a fight with the media, the media has an obligation to cover it, but it also distracts from all the other stories that we could be covering

And there's also one other thing that happens. Whether or not Trump loses in court seems almost immaterial. What the fight does is reinforce the idea of us and them. He gets to tell people who support him, those are the people fighting against me

And for the people that support him, they believe in that, they buy into it

Part of what it means to be conservative today is a distrust of mainstream institutions and the media included

And it reinforces whose side you're on when you have a fight

And this is one that Trump chose to have right now. You can follow all of Ozzie's work on Straight Arrow, SAN.com or on our app

You're there in D.C. on the ground, and you've got the inside scoop on a lot there

Ozzy, thank you for joining us on Offscript and breaking this all down. Thanks for having me

There's no shortage of opinions online. What's harder to find are the answers

This is Now to You, where we take your questions, comments, and hot takes and dig for the facts

We got a good question from one of our viewers after our coverage of President Trump banning CNN, MSN Now, and Politico from the White House

Joe Wiki on YouTube asked, Why weren't they upset when Biden took credentials from over 400 journalists

Joe, I'm glad you asked. Let's take a closer look. In 2023, the Biden White House changed the rules for what's called a hard pass

It's a bit of an all-access pass that lets reporters go to the White House press areas without arranging access ahead of time

All of those annual passes expired at the same time. And the rule was reporters had to reapply under new requirements

For instance, they needed to be employed by a news organization, have a physical presence in the D.C. area

and they needed to have gone to cover the White House at least once in the past six months

Now, reporters who didn't qualify for a hard pass could still apply for day passes

which just means they need an escort that day. When all was said and done, the number of hard pass holders dropped by 442

The vast majority of those just didn't reapply. Now, the rules did face a legal challenge

One journalist who lost his hard pass argued they were designed to keep him out

A federal court rejected that claim. What Trump did last week is different. He specifically named

CNN, MSN Now, and Politico and said he was banning them over what he called fake news

the DOJ later arguing that it was because of national security concerns

And their journalists were turned away from the White House. A federal judge has now said it was

likely without due process. The White House argues that access to the president is a privilege

not a First Amendment right. But for now, it is being ordered to reinstate those badges

We love hearing from you. Keep those comments coming into us here at Straight Arrow. You can

leave them on our YouTube page or email us at offscript at san.com. Okay, let's go inside the

story now. And this week, we're going to do something a little different. A week ago, we

welcomed our new host of Unbiased Updates, who will also be taking over Offscript next week

Christian Bryant. You've seen him on your screens every morning delivering the news you need to know

but let's get under the hood here and get to know our new host a little more

Christian, welcome to Offscript. First of all, thank you for letting me keep the host seat warm for you

Oh, it's been great. Thank you for a warm welcome. I really appreciate it

Glad to be here. I'm curious, you know, you're walking into a show on Bias Updates

that already has a really loyal audience. How do you want to build a relationship with them this show was one of my first introductions to the straight arrow universe so to speak And so one of the first things that I wanted to do was try to build on the

successes of the show. It's to the point, it is a great product, but building a relationship with

the audience, one of the ways I've been doing that is one, by trying to do a good job every morning

making sure that I am delivering on our promise for unbiased news that fears no fact

but also by connecting with our audience members. There's a very communicative group of people on YouTube and on Spotify

and I want to let them know that I am accessible. I may not see every comment, but I like that we're in conversation with each other

so that they feel like they're a part of this. We're collaborators, so to speak

you mentioned that unbiased updates was kind of your introduction to straight arrow

i think in the spirit of off script and seeing behind the curtain we can tell people that we've

actually been chatting for a while i looked it up this morning and we first started talking in

february of 2025 about a potential christian bryant straight arrow combo someday uh the day is today

So why Straight Arrow for you? That took a while, didn't it

Sorry about that. Yeah, we played the long game there. Really kind of felt each other out

Straight Arrow was just such an attractive product. We know what the news landscape looks like

And the two of us have likely talked to our friends, our community members

about what they would like to see out of their news consumption

what they would like to add to their news diet, so to speak. Straight Arrow was an easy sell for me because of the work and the work speaks for itself

It's unbiased. It's right down the middle. But it's not without a little bit of flavor, right

One of the things I'm most excited about is getting a chance to talk to the journalists that are on staff

Like you said, I'm still new here, but I'm getting to know them and their work

And in diving into the original reporting and looking at the products that Straight Arrow was offering, once we had a conversation and everybody was single, I was like, okay, well, let's give this a shot

And I'm really glad to be here. Very excited to see what the next few weeks and months hold for the both of us

I'm wondering, I feel like most journalists do. Did you have a coming to news moment, that moment where you realized I am going to be a journalist someday

You know, I love this question because unlike a lot of people that I work with, I never thought I was going to be a journalist

There's so many other professions that I wanted to explore. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an animator for Disney

I thought that would have been the most fantastic job. I still think one day I'll be a musician

I grew up playing the drums and the keys. I played the drums in church

You know, that was my thing for a while. The one thing that I like to brag about is I made all-county jazz band in North Carolina

without knowing how to read drum charts. So I felt like there were so many other things in my future

But there was a moment when I was in school, I studied English at Morehouse College, and

I really got to know my narrative voice. I didn't know what I wanted to do with this degree. And I wasn't a great English student

And somebody made a suggestion about looking into journalism. And so, you know, after I graduated

it took, you know, four whole years of me going through school before I even considered this

as a professional opportunity. After I graduated, I dug a bit deeper and I realized I love

connecting with people. I love talking to folks. I love taking pieces of stories and kind of

putting them together. And I had my very first journalism opportunity in 2011. I was an intern

at an alt-weekly newspaper in my hometown. And that was it. That was the moment. I was writing

I was writing features, I was writing the police blotter, those sorts of things. And that let me

know that I was on the right path. Is there a story in your career that you've covered that

really stays with you? Yeah. This was 2017, 2018, and I was at the U.S. southern border covering

family separations. This was the height of family separations during the first Trump administration

I actually wasn't supposed to be the journalist that was going to cover this story

But the person who had pitched it and who had organized it, his his own legal status was was kind of iffy and he didn't want to chance it by getting close to the border and really kind of putting himself and others at risk

So he tapped me to head down to the U.S. southern border and report on the story

And, you know, there are so many fun stories that I've that also stay with me

But this one was really was really tough because I was talking to parents who have been separated from young children

And, you know, these parents were desperate and they didn't know they didn't know where their kids were

and really kind of hearing their stories and being able to amplify their voices so that

our audience could get a good sense of what's happening at the U.S. southern border

That's one that really stays with me. It was it was an important story for the time

And I felt like we did it justice just by our execution and by how we were able to really bring

those stories, those anecdotes to an audience. Yeah. And so that's that's one of one of many

that still stays with me today. Yeah, I know you're in DC, but taking a story beyond policy and actually talking to the people impacted

it's definitely something that we strive for here at Straight Arrow. As people get to know you here what do you hope they learn from you I hope they learn yeah yeah I hope that people learn that I am a serious journalist but an unserious human being I love an opportunity to inject a little levity

into the stories we're covering. You know, I've seen the comments where folks think that

you know, the news is just too negative. And, you know, sometimes I want to push back on that and

say, well, sometimes this is what we're given. These are the things that we're dealing with

But I hope that I'm able to build a relationship with the audience. I hope that I'm able to

help people feel a little more informed. And when the opportunity arises, I hope that people can

feel a sense of optimism about the world around them and help them to understand more about the

things that they don't know. If I'm able to accomplish that in my time here at Straight Arrow

then I will consider that a success. Okay. And now before we let you go

we are going to have some levity. I want to do a rapid fire round with you. You said you want the

audience to learn. Now let's see what our round delivers to the audience. Can I recant? Can I

renege on that? You're already in it. You're in it, Christian. All right. Ready? Quick answers

Okay. Early bird or night owl? Early bird now. You better be. How many alarms are you setting in the morning

Only two. Okay. The wife probably appreciates that. Do you have a pre-show ritual

Music. Lots of funk and jazz. Something uplifting. I love that. Something on your bucket list you have yet to cross off

traveling to japan there's something so magical about that i've i've got to get there it's on our

list truly of places to visit and we've got to make it happen most used emoji

the the crying one it's the one where he's like laughing and crying because i feel like

while i'm not literally doing that that's how i feel a lot of times when i'm expressing myself

of people. And they're making me laugh. That's a true millennial emoji. So we're out in you there

Favorite holiday. Thanksgiving. It's really important to my mom and it's a way for us to

get our family together and possibly hear some stories that I'm not supposed to hear

but I'm almost 40. So it's time that we tell the family secrets to the next generation

if you weren't in news what would you be doing for work i would be a musician without a doubt i

would be a musician i'd be i'd be playing at local dives and really kind of investing in the

community in a very different way what's something you're bad at but you love to do anyway

something I'm bad at that I love to do anyway tell jokes I don't always think I'm the funniest

person but I like to think I am and it doesn't stop me from telling a bad joke or a bad pun

Christian thanks for playing we're so glad to have you here not just at straight arrow but also

you know in the seat for unbiased updates and next week off script this baby's all yours

i'm ready thank you christian so much i appreciate it thank you we cover a lot every morning but

there are always a few stories we just can't squeeze into unbiased updates so here are some

that we think are also worth your time the trump administration is getting ready to accept up to

17 500 more white south africans as refugees over the next year that's according to an exclusive

report from CBS News. CBS got hold of a notice sent to Congress Tuesday that confirms the spots

for the new fiscal year. President Trump has said Afrikaners are being persecuted because they're

white and his administration has made an exception for them while effectively shutting down refugee

admissions for most other groups. The South African government denies that Afrikaners are

being persecuted. And selling early access to Trump's thoughts is now at the center of two

lawsuits, there's a service that charges between $60,000 and $100,000 a month to get truth social

posts from Trump and other top accounts before anyone else. One lawsuit filed by The Intercept

and the Freedom of the Press Foundation argues that selling early access to the president's posts

violates the First and Fifth Amendments. And this week, 53 former federal prosecutors and agents

filed a brief supporting that case, arguing the service could also violate federal criminal laws

San Francisco is also suing Trump Media, calling the service a pay-to-play scheme

that gives wealthy subscribers early access to potentially market-moving information. The city attorney put it this way, no ordinary person can pay that fee

He also points out President Trump owns roughly 41% of Trump Media

and says he's personally benefiting from this business scheme. Trump Media disputes the allegations

arguing the lawsuits fail to distinguish between public and non-public information. And finally, here's the kicker. One last story before we call it a day. It's that time of year

again. The bears of Alaska's Katmai National Park have spent the summer packing on the pounds

and now we get to judge them for it, in a good way, of course. Voting is open for the 12th annual

Fat Bear Week, with 16 very well-fed bears competing for the crown. The bear to beat

reigning champ Chunk, who's estimated to weigh about 1,200 pounds. Yes, his name is Chunk. He was

explicitly made for this. Now, I realize we're asking you to pick a winner without actually

showing you all the contestants, so we fixed that. Head to san.com, click on this episode of Offscript

and you can check out the bracket and cast your vote. All right, that's it for us this week. Thank

you for listening to Unbiased Updates Offscript. For all of us here at Straight Arrow, I'm Simone

Del Rosario. Very happy to be passing the mic on to Christian Bryant next week. We'll see you then

you