Three days after Donald Trump announced a new policy banning journalists from MS NOW (my employer), CNN and Politico from the White House — quite literally referring to his policy as “the ban on the free press” — the three news organizations filed a federal lawsuit against the president and several top administration officials challenging the move.

Hours after its filing, the president published a related item to his social media platform, effectively predicting a defeat. Unlike so many of his other predictions, this one was correct. MS NOW reported:

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore White House access for now to journalists working for three national news organizations in a victory for the news media that the president has increasingly targeted during his second administration.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said that reporters for MS NOW, CNN and Politico should all immediately regain access for at least 14 days. Kelly granted the motion on due process grounds, and is refusing to stay his ruling in the interim, meaning the order goes into effect now. … Kelly’s ruling did not yet address the First Amendment claims made by the news organizations. He is also still weighing a longer-term block on Trump’s ban.

Coincidentally, a few hours earlier, a judge in Iowa also dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against The Des Moines Register and its former pollster, Ann Selzer. The president had sued the newspaper after it published a poll he didn’t like, and he accused the Register of having violated Iowa’s consumer fraud law.

Characterizing the case as extraordinary, Iowa District Judge Scott Beattie said that allowing the lawsuit and its “faulty” claims to proceed could have a chilling effect that could “discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs.”

It’s important to emphasize that, hours after Kelly ordered the administration to temporarily restore White House access to journalists from MS NOW, CNN and Politico, some journalists from the three outlets were barred from the White House, despite the judge’s ruling. Time will tell when and how this is resolved.

But in the meantime, I’m struck by the frequency with which the incumbent president and his team pick legal fights with major independent news organizations, only to lose in the end.

For example, it was just a couple of months ago when the Trump Media and Technology Group sued The Washington Post, accusing the newspaper of a “years-long crusade” and of being part of a “conspiracy” to harm the company, and seeking $3.8 billion in damages. A federal judge threw out the case, concluding that Trump Media had failed to produce credible evidence.

The Trump campaign’s 2020 case against CNN failed. Trump’s 2021 case against The New York Times failed. Trump’s 2023 case against journalist Bob Woodward failed. The Trump campaign’s case against the Post failed. Trump’s class-action lawsuit against social media giants also failed.

Last year, Trump filed a $15 billion civil suit against The New York Times. It was thrown out four days later, not because it lacked merit, but because a federal judge found that the president’s lawyers’ court filing was simply too ridiculous.

Two months later, Trump’s media company also lost a defamation suit against The Guardian.

As recently as April, Trump’s $10 billion defamation suit against The Wall Street Journal was also thrown out of court, though he and his lawyers refiled the case a month later.

The pattern isn’t exactly subtle.

As for the larger context, let’s not miss the lesson on the importance of pushback. When Trump filed a dubious case against ABC News, the network and its corporate parent agreed to a $16 million settlement. When he filed an even weaker case against CBS News, its owner, Paramount, also struck a $16 million deal.

In the weeks and months that followed, Trump repeatedly pointed to these controversial settlement agreements as evidence of his targets’ guilt, even as those networks denied any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, news organizations that have stood up for themselves and resisted outlandish attempts at intimidation have prevailed.

Let this be a lesson to the larger political world: Resistance is far more successful than appeasement. It’s true when it comes to law firms; it’s true when it comes to higher education; and it’s true in his court fights against news organizations.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump keeps facing off against the media in court. He also keeps losing. appeared first on MS NOW.

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From MS Now.