Theodore Boutrous

But all of his attacks on the press have greatly increased in his second administration, so-

And in the Jim Acosta case, Ted Boutrous represented him.

He got his credentials back, and Ted Boutrous is representing MS Now, CNN, and Politico in today's lawsuits.

Okay.

Yes, exactly.

President Trump likely banned plaintiffs from the White House because he believes that their reporting is generally inaccurate and biased against him.

Simply put, that is unlawful viewpoint discrimination." The judge, again appointed by Donald Trump, Judge Kelly, also rejected the Justice Department's national security argument, remember that? Finding this, quote, "There is no evidence in the record that President Trump made the decision to revoke hard passes on national security grounds from the get-go, nor at any time has he directly stated that national security was the reason for his decision." In a statement, the attorney for the news outlets, Ted Boutrous, celebrated the ruling from Judge Kelly, writing in part, quote, "The harm this ban did to our clients, to the First Amendment, and to the public as a whole is profound.

The court was right to enjoin the White House from enforcing this unconstitutional ban on the free press for the foreseeable future." As for the White House's response to this clarity and this ruling, well, they have already filed their notice to appeal it, and they claim that the journalists are capable of doing their jobs covering the White House from outside the White House grounds.

Ted Boutrous joins us now for his first interview since this ruling.

Well, congratulations.

Thank you so much, Nicole.

Quick break.

We'll be right back.

And even in the letters that the Justice Department sent the plaintiffs, that doesn't seem to have been the case, or that would be a difficult argument, an uphill climb for the Justice Department to make.

So, you know, I think, and this is also what Ted Boutrous argued for the plaintiffs, part of the problem here is that the record hasn't changed.

The Justice Department didn't submit any new declarations, and this is a record that Judge Kelly already found deficient, at least as regards due process.

Now, the plaintiffs also wanted him to address their- First Amendment claims, and there I think he was skeptical again of the government on the facts.

And, and we have, like, a pretty large body of law designed to distinguish, you know, fraudulent or defamatory or from...

But if, if a news organization is systemically engaged in fraud, then they're not entitled to the viewpoint discrimination protections of the First Amendment, right?

Well, it's an interesting question, and I am not prepared to confidently answer it, but I can tell you what Ted Boutrous said in his reply, 'cause at, originally he sort of understandably didn't seem to want to address it head-on and kind of kept just talking about distinguishing on the facts.

But what he said, and, you know, you, you may have a rebuttal to this, of course, the government didn't get a reply to the reply, but what he said was that the Supreme Court has never said that the First Amendment speech protections evaporate because of fraud, and that in United States versus Alvarez, which struck down the Stolen Valor Act that had criminalized falsely claiming to have received military honors, Justice Kennedy, writing for the plurality, uh, said that, this is what he quoted, said that, "Our constitutional tradition stands against the idea that we need Oceania's Ministry of Truth," quote, quoting or referencing "Nineteen Eighty-Four." So he was making an argument that the First Amendment doesn't, that, that if, that fraudulent behavior doesn't completely negate First Amendment speech protections.

He hadn't reached the First Amendment issues, and he said that there was essentially no process at all.

And this was aligned by Ted Boutrous, who's representing the media coalition, CNN, MS Now, and Politico.

Boutrous said there was no emergency.

Trump's been saying these things about CNN forever, and suddenly there's an emergency.

You published things that are inaccurate.

And he tried to pin down those two planks, essentially.

What is the national security argument, and what is the false reporting argument? Who essentially decides what is false? I'm going to read again some of the stuff that Ted Boutrous said for the media coalition that who would decide falsity? Who would decide professional standards? And he's saying that the entire thing, Ted Boutrous said the entire thing is a sham.

He said this is a sham process.