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By Irie Sentner |
Presented by |
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THE CATCH-UP |
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Attorney Theodore Boutrous gives a brief statement to the press after a hearing on Cable News Network, Inc. et al v. Trump at the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 8, 2026. | (Francis Chung/POLITICO |
A federal judge in Washington today appeared inclined to extend his block on President Donald Trump’s attempt to ban three news organizations from the White House, calling the Justice Department’s defense of the ban on national security grounds “an uphill climb.” U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, already issued a temporary restraining order on the ban last month — which today was extended through Tuesday, allowing reporters from POLITICO, CNN and MS NOW to enter the White House campus. In the hearing, Kelly appeared to be gravitating toward a more durable injunction over the course of potentially months of litigation, POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein report. Kelly’s original ruling said the ban likely violated the outlets’ due process rights, since the restriction came without any notice and without setting out any identifiable standards for news organizations to follow to maintain their credentials. “That’s probably the biggest hurdle you all have,” Kelly told the government at the hearing, which drew a swath of media executives, reporters and First Amendment attorneys, leading Kelly to remark on the vastly outnumbered Justice Department attorney assigned to the case. The Justice Department argued in filings that the ban stemmed from the news organizations’ publication of sensitive national security information. But that contradicts the president’s own statements about the ban, which he has repeatedly contended is because of the outlets’ “negative” coverage of him. In response to a question from Time magazine about why he chose to ban the outlets now, Trump said: “Well, it's just bad story after bad story.” “That interview really is the coup de grace,” Theodore Boutrous Jr., an attorney for the banned outlets, said at today’s hearing. He also pointed to a recent comment from AG Todd Blanche that Trump banned the outlets from the White House due to their “one-sided reporting.” Michael Velchik, a lawyer for the Justice Department, argued that the Trump administration had provided due process to the news outlets by sending them unsigned letters from the White House communications office after the ban had taken effect. (Boutrous called the letters a “sham process.”) Velchik also argued the president should be given more leeway about reporters’ access than other contexts. “The White House is a sacred place,” Velchik said. It’s the latest turn in the Trump administration’s unprecedented attempts to curtail coverage it does not like and comes after Trump unexpectedly declared on Truth Social last month that he was revoking access to the three outlets “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS.” That social media post propelled the Washington press corps into uncharted territory as national news outlets contended for the first time in decades with a lapse in daily network television coverage of the president. Despite Kelly’s ruling last month that journalists from the banned outlets could return to the White House, a POLITICO reporter earlier this week was blocked from traveling with Trump aboard Air Force One to a rally in Nebraska. Last week, however, CNN reporters traveled with VP JD Vance to Texas, according to pool reports. Good Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading Playbook PM. Drop me a line at isentner@politico.com.
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8 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW |
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1. WAR REPORT: Trump on Truth Social today said the U.S. “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections,” seeming to respond to a report by The Atlantic that indicated he was considering options around a new round of strikes. The president also claimed that the administration was engaged in “productive discussions” with Iran. Drone dilemma: The U.S. military, the strongest and most well-resourced in the world, has a surprising vulnerability — cheap Iranian drones, POLITICO’s Paul McLeary and Victor Jack report. Despite Trump’s claims that Iran’s military is “completely destroyed,” Tehran’s low-cost Shahed drones have managed to sustain turmoil in the Middle East, and warnings about them even led to the evacuation of all U.S. bombers from a British air base this week. 2. TEXAS HOLD ’EM: Texas GOP AG and Senate nominee Ken Paxton is pushing for answers from his Democratic opponent James Talarico, who has been largely absent from the campaign trail since September after revealing that he had fallen ill — with Trump even weighing in on Truth Social and labeling Talarico as “MISSING IN ACTION.” The Talarico campaign is responding. “After holding more than 100 public events and shaking tens of thousands of hands, James came down with the flu but will be back on the trail this weekend,” JT Ennis, a spokesperson for Talarico, told Playbook in a statement. “Ken Paxton has been ignoring Texans this entire campaign, and his priorities are clear: he doesn’t answer to the people of this state — he answers to his billionaire megadonors and special interests.” The kerfuffle comes as another round of leaked audio from an event Paxton did in Washington last month found its way into the press today, with Texas Tribune’s Kayla Guo reporting that Paxton told the group of lobbyists he would support cuts to federal benefits programs. “Making some reasonable cuts to mandatory spending — you’re gonna have to do it. Or there is no solution. That’s just the reality. We have to suck it up,” Paxton says in the audio. 3. THE SRPSKA SPIRAL: “Daughter of Trump’s chief of staff works at firm that lobbies for Republika Srpska,” by FT’s Amy Mackinnon: “Katie Wiles is a partner at Continental Strategy, which signed its contract to lobby for the self-governing entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina in February, according to federal filings. The firm said she had visited Republika Srpska in connection with a different contract, adding that she had not lobbied US officials on behalf of the enclave. “In September, Susie Wiles met Željka Cvijanović, the Serb member of Bosnia’s tripartite presidency, at the White House, according to a post on Cvijanović’s social media account. … A White House official said the request for Susie Wiles to meet with Cvijanović came from Alex Garcia, a partner at Continental Strategy who served as deputy political director of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. The White House chief of staff did not discuss work matters with her daughters, the official said.”
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A message from OpenAI: How a college freshman is helping firefighters detect wildfires with ChatGPT.
Ryan Honary began developing wildfire detection technology as a fifth-grade science project. Years and many accolades later, that experiment became SensoRy AI—a wildfire detection system that uses ChatGPT to turn sensor data into clear, actionable alerts. Those alerts go straight to departments like Laguna Beach Fire Department, giving responders an early signal when a fire starts. Learn more. |
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4. FOR YOUR RADAR: The Justice Department is “seeking a federal criminal indictment of former WH aide Cassidy Hutchinson on charges of lying to Congress in her Jan. 6 testimony,” Punchbowl’s Laura Weiss reports. “DOJ’s Civil Rights Division brought evidence to a federal grand jury on Tuesday and is expected to present more evidence and additional witnesses later this month, per sources familiar with the plans. Hutchinson has not been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury, per the sources.” 5. WHERE THE GRASS IS GREENER: Speaker Mike Johnson for the first time suggested that he could leave Congress if Democrats regain control and put his party in the minority position, per POLITICO’s Elleiana Green and Mia McCarthy. “Heaven forbid, if we lose this majority or whatever, I don’t know what my next chapter of life is,” Johnson told Fox News in an interview. “If God moves on our hearts and says we should, you know, go back to my hometown of Shreveport and start a lawn business, I’ll do that with equal fervor.” Still, Johnson didn’t rule out a run at minority leader, and said firmly House Republicans will hold onto the majority. 6. AD IT UP: Democratic and Republican candidates are both talking mostly about the economy — but they diverge on the other issues they believe will mobilize voters, according to an analysis by WaPo’s Luke Connors and colleagues of more than 8,000 political ads across TV, social media and online for competitive congressional and gubernatorial races. Behind affordability, both parties are also spending heavily on messaging about government ethics reform, though Democrats have spent over $100 million more on the issue. Democrats’ third biggest issue by ad spend is health care, while Republicans’ is public safety and crime. “Tech and AI” is a distant 10th place in the ranking of issues. 7. H-1-BLOCKED: The Trump administration is halting the tech giants Microsoft and Adobe from sponsoring H-1B visa workers seeking green cards, Vance announced today — an escalation of the VP’s rampage against U.S. institutions whose embrace of highly skilled foreign nationals he says disadvantages U.S. citizens. “Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance said at a news conference. More from POLITICO’s Katherine Long 8. REVISIONIST HISTORY: “How a U.S. Diplomat Suppressed and Altered Reports Critical of Israel,” by NYT’s Natan Odenheimer and Adam Rasgon: “[David] Milstein, 36, has repeatedly suppressed or significantly revised embassy reporting on Israeli activities to present the [Israeli PM Benjamin] Netanyahu government in a favorable light, according to a dozen people who work with or interact with Mr. Milstein in both Jerusalem and Washington. … Mr. Milstein’s interventions go far beyond those of any recent predecessor, several officials said. They and others said they were speaking out of concern that officials in Washington were getting a distorted view of Israeli actions through core diplomatic channels.”
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A message from OpenAI:  
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TALK OF THE TOWN |
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FORK FOUND IN KITCHEN — “Washington’s Bitter, Partisan Restaurant Divide — With Data,” by The Washington Sun’s Stephen Neukam: “Republican campaigns reported spending over half a million dollars at The Capital Grille in the Washington area this cycle, making the steakhouse their prime choice by a wide margin. Other GOP favorites include Joe’s Seafood, Ocean Prime, Trattoria Alberto and Bobby Van’s restaurants. … Democrats reported spending the most at Paraiso, a Mexican restaurant and mezcaleria on Capitol Hill, and also delivering hearty portions of cash to Osteria Morini, Ama, L’Ardente and Bistro Cacao.” THAT’S AMORE — President Donald Trump on Friday is expected to host a celebration for Christopher Columbus and highlight the new 13-foot statue of the Italian explorer now standing outside the EEOB. WaPo’s Dan Diamond and Olivia George have the inside story of how that statue got there — and how Trump courted the Italian vote along the way. OUT AND ABOUT — The Center for European Policy Analysis hosted its annual CEPA Honors gala at East Hall at Union Station in Washington last night. Honorees included former Ericsson CEO Börje Ekholm, who received the Global Innovation Award, and Logistics Plus founder Jim Berlin, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award. Freedom Fighter honoree Mstyslav Chernov sent a message from the Ukrainian front lines, and Finnish Ambassador Leena-Kaisa Mikkola accepted the Global Impact Award on behalf of Finnish President Alexander Stubb. SPOTTED: Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-Va.), Swedish Ambassador Nicola Clase, Austrian Ambassador Petra Schneebauer, Romanian Ambassador Andrei Muraru, European Union Ambassador Jovita Neliupšienė, Moldovan Ambassador Vladislav Kulminski, Alina Polyakova, former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, former German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, former U.S. Ambassador to Poland Geoffrey Pyatt and former U.S. Ambassador to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt. — SPOTTED at Article III Project and Article III Foundation's “October Surprise” event last night celebrating Dave Warrington and his term as Trump's White House counsel, which was hosted by A3P's Mike Davis, Otto Heck and Carrie Hull: Debra Baird, AG Todd Blanche, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Dan Quayle, Will Scharf, Don McGahn, Andrew and Emily Ferguson, Trent McCotter, Jacob Reses, Steve Kenny, Jeff Freeland, Gary Lawkowski, Gineen Bresso, Paige Willey, Sean Hayes, Stanley Woodward, Harmeet Dhillon, Elliott Gaiser, Earl Matthews, Derrick Anderson, Dan Burrows, Nick Davis and Jennifer Heins Davis, Saurabh Sharma, Shane Hedges, Camille Varone, Chris Mufarrige, Ben Mehr, Emily Covington, Joshua Hoyt, Gary Barnett, Rachel Miller, Ryan Giles, Sara Matar, Vance Day, Mike Roman, Jeff Clark, Lindsey Halligan, Mia Heck, Michael Thielen, Eric Branstad, Jay Boyd, Julia Hahn, Michael Zona, Henry Whitaker, Lucas Croslow, Will Levi, Jeanine Pirro and Laura Ingraham. MEDIA MOVE — Alex Wallace is joining WaPo as COO. She previously led Wallace Advisory and is a Yahoo! and Verizon Media alum. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@politico.com or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn’t happen without our editors Giuseppe Macri, Garrett Ross and Kyler Alvord. |
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