Transcript of Court Temporarily Blocks Media Ban, Trump-Xi White House Meeting, UNGA Diplomacy New

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to let journalists from CNN, Politico, and MSNOW back into the White House.

The judge was not persuaded that national security was the real reason behind the bans. What happens next to Trump's media ban?

I'm Emi Martinez. That is Leila Fadel. And this is Up First from NPR News. Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with President Trump at the White House today. Besides the pomp and pageantry, the 2 leaders have a lot to discuss, from Taiwan to Iran and even AI. What are they each looking to gain.

And Iran's president called the U.S. a bully at the United Nations General Assembly. Ukraine's president pushed for a ceasefire with Russia on energy and grain. Is there any real movement toward ending either war? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, Republicans are on their heels and about to spend a lot of money on ads. Some of these ads are going to be ugly.

And it's going to be a pretty negative campaign. That's the nature of a midterm when you've got an environment like the one that the Republicans are facing.

We look at the Republican money machine with less than 40 days until the midterms, this week on the NPR Politics Podcast.

3 media organizations are reporting that some of their staffers were denied entry to the White House this morning. That's despite a federal judge ordering the Trump administration just hours earlier to restore access to CNN, MSNBC, and Politico. The president had banned them from the grounds of the complex because they, quote, purposely write negative news. In a ruling just after midnight, Judge Timothy Kelly granted a 2-week temporary restraining order to the outlets. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case supporting the 3 outlets. NPR is one of the organizations that signed on to that brief.

NPR's David Folkenflik joins us now to talk about this. Good morning, David.

Good morning.

So given that Some of these journalists have been denied entry. Is the White House defying this court order?

Unclear. CNN, Politico, and MS Now said some staffers were denied entry to the White House early this morning. Politico said one of its reporters had their press pass confiscated by the Secret Service, was blocked from entering the White House grounds. You saw on the air live this morning on CNN that one of their White House journalists, Betsy Klein, was turned back, although the network says one of its producers was able to enter using their pass. I've spoken to folks at CNN. and NMS Now. And, you know, what they're saying at the moment is they're not 100% clear. Is this intentional foot-dragging, an intention to defy, or just logistical complications? Obviously, you know, you've got the Justice Department arguing this case in court, the White House Comms Department setting out policy, and Secret Service, in a sense, implementing it. So we don't really know.

Hmm.

What did the late-night court ruling say exactly?

Yeah, this was after midnight last night— or this morning, I should say, Eastern time. It was Judge Timothy Kelly. He's a U.S. District Court judge. in D.C., he ordered the White House representatives to— and these are his words— immediately return, reinstate, and restore the press credentials, the reporters of the 3 news organizations. And while the litigation continues, that's a 14-day temporary restraining order. Remember the word immediately there. It has not happened immediately. So that bears watching. He also said, look, these news outlets were likely to succeed in showing that their constitutional rights were violated. Now, this was presented to all of us publicly primarily as a free speech First Amendment issue. And that's still a core part of the case being made on behalf half of the news organizations. But the judge from the outset had said, you know, that he was focusing on the due process concerns here. That's also a constitutional right. That is, Trump— President Trump announced yesterday on Truth— Friday on Truth Social that he wanted to ban these outlets because they were unfair to him and unfair to Republicans and reported false things. And then he said that again to reporters.

And then over the weekend, White House staffers scurried to make that happen without being warned ahead of time that this could happen, the news organizations, without giving them a chance to appeal. And that's part of the due process thing, especially when free speech is involved. In addition, the judge dismissed the idea that claims of national security that the Justice Department made during the court hearing yesterday was the real motivation, or that they really were reasonable grounds at all to object to the kind of reporting. He said, you know, it didn't, it didn't pass the test of tough scrutiny.

Now, other major news organizations have stood by— CNN, MSNBC, and Politico— not pooling coverage of the president. Does that continue? I mean, today is Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the White House. So what should we expect?

It really depends on whether or not CNN is restored to its place doing the pool as it was planned this week. It depends a lot about whether these passes are honored or prevented— or these folks are prevented from getting access to the White House. I do think at some point that solidarity will crumble as the need to cover the president NPR's David Folkenflik, thank you, David. You bet.

China's leader Xi Jinping and President Trump have a lot to talk about when they meet at the White House later this morning.

Yeah, China's been a big supporter of Iran, and competition over artificial intelligence development is ramping up.

NPR White House correspondent Emily Fang is following this Chinese state visit closely and joins me now. Good morning.

Morning, Leila.

So what's on the schedule for this summit and what details are you looking for?

I am curious about who is going to be at this state dinner tonight because this meeting is all about symbolism. And so I kind of can't wait to see how Xi Jinping, who is infamously stone-faced, responds to all this pageantry that he's going to be honored with this morning. And also whether Trump makes any change to the US stance on Taiwan. This is a democratic island that China very much wants control over. And I'm also going to be looking out for whether the 2 countries can extend a fragile détente despite real friction over issues like export controls and sanctions. And I'll note that hours before the summit, the US Treasury Secretary announced a 2-month extension of a truce on rare earths, which is something China dominates. But so far, I haven't seen China confirm the details. China really forced the US hand with rare earths, according to Scott Kennedy. He's an economics expert at the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington.

As a result of that, the administration had to give up Plan A to revolutionize the global economy in its— to its preference, because it just has the reality that we are in an interdependent world.

And there's some things that the Chinese provide, you know, that they provide, which the U.S. cannot substitute for, like rare earths.

Now, Xi arrived in the U.S. last night. Trump met him on the tarmac. What was that like?

Yeah, there was a welcoming delegation. They unfurled a long red carpet for Xi Jinping and his wife, the singer Peng Yuan. A band played both countries' anthems, and then a military flyby buzzed overhead during the last bars of the Star-Spangled Banner. This is a really big deal. You know, this is the first time a U.S. president has received a visiting Chinese leader for a state visit on the tarmac, and it's a sign of just the personal importance that Trump puts on Xi's visit. It's a grand gesture that's made waves in China because it makes clear to people in China that this country is now an equal to the U.S. And you might be wondering why you're not hearing sound of this reception on the tarmac, and it's because the moment was not broadcast on major television networks. networks, because as you just heard David talk about, the networks have been protesting Trump banning 3 news organizations from the White House.

Now, you've explained just how important this visit is to Trump. Does it carry the same importance to China?

It's big news in China, but for Xi Jinping, this is actually just one of several state visits he's made over the last month. He's gone to Egypt and Central Asia as well. Xi's priority, experts say to me, is to find stability with the U.S. in this visit, even if it means basically papering over real tensions with the US right now, which then bounces back. It raises the question of, you know, what does this visit do for the US? It highlights what Eli Ratner, a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the last administration, says to me are deep contradictions in Trump's China policy. You know, Ratner points out in his first term, Trump really swung US foreign policy into a more aggressive, hawkish stance on China.

But by and large, they had made a major rhetorical shift and doctrinal shift without really putting in the pieces of a comprehensive competitive strategy.

And an example of this contradiction: Trump has repeatedly praised Xi Jinping, who is the leader of a country that's a competitor with the U.S., but then he's criticized traditional U.S. allies like Canada and Taiwan.

That's NPR's Emily Fang. Emily, thank you.

Thanks, Leila.

Russia's war against Ukraine is spreading and is a threat to the world. That was the message at the United Nations from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. He called it a, quote, crazy war led by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Can you even imagine him without war?

He is patient zero, the one from whom this idea of war keeps spreading Iran's president also addressed the world body, accusing the U.S.

of being the world's bully. The Trump administration says it wants to promote peace negotiations in both of these conflicts.

Let's bring in NPR's diplomatic correspondent Michelle Kellerman to talk about where things stand. Good morning, Michelle.

Good morning, Leila.

So are there signs of any progress in either war?

Well, in Russia— in the Russia-Ukraine war, at least— Zelenskyy's been proposing this kind of energy ceasefire because Trump has been unhappy with Ukraine strikes on Russian oil and gas infrastructure, but the Ukrainians obviously want the Russians to stop attacking Ukraine's energy grids ahead of another tough winter. They also want to allow grain to be exported as before. That's another big issue that has global implications on the world stage. A day after Trump met with Zelensky, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Russia's foreign minister. And I asked him afterwards if Russia would agree to that. Take a listen.

I think both sides have expressed an interest in some limited ceasefire that involved grain and energy. It doesn't solve the war, but it does, I think, in some ways potentially alleviate some of the global pressures that are being felt as a result of that.

So that's where the diplomacy is focused on, this kind of short-term deal, though there's a lot of concern that the conflict is intensifying and expanding as Russia violates NATO airspace. Russia's foreign minister, who spoke at the Security Council meeting on Ukraine yesterday, said Russia has no plans for a pause.

That war has upended grain and energy markets around the globe. The U.S. war against Iran has also affected the world economy. President Trump warned Iran that he's ready to annihilate them if they don't reach a deal. What was the Iranian response?

So Iranian President Mahmoud Rouhani sounded pretty defiant when he spoke to the U.N. He said the Iranians won't bow to this pressure. He said the Iranians are not the terrorists. but they're the victims of terrorism. But despite all that kind of public posturing, the Iranians and the Trump administration envoys have been talking here through mediators. Secretary Rubio didn't give much of an indication of how those talks are going. And the Iranians say there was no breakthrough, that they just repeated their terms for what they need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. But, Leyla, you know, that conflict is expanding, too. With the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen now threatening shipping in the Red Sea. And there's no real clear endgame with the Trump administration.

I want to ask you about another speaker at the U.N. Venezuela's interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, made her address just 8 months after the U.S. seized former President Nicolás Maduro, who's now in jail just a few miles from the U.N. What did she have to say?

Well, she seems intent on burnishing her credentials as a stateswoman. The last time she was here at the U.N. General Assembly in 2019 as Maduro's vice president. She told the chamber that Venezuela, quote, does not kneel before any imperial power. This time around, she praised Trump, and she had a photo op with him. He's talked her up, too, saying he doesn't think Venezuela is ready for elections. So that gives her more time to consolidate power.

That's NPR's diplomatic correspondent Michelle Kellerman. Thank you, Michelle.

Thank you.

And that's Up First for Thursday, September 24th. I'm Leila Fawcett.

And I'm Amy Martinez. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Rebecca Metzler, Emily Kopp, Miguel Macias, Tara Neal, Mohamed Elbardisi, and Allie Schweitzer. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Ben Abrams. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hines. Our technical director is Carly Strange, and our deputy executive producer is Kelly Dickens. Join us again tomorrow.

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