A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s ban of three news outlets from the White House grounds, ordering early Thursday that CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored. The ruling hands the outlets at least a temporary reprieve in what has been an extraordinary showdown between Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes. Trump first announced he was banning the outlets Friday, assailing what he called “fake news,” and only later arguing that their reporting was a risk to national security. The outlets argued in a joint lawsuit that the ban was a blatant violation of the First Amendment because it singled them out for the content of their coverage. S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the three outlets’ access. He said they had met the legal thresholds to obtain a temporary restraining order, in effect for 14 days, and were likely to succeed in showing that their press passes were revoked without due process. “This is a high bar, but Plaintiffs have met it,” he wrote. A few hours later, a CNN reporter said she was denied entry to the White House compound. Kelly — whom Trump nominated in 2017 and who ordered a CNN journalist’s access restored in a similar case in 2018 — said the government must have clear standards for conduct that would lead to revoking a press pass. ” The judge also made clear he did not buy the administration’s argument that the news outlets’ reporting endangered national security — and noted that Trump himself had not used that argument in the beginning, focusing solely on what he called negative coverage.