🚨 Appeals court drops SURPRISE ruling with MAJOR consequences

This is Democracy Watch. Mark, we've got. a completely unexpected ruling here uh. as it relates to the AP having access to. the Oval Office, which was an issue that. I thought was resolved and yet as the. result of this surprise ruling, not so. sure. Now, can you explain what just. happened in a federal appeals court? Yeah, this is an absolutely outrageous. decision. Okay. It's outrageous every. which way. It's outrageous what Donald. Trump did. It's outrageous how the. legacy media responded. And it's. outrageous how this court ruled. Essentially, Donald Trump decided to get.

vengeance, okay, revenge against the. Associated Press because in its style. guide, it refers to the Gulf of Mexico. as Gulf of Mexico. Now, you might think. that that would be sort of a minor. matter for the president of the United. States, but no. over because he they. refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico, what Donald Trump wants to call it. He. barred the Associated Press from the. Oval Office, Air Force One, various. other places. This seemed like a.

no-brainer for the legacy media, right? You'd figure they'd walk out when he. when when they did that. They didn't, right? They continued to show up and let. AP uh hang out to dry. AP sued. Again, this seems like a no-brainer for the. courts. After all, this is. discriminating against a media outlet on. the basis of the content of their. speech, namely what they call the Gulf. of Mexico. They won at the trial court. and now at the Court of Appeals, uh they. drew a fairly conservative panel uh in.

the DC Court of Appeals. Uh they have. lost with respect to most of the case. They lost with respect to all of the. private spaces in the White House, but. not the East Room rooms that where there. are where all credentialed media are are. allowed in, but where there are these. pool reporters, uh, you know, smaller. spaces like Air Force One or the Oval. Office. Oddly, inexplicably, the the DC. Court of Appeals said that the president. of United States can engage in viewpoint.

discrimination and can bar the. Associated Press. Okay. So, they drew. this conservative panel. Does that mean. that the AP can then um can then appeal. for some degree of onbunk review which. is the entire appeals court? Yeah. So. the AP has a couple of choices here. Number one, they can seek what's. referred to as onbunk review which is as. you say to ask the full DC circuit to. rule. So um you know we are used to uh.

three judge court of appeals panels. Well, those panels are drawn from a. larger pool of appeals court judges in a. circuit and there is a process to ask. all of the judges in a given circuit to. rule. Uh, and that is an option to them. that's discretionary whether the DC. circuit wants to do so. If the Supreme. if the DC circuit took it on bunk, I am. positive AP would win just looking at. the composition of the full uh DC. circuit. The second possibility is that.

they go to the US Supreme Court and they. just say, "You know what? We're just. going to ask the US Supreme Court to. block this because this is so obviously. wrong." Uh, and that that is a second. option available to them. I want to. continue to say though that the thing. that should be happening in the meantime. is that the legacy media should be. walking out of the Oval Office. They. should not be getting on Air Force One. They should deny Donald Trump the thing. that he wants more than anything, which. is press coverage. And the fact that. they continue to show up at the expense.

of AP is a reason why the legacy media. is has the trouble it is having. And it. is a reason, Brian, why people like you, like Democracy Docket that I started, like other independent uh non-corporate. media are thriving because people. understand that there is a principle. behind us uh uh in what we do and you. compare that to what you see the legacy. media doing to the Associated Press and. you understand the the reasons why. they're having so much trouble. I mean, just to dig into that a little bit, what. would happen if we saw an analogous.

situation where a Democratic president. decided to, you know, try and prevent. Fox News, for example, from being able. to ask a certain question? Well, we know. exactly what would happen because the. Obama White House in 2009 tried to. exclude Fox News from a single interview. uh that was provided to the pool uh of. reporters involving the then uh Pesar uh. uh at the at the Treasury Department. You know, this wasn't the Oval Office. This wasn't the president. This was. literally a Treasury Department official. and the legacy media went crazy. I mean,

they like all stood up for Fox News. I. think Jake Tapper called called Fox News. a sister organization and and they they. all said basically, you have to let Fox. News in or else like we're all. boycotting. And that's what would. happen. Yeah. And so why do you presume. uh if if you know you have the the the. liberal media that stood up for Fox News. that now we have the AP which is. certainly not right-wing but you have. nobody on the right for example stepping. up for the AP even though you had the.

the evil communist Marxist liberal media. stepping up for uh for its sister. organization Fox. Look, I think there. are two reasons. I think the first is. that the corporate ownership of the. legacy media is much more proTrump. Like, let's be honest, they are all. tripping over themselves to hand out. checks to him. I mean, they're they're. settling nonsense lawsuits to put money. in his pocket. They are flying they were. flying to his inauguration, right? Like. so part of it is they may not to be. clear agree with him on a lot of policy.

but whether they are fearful of him or. they feel like they need a friendship. with him they are not looking to pick. fights with him in a way that they were. just fine picking fights with uh Barack. Obama. But the second is that at an. individual journalist level, there is. continues to be this need on their part, like an emotional need to bend over. backwards to show that they are not. liberal, right? That they are in fact in. solidarity with conservatives. I mean,

you you watch some of the questioning. about the the Joe Biden the books about. Joe Biden and you just are left. scratching your head. I mean, you know, the the the performess of so much of the. legacy media now to suggest that the. conservative media was right all along. that, you know, that is that Fox News. and others might have been wrong. I. mean, like they just if if Fox News was. banned from from something, you know, in. the next White House, the legacy media. would stand up for Fox. Correct. APD, as.

you said, straight down the middle, not. a liberal outlet by any stretch of the. imagination. And the legacy media feels. like, you know what, we don't want to. piss off Trump. And by the way, there's. no performative benefit to us for. standing up for API, right? I I look, I. com I completely agree. And and they. will continue to pretend that they've uh. that that there are these beacons of, you know, democracy dies in darkness uh. in the immediate aftermath of this. Um, going back to this case in particular. though, what are next steps here as we. await some some resolution whether they, you know, as you mentioned, decide to uh.

uh seek onbunk review or immediately go. up to the Supreme Court for a ruling. Yeah. So I suspect they will first seek. onbunk review because I suspect that the. that they are doing the same. headcounting that I am doing and and. like it's really hard to imagine that if. the full DC circuit was to consider this. case, they would hold that the first. amendment doesn't apply in the Oval. Office because it's the president's. workspace. I mean like that like I mean. first of all I'm not sure this president. has what I would describe as a workace.

but but but what most of what he does in. the Oval Office seems to be to like. paint things gold. Yeah. Uh and. otherwise do these weird sort of photo. op things with foreign leaders. Remember. when he used to hand out maps to people. showing the uh the county bycount. results of his election win? Like that's. what he would bring them to the supreme. to the uh to the Oval Office to do. No, that's exactly right. And now you know. he does he embarrasses himself in front. of the world. You know he recently had. the chancellor of Germany in which he.

was suggesting to the chancellor of. Germany that uh D-Day was uh was a sad. day for for Germany and the chancellor. of Germany had to point out that it. actually was liberating Germany from the. Nazis. Yeah. Is there some concern that. if the AP doesn't seek onbunk review, then this will leave in place precedent, because now this is an appeals court. who's ruled this way, that this will. leave in case in place precedent that. could impact other news organizations. that Trump wants to ban from from. certain places in the White House. Absolutely. I mean, it is precedent. I.

mean, you know, this is the DC circuit, right? The White House is in Washington. DC. uh these a these news outlets are. almost all you know the reporters trying. to get in are almost all DCbased right. and so if they don't get on bonk review. I assume they will then seek US supreme. court review and I have to think the US. Supreme Court would also over come out. the other way in favor of the AP but it. is also possible that the Supreme Court. just doesn't take the case so reason why. I think they start uh with the on review. but Brian you know I just I realize I've.

been like a one note uh band on this but. I want to come back to this The way that. this can get resolved without the courts. having to be the final arbiter is for. the media to just stand up like you know. like they held the White House. correspondence event and you know I. think it was Alex Thompson uses an. opportunity to say that they had not. been tough enough on Joe Biden. How. about the White House correspondence. event or the White Correspondence. Association talk you know just come out.

and and say we're going to boycott the. Oval Office, right? Like Brian, don't. you think that would do the trick? 100%. You starve Donald Trump of attention and. you don't think he's going to react to. that. You don't put him on TV every five. minutes. This guy live that's his. lifeblood. So you're you're exactly. right. And look, I think I think that. you're also right in terms of the fact. that that legacy media has proven that. while they can flash these, you know, democracy dies in darkness banners when. it doesn't matter, the fact that when it. does matter, they sherk away from their.

purported values tells you everything. you need to know about how they actually. uh feel, what their values actually are. And it puts organizations like yours, like Democracy Docket in in stark. contrast to what they're doing right. now. So, look, for everybody watching, a. small step that we can do to support uh. invaluable work like Mark and his team, uh please make sure to subscribe to. Democracy Docket's YouTube channel. I'll. put the link right here on the screen. and also in the post description of this. video. Doesn't cost you anything to. subscribe, but it's especially important. right now in light of the ways that. Legacy Media is dropping the ball and.

failing to meet the urgency of this. moment that we elevate outlets like. MarkX. Uh so, again, link is right here. on the screen and also in the post. description. I'm Brian Teller Cohen. I'm. Mark Eliz. This is Democracy Watch. [Music].