The Associated Press (AP) News is suing three members of the Trump administration over the issue of free speech and the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit was filed over a week ago against White House chief of staff Susan Wiles, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich. The lawsuit comes after an announcement was made that the AP would no longer be allowed access to White House and other government run events because of the paper refusing to acknowledge the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America via Executive Order 14172.
The executive order, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness,” called for the renaming of various landmarks within the U.S. such as Denali in Alaska being renamed to Mount McKinley and the aforementioned Gulf of Mexico renaming.
Sec. 4 (b) of the executive order says, “The Secretary shall subsequently update the GNIS to reflect the renaming of the Gulf and remove all references to the Gulf of Mexico from the GNIS, consistent with applicable law. The Board shall provide guidance to ensure all federal references to the Gulf of America, including on agency maps, contracts, and other documents and communications shall reflect its renaming.”
After the executive order was signed, websites such as Google Maps and Apple Maps also updated their maps. Leading up to the change, Google acknowledged on social media platform X that they had to as part of their policy.
“We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps. We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.” the post said.
The update officially came on Feb. 10. However, other websites have not made this change such as the AP. They declared that they could acknowledge the Mount McKinley name change as it is exclusively within American territory, but not the Gulf of Mexico name change as it borders territory outside the U.S. such as Mexico and Cuba. In a Jan. 23 announcement the AP said, “As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”
As a result of the AP continuing to acknowledge the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico, the White House barred AP reporters from attending or asking questions at press conferences. In a Feb. 11 statement from the AP executive editor Julie Pace, she said, “Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.”
The lawsuit that the AP filed alleges that the Trump administration committed violations of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution via the Due Process Clause, and the First Amendment which explicitly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Represented by Ballard Spahr LLP, the lawsuit seeks to reinstate the AP’s access to the White House press pool and declare that the three defendants violated the First and Fifth Amendments of the constitution. As part of the arguments, page 17 of the lawsuit states, “Defendants have admitted that they acted against the AP based on their dislike of the AP’s use of the Gulf of Mexico name and its other editorial choices. The law does not allow the government to control speech based on its likes and dislikes. Such dislike is not a compelling reason to justify the infringement of the AP’s First Amendment rights.”
In response to the lawsuit, White House spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “They are clearly suffering from a severe, debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their peanut-sized brains. We will defeat them in court just like we crushed their leftist reporters at the ballot box.”
Leavitt, who is one of the defendants in this case said, “I wanted to get the White House counsel on the phone before taking this stage to see know what I can and cannot say. But look, we feel we are in the right in this position.” On Feb. 24, the judge, Trevor N. McFadden ruled that he could not immediately restore the AP’s access to the White House press pool. Another court hearing was scheduled by the judge for Mar. 20.
