Signs of support for AP, CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO hang on the White House grounds on September 21, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — A federal judge has granted CNN, Politico and MS NOW a temporary restraining order requiring the White House to restore the outlets’ hard-pass press credentials.
The order requires the defendants, excluding President Donald Trump, as well as their agents and representatives, to “immediately return, reinstate, and restore” the White House hard-pass press credentials held by employees of CNN, MS NOW and Politico.
Judge Timothy Kelly granted the media organizations’ request in the ongoing case Cable News Networks, Inc. v. Trump after their credentials were revoked on Sept. 18, according to the court order.
The temporary restraining order will remain in effect for 14 days, unless otherwise ordered by the court.
Kelly expressed skepticism about the Trump administration’s argument that the stories it cited as justification for revoking the outlets’ press credentials raised national security concerns.
Kelly described the stories identified by the administration as “routine” and said he was “skeptical” that the government’s stated interest in safeguarding national security was the actual motivation for revoking the hard passes. He also noted that Trump did not mention national security concerns when he announced the ban.
“Nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns,” Kelly said in the filing. “Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was “banning” Plaintiffs from the White House — instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”
Crew members look at an inflated escape device that extends from the side of the Boeing VC-25B “Bridge” Air Force One aircraft to the ground on Sept. 9, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — An inflatable slide deployed on President Donald Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday afternoon before he was set to board it to head to the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas.
Trump appeared to indicate that the emergency slide was deployed intentionally as he waited for about 20 minutes inside Marine One on the tarmac.
“They’re checking the slide over here. And I think it’s gonna take 15 minutes. They were doing a check on the slide, you know, the emergency — so I think it takes about 15 minutes,” Trump told reporters, before adding that it was safe to fly on.
Asked by ABC News why the slide was being checked and if there was a security concern, Trump said they just want to make sure it “works perfectly.” Slides are not typically checked by deploying them before departure as it is a time-consuming process to remove and replace them once they are deployed.
Asked if he was sure the plane was safe to fly, Trump said he was confident that it was.
“Yeah, I am, or I wouldn’t be on it,” Trump said.
The president is set to deliver the keynote address on Wednesday night at the Republicans’ first-ever midterm convention.
The White House referred back the president’s comments when asked about the slide’s deployment.
The slide was later pulled off of the plane and hauled away on the back of a pick-up truck before the plane took off for Dallas.
Trump’s old Air Force One pulled up behind the new jet as a back-up option.
The newly retrofitted Air Force One, a gift from the Qatari royal family worth $400 million, has raised questions from some lawmakers and ethics experts over the unprecedented foreign gift.
Earlier this year, Trump called the jet, which is approximately 14 years old, “the world’s most luxurious plane.” Trump told reporters in July that the plane was going to be “maxed out” — a process that would happen “in about a month or so” he said.
Also in July, Trump secretly switched planes — using a catering food truck and a military aircraft, sources told ABC News — while leaving a NATO summit in Turkey amid threats against him from Iran.
ABC News’ Sam Sweeney and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump participates in a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, June 24, 2026. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump will head to the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, this week as an unstable ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran and Trump’s feud with his NATO allies continue.
The summit will be held Tuesday and Wednesday at the Beştepe Presidential Compound and chaired by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. The formal opening is scheduled for Tuesday and the event is expected to conclude the following day, when Trump will hold a news conference.
Trump’s trip will be brief. He is expected to leave the White House Monday night and return to the U.S. on Wednesday evening. While in Turkey, the president is expected to take part in a bilateral meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and participate in a number of working sessions.
‘Taking stock’ of NATO
Matt Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Sunday that the summit will measure the progress of NATO allies’ commitment to spend 5% of their GDP on defense and said that the U.S. would also “take stock of our allies’ expanding NATO’s capabilities in support of the burden-shifting going on here on the European continent.”
“Some allies are doing more than others. Poland, the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries lead the way, and Germany is on track for the 5%, reaching it in 2029. But many others are lagging behind,” Whitaker said.
The summit also comes after Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of leaving NATO. As recently as April, Trump expressed frustration with European allies amid the U.S.’s war with Iran, as many members have been reluctant to join military operations in re-opening and patrolling the Strait of Hormuz.
“Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO,” Trump said in April when asked if he would reconsider the U.S.’s membership after the conflict ends. “I always knew they were a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
More broadly, Trump has been extremely critical of NATO allies over their ability to share the burden of contributing to the post-World War II alliance.
Whitaker said, “The United States remains a proud NATO member,” but “we have responsibilities elsewhere in the world as the world’s only superpower.”
Trump continued his criticism of some NATO allies as recently as last week.
“Ridiculous for the U.S.A. to continue along this one sided path when the relationship is not reciprocal. They were not there for us,” Trump wrote last Thursday on his social media platform.
“The United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing,” the president also claimed on Thursday in a post on social media.
While Trump claims that allies spend “on NATO,” that’s not how the alliance works. Member states must spend 2% of their GDP on their own national defense budgets. The U.S. is NATO’s largest defense spender by virtue of having the world’s largest defense budget. But taken as a percentage of GDP, the US has hovered around 3% range — less than Poland and Baltic allies.
NATO’s involvement in Iran war
Trump’s requests for allies’ support in the U.S. war against Iran goes beyond NATO’s collective defense agreement, which calls for all to respond to an attack on a member country. Yet Trump has framed it as a test of whether allies reciprocate in return for American security commitments.
A senior U.S. official said Sunday the U.S. believes ensuring freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz would be on the agenda, but that many NATO allies don’t have the capabilities to support those operations.
“I certainly believe that the Strait of Hormuz and the protection of the maritime traffic going through there is going to be a subject that comes up,” the official said.
But, they continued, “Many [NATO allies] don’t have the necessary ships or assets to contribute to a meaningful maritime effort” despite the fact that “we’ve had a lot of allies raise their hand and offer to participate.”
Shifting the burden to NATO allies
Two senior U.S. officials said on Sunday that the U.S. plans to further shift the burden of European defense onto European countries, saying that a force posture review currently underway of the military’s presence in Europe “very well may lead” to changes.
Asked about the potential for a U.S. force reduction in Europe, one senior U.S. official confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attended a meeting of NATO defense ministers weeks ago to announce a “six-month or less” review of the U.S. force posture in Europe.
“The main reason being, we continue to have global demands as the United States of America, and we should always be looking at how we’re deployed to our threats,” the official said, adding that any shift in troop placement would be “based on nonpolitical reasons.”
“There should be no surprise that we’re doing a posture review or surprise if that posture review very well may lead to us adjusting our posture because we’re trying to shift burden to Europe,” another official added.
NATO 3.0
The summit comes fresh off of Rutte’s visit to the White House on June 24, when he said NATO is entering a new phase centered on greater European responsibility while keeping the U.S. engaged in the alliance. Rutte framed the summit as the moment when member countries begin implementing the spending and capability commitments made at last year’s Hague summit.
Rutte said the summit will be the beginning of a transatlantic “defense industrial revolution,” promising announcements of “tens of billions” of dollars in defense-related contracts. He ventured that this year’s summit is “more important” than last year’s in the Hague because of implementation of concrete investments aimed directly at Russia.
“Vladimir, we will defend ourselves,” Rutte addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin in a speech to the Atlantic Council last week.
A ‘big gift bag’ for Turkey
Trump said last Wednesday he would not have attended the summit were it not for his relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and suggested he plans to bring a significant offer, or a “big gift bag” for his host — potentially including the sale of dozens of F-35 fighter jets to the country.
“I am going to the summit out of respect for President Erdogan … Except for the fact that it was being held in Turkey by President Erdogan, I don’t think I would have gone to it,” Trump said before a meeting with Rutte in the Oval Office in June.
Turkey is seeking to join the U.S. F-35 program, but it is prohibited from doing so as long as it possesses Russian-made air defenses.
“I’m probably going to do something that’s going to make him very happy,” Trump said.
Ending the war in Ukraine
As has been the case since the war with Russia began in 2022, the issue of Ukraine is also likely to play a key role in the NATO gathering.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said Sunday that Trump will meet separately with Zelenskyy on Wednesday afternoon in addition to other meetings with NATO leaders.
A senior U.S. official said Sunday that Trump planned to speak with Zelenskyy about “how we can end the war.”
“So, there are some small areas where Ukraine has made progress. There’s some small areas where Russia has made progress. But, the line of contact has been frozen over the last couple of months,” the official said.
The official said that Trump was hopeful a meeting with Zelenskyy could bring the war closer to an end.
“We’re hopeful that we can make progress towards doing that when, when the president gets together with President Zelenskyy and I’m sure he’ll follow up with President Putin as well,” the official said.
The conversation with Zelenskyy would come after Trump spoke with Putin on Saturday for nearly an hour and a half, according to a Kremlin readout, which noted that the two touched on Ukraine and that Trump “reiterated his readiness” to find a solution to the conflict.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the call.
Eric Deters speaks with ABC News, Oct. 8, 2026. (ABC News)
A donor to President Donald Trump accused U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle of offering access to top Trump officials in exchange for cash.
Eric Deters — a former lawyer, conservative media personality and Trump donor, alleged that Guilfoyle asked him to pay her $100,000 credit card bill in July 2025 — days before her Senate confirmation hearing.
“It was all quid pro quo,” Deters claimed to ABC News about the request from Guilfoyle, who is the former wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and ex-fiance of Donald Trump Jr.
Wall Street Journal first reported on Deters’ accusations.
Deters provided messages to ABC News he says he exchanged with Guilfoyle on the subject. In one message from that period, Deters alleges Guilfoyle wrote, “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” which Deters alleged was in reference to the desired credit card payment.
Guilfoyle’s attorney disputed the messages’ authenticity to the Wall Street Journal, but did not provide specifics. Guilfoyle’s attorney also said the money could be a reimbursement for travel and speaking expenses. Deters denies he owed Guilfoyle any money.
Asked whether he thought Guilfoyle was asking for the payment in exchange for something, Deters told ABC News “absolutely.”
“She made it very clear, and the text messages make it very clear. She was so desperate for me to send that $100,000,” Deters said, adding that she said if he sent the money, she would help with his access to Trump administration officials.
Deters says he did not end up making the payment because he didn’t have the money.
Deters is considered a controversial character in Kentucky politics. He ran for Kentucky governor in 2023 and to represent Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District in the House in 2024; he lost both races in the primaries.
A former lawyer, Deters had his law license first suspended in 2012 for actions in multiple cases including comments he made about a judge and improper solicitation of a possible client. In 2021, in refusing to reinstate Deter’s law license, the Kentucky Supreme Court said he had a “notorious propensity” for filing “malicious or frivolous lawsuits,” according to court documents.
Deters told ABC News that in exchange for money, he believed Guilfoyle would wield her influence to help him on specific issues, such as pressing for the extradition of an Ohio doctor who fled to Pakistan — a detail he first told the Wall Street Journal.
Deters says he separately offered Guilfoyle money to press for that extradition. The individual in question is still living in Pakistan.
ABC News has reached out to Guilfoyle, her attorney and the U.S. Embassy in Greece for comment and have not heard back.
In a statement to WSJ, the U.S. embassy in Greece said Guilfoyle’s “career in and out of public service is guided by deep and abiding values” and “the Ambassador remains committed to representing the American people with dedication and integrity.”
During an event focused on eliminating fraud on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance was asked for his reaction to a government official, specifically a U.S. ambassador, asking someone to pay off their debt in exchange for access to other government officials — an apparent reference to the Guilfoyle allegations.
Vance said he disapproves of people “selling access” to government officials, but denied knowledge about the particular instance being referenced.
“Obviously, I don’t love that,” Vance said of the hypothetical scenario presented to him. He later added, “Of course, I don’t like anybody selling access to another government official. Certainly, a high-level government official.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio sidestepped a question about Guilfoyle’s alleged conduct overnight while departing Athens, Greece.
“I don’t even know if it’s true or not true,” Rubio said. “So it’s just not going to work that way, and it will certainly not going to work that way when I’m sitting in another country.”
