trump's press ban lasted six days. long enough for two gay outlets to have a fight about it.

via NBC News, the Advocate and the Washington Blade, plus the two pieces at the center of the feud.

On Friday, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were banned from the White House, as a result, he wrote, of their "constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!" On Thursday afternoon, per NBC News, their reporters walked back in, under a court order. In between, the gay press had a fight.

what judge kelly ruled

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, issued a 14-day temporary restraining order early Thursday. He found the ban "most likely unconstitutional," NBC reported, because the outlets "did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard," and he did not buy the administration's national security argument. The Blade counts 78 journalists whose credentials came back.

They did not come back smoothly. On Thursday morning, the Advocate reported, Secret Service agents took the passes off reporters from all three outlets, and Kelly gave the administration until 12:30 p.m. to explain itself. By the afternoon, NBC reported, they were back inside.

meanwhile, in the gay press

Here is the part only we are going to write about. As we reported on Monday, when the TV networks, Fox News included, refused pool duty in solidarity, the reporter still filing the print pool report was from the Washington Blade. That same day the Advocate ran a story headlined "Even Fox News is boycotting, but an LGBTQ+ outlet is still covering the White House pool."

The Blade's editor, Kevin Naff, answered on Wednesday, calling it a "reckless and inaccurate" story that suggested the Blade had "crossed a picket line." For the record, the Advocate's piece does not use that phrase; the headline did the suggesting. Naff's points: "There has been no boycott among the print pool, which is a separate entity." The Blade "refused to take or share any videos or still photos of the president," so as not to undercut the TV boycott. When Politico's pool turn came up, the Blade "will not fill in and cover for them while they are banned." And it is, he wrote, "the only LGBTQ outlet with a seat in the briefing room."

That last line is the whole argument. The seat is hard to get and easy to lose, and if the Blade walks out, nobody hands it to another gay paper. Both outlets can be right that the optics were bad and that the seat is worth keeping. We would just like to note that the week Trump threw three newsrooms out of the building, the queer press found time to argue with itself. It is very us.