During the Trump Administration's appeal to the ruling in Associated Press v. Tammy Budowich, a DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge pressed the Trump Administration lawyer about the President's communicative interest in the Oval Office.
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00:00A couple of questions. Why did you resist the government speech case line, which seems to me very helpful for you?
00:14This notion of autonomy. I mean, you're sort of talking about autonomy and associational rights because you don't want to say what the most important interest here is, which is the president's speech projected through journalists to the public.
00:30Well, I think the projected through journalists probably takes this out of at least the heartland of the government speech doctrine. That's what the district court said below, is that the communicative activity that the reporters are engaging in in the Oval Office is their own speech, not the president's speech. And I think, by and large, that's correct.
00:53But the reason the president has. The reason why this feels different is because of the president's communicative interests, at least to me.
01:07Yes, and I do think that that is something that should inform the court's analysis here. But I also think the nature of the space and the president's interest in retaining control over whom he admits to those private spaces has to inform the analysis here.
01:25Because if you look at the Brady Room, again, the court held that's non-public forum, can't viewpoint discriminate there.
01:33So if the president went over to the Brady Room, I don't think he could now say all of you here are now my organs to get my message out to the public, and therefore I'm going to exclude anyone from this room who doesn't share my viewpoints.
01:45I think the nature of the space matters and helps inform when and where it is permissible to engage in that kind of discrimination to help get out the message that the president wants out to the American people.