The Trump administration is attempting to block an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., forcing it to let The Associated Press back into the White House press pool this week after the president tried barring the news outlet over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”

The Justice Department filed a motion Wednesday to stay U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden’s preliminary injunction issued on Tuesday granting the AP’s request to block the White House’s ban on its access to the Oval Office, East Room and other sites of press events — saying the ban amounted to “impermissible viewpoint discrimination.” McFadden noted how the AP was likely to prove in court how it “suffered unlawful retaliation for exercising its speech rights,” despite claims by the Trump administration that it deserved the ban.

“Access restrictions must be reasonable and not viewpoint based,” McFadden wrote. “While the AP does not have a constitutional right to enter the Oval Office, it does have a right to not be excluded because of its viewpoint. And the AP says that is exactly what is happening.”

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is forcing the Trump administration to let the Associated Press back into the White House press pool after it tried barring the news outlet over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”

In a Tuesday court order, the judge said the media outlet was likely to prove it “suffered unlawful retaliation for exercising its speech rights.”

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Donald Trump appointee who was put on the bench in 2017, agreed to grant a request by the AP for a preliminary injunction blocking the White House’s ban on its access to the Oval Office, East Room and other sites of press events. In a memorandum order, the judge reasoned that the government’s ban amounted to “impermissible viewpoint discrimination.”

“Access restrictions must be reasonable and not viewpoint based,” McFadden wrote. “While the AP does not have a constitutional right to enter the Oval Office, it does have a right to not be excluded because of its viewpoint. And the AP says that is exactly what is happening.”

A group of First Amendment experts is imploring a federal court to order The Associated Press back into the select stable of journalists who make up the White House “press pool.”

In a Friday brief, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University says the government’s behavior necessitates giving AP journalists back their seats in the halls of power.

“Having created the press pool to enable access to the President in limited-space contexts ranging from the Oval Office to foreign travel, the White House has developed a forum — whether a ‘limited public forum’ or a ‘nonpublic forum,’ as the cases use those terms — from which it may not constitutionally exclude a news organization due to its viewpoints,” the amicus, or friend of the court, brief reads. “Yet that is precisely what the White House is doing, by its own admission.”

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday rejected a request from The Associated Press to restore the news organization’s access to certain presidential events following claims it was being unconstitutionally punished for refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, declined to grant a temporary restraining order that would have prevented the administration from keeping the AP out of certain presidential events, particularly those taking place in the Oval Office, on Air Force One, or at Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, according to a report from CNN.

McFadden reportedly denied the request for the “extraordinary relief” of a TRO because the AP failed to show it would suffer “irreparable harm” without it, as the organization could still “get access to the same information” through pool notes that are provided to all members of the White House Correspondents Association. The lack of harm was further evinced by the AP waiting more than a week to file its lawsuit, McFadden reportedly said.

While denying the TRO request, McFadden also indicated that he believed the administration would have a difficult time defending its decision when it came time to argue on the merits. He reportedly warned that case law in Washington, D.C. was “uniformly unhelpful” for cases involving journalistic bans and said the ban was a clear example of unconstitutional content-based discrimination.

“It might be appropriate for the White House… to consider if what they’re doing is really appropriate, given the case law,” he warned, according to journalist Jordan Fischer.

In the filed complaint, the AP alleged that the administration unlawfully ordered it to “use certain words” in its coverage “or else face an indefinite denial of access.”