It started with the banning of the Associated Press from certain White House events over the refusal to use the term Gulf of America instead of Gulf of Mexico.

Then there was a recent FBI search of a Washington Post reporter's home.

And then in January, two journalists, including former CNN host, Don Lemon,

were arrested following an immigration protest at City's Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. What's

happening to freedom of the press?

Hello and welcome to USA Today is The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Monday, February 9th,

2026. President Donald Trump wasn't particularly friendly to the press in his first term. In his second term,

he's been downright openly hostile towards specific reporters at outlets in his Oval Office briefings.

Should the media fight back? And if so, how?

Here to help us dive into All Things First Amendment is Ronell Anderson Jones, Professor of Law at the University of Utah.

It's good to have you here, Rinald. Thanks for having me.

Let's start with this latest story involving two reporters covering a recent

church protest in Minnesota. Both have now been released. Can you give us some of the context here?

Yeah, these two journalists, one local Minneapolis journalist and the other former CNN journalist,

Don Lemon, accompanied protesters to the church

in Minneapolis. The protesters were going to the church to protest a pastor there who is an ICE

official. They documented and interviewed people who were there, both parishioners and protesters and the pastor, although it wasn't

the pastor who was the subject of the protest. And then later, we're charged for violating

two federal laws. One, a law that bans disruptions at houses of worship, and the other,

a law that makes it a felony punishable up to 10 years to disrupt the exercise of constitutional rights of other people. Here,

the exercise of the freedom of religion. And it was an extraordinary move. Never in the history

of the country that I can find have journalists been charged under either of those

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