A federal appeals court on Monday grappled with the legality of President Donald Trump‘s decision to bar Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and other small White House spaces after a dispute over the naming of the Gulf of America, drilling into whether the First Amendment protects journalists’ proximity to the president.

Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that Trump’s decision to cut off the Associated Press‘s participation in the press pool for small-space events was constitutional because the Oval Office and Air Force One are not First Amendment forums at all, but selective, invitation-only environments.