The National Association of Deaf (NAD) filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The non-profit organization, which was established in 1880 and fights for the civil rights of 48 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the U.S. — including hundreds of thousands whose primary language is American Sign Language (ASL) — seeks a court order to restore American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters to White House events and briefings.
NEW: Natl Association of Deaf files suit against White House Press Secretary, Chief of Staff and Exec office of President. They're seeking court order to restore American Sign Language interpreters to White House events/briefings:
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) May 29, 2025
Suit: "The White House inexplicably stopped…
According to the lawsuit: “The White House inexplicably stopped using ASL interpreters for any of its public press briefings or similar events. Consequently, Defendants are now denying hundreds of thousands of deaf Americans meaningful access to the White House’s real-time communications on various issues of national and international import.”
This is not the first time the NAD has sued the White House for access to press briefings.
During the first Trump administration, in September 2020, the NAD obtained a landmark court ruling ordering the White House to provide interpreters — especially in light of the importance of what were then daily coronavirus-related briefings. However, when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, according to the NAD, “this practice abruptly ended” and “the White House has not provided any ASL interpreters for any press briefings since that time, despite the NAD’s repeated requests.”
The complaint alleges that the White House is in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which mandates meaningful access for people with disabilities to all White House communications, and in violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which mandates freedom of exchange of information.
Many MAGA supporters in the comments responded to the lawsuit with comments including “There’s closed captions on every tv, it’s redundant.” In the lawsuit it is noted that “Many deaf individuals cannot read or understand written English. Consequentially, English closed captions are not an adequate substitute for ASL interpretation.”
— TheDeanOfMontreal (@NorthenResister) May 29, 2025
The NAD lawsuit reminded one X user of the 2018 Newsweek article which reported that Trump allegedly ordered that braille be excluded from the elevators of Trump Tower because “no blind people are going to live in Trump Tower,” former Trump Organization employee Barbara Res alleged.
