


The White House escalated its spat with The Associated Press on Friday, saying the worldwide news agency will lose access to some press spaces indefinitely over its handling of Donald Trump’s “Gulf of America” name change.
Taylor Budowich, the White House deputy chief of staff and Cabinet secretary, announced the punishment on social media, saying the First Amendment does not provide the AP “unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One” and that “that space will now be opened up to the many thousands of reporters who have been barred from covering these intimate areas of the administration.”
The AP will still maintain credentials to the White House complex, he noted.
The feud between President Donald Trump’s administration and the AP, a largely politically neutral news organization he’s rarely targeted, spiraled this week when the White House barred AP journalists from attending two events, including a question-and-answer session with Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk in the Oval Office.

The White House has been attacking the AP for its stance on Trump’s unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico ― an international body of water that’s had that name for more than 400 years.
The AP, which maintains a style guide that many news outlets follow, announced following the change that it would “refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen.”
“The Associated Press continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America,” Budowich charged Friday, echoing attacks from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “This decision is not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press’ commitment to misinformation.”
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The AP said its senior vice president and executive editor Julie Price sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles on Wednesday pushing back against the outlet’s loss of access.
“The actions taken by this White House were plainly intended to punish the AP for the content of its speech,” Pace wrote. “It is among the most basic tenets of the First Amendment that the government cannot retaliate against the public or the press for what they say.”
This marks only the latest instance of Trump’s White House targeting news outlets he doesn’t like. Brendan Carr, Trump’s new Federal Communications Commission chair, has already launched investigations into NPR, PBS and a San Francisco radio station. His administration has also been booting news organizations from their Pentagon workspaces to make room for far-right outlets, including Newsmax and The Daily Caller, although HuffPost has also been offered a space.