I’d ask the Washington press corps if they have any idea how ridiculous they look right now, but then I remember that the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) is currently led by Eugene Daniels.
Trump administration spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt announced this week that the White House would take over responsibility for determining what rotating crew of reporters would cover the president on site and in person, something that was previously controlled by the WHCA. As with every announcement from this administration, it was greeted by Washington with octane-infused hysteria, especially and predictably by area journalists still under the impression that they run things.
The WHCA’s statement on the matter was good fun. “This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” wrote Eugene Daniels, perhaps with a set of freshly painted nails of a coral hue. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”
It’s impossible to take this seriously. Not just because Daniels routinely appears in public wearing kinky costumes and soliciting advice on how to use women’s cosmetic products. And not because he makes a point whenever on cable news of holding his hands near his chest so as to visually assault viewers with whatever startling shade he’s colored his fingernails.
While we’re on the subject, though, Daniels and his public presentation are critical to this issue. He’s not built like some lithe ballet dancer; he’s a hulking figure with an afro and beard. Yet he appeared at last year’s annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner event wearing a seizure-inducing sash — yes, I said sash — draped over his shoulder like something out of a drag queen rendition of Star Wars. His social media activity is practically designed to make you say, This guy can’t be for real. “Dear Black women, please help!” Daniels wrote on X in 2022. “I’m looking for a new bonnet to sleep in. Gotta stay on all night and not give me a headache lol.”
This is who the media’s most prestigious organization in Washington chose to represent their interests. It’s as if they’re daring anyone to step to them with reservation. They’re dying to call you a racist homophobe for it.
Daniels was named WHCA president in mid-July 2024, just as Kamala Harris was becoming the de facto Democrat presidential nominee, a curious coincidence given that Daniels had spent the last three years as Team Kamala’s go-to propagandist for virtually everything intended to put Harris in a positive light (which Daniels would dutifully publish in Politico). The media news publication Poynter dubbed Daniels “Politico’s Kamala Harris expert.” I doubt he felt a flicker of embarrassment.
But what makes the broader WHCA episode so patently absurd is the notion that the WHCA is in any way the standard bearer of a “free press.” It’s not. The most generous view of the association is that it’s an exclusive club of creepy nerds who, led by a gleeful gender-bender, hold half the country’s population in contempt for daring to vote against Democrat priorities.
A more practical assessment is that the WHCA is another anti-democratic gate-keeping institution devoted first and foremost to maintaining the status quo in Washington, including the dying media’s influence in dictating the bounds of political discourse. Having Eugene Daniels as its decadent figurehead is the Washington media’s way of signaling its disgust for the rest of the country.
For the uninitiated, the WHCA is the organization that, until Tuesday’s announcement, worked with the White House to manage the limited pool of reporters who keep close proximity to the president each day and publish his activities. It’s theoretically a useful partnership, but the WHCA has long been exceedingly selective in whom it allows to participate in the pools, slow-walking the admission of alternative media outlets, and otherwise implicitly and explicitly enforcing Washington conformity of the publications and TV networks covering the White House.
Breaking up that ruinous conformity is the point behind Trump’s White House taking control of the pools, which will ideally now have a broader range of reporters with alternative perspectives on what’s considered newsworthy. But alternative perspectives and a broader range are the enemy of the permanent Washington regime.
Everything about the “Resistance” is in gate-keeping: the online censorship, the opposition to “unqualified” cabinet appointees, the “fact-checking,” the “experts,” the “science,” and on and on. The through line is Washington’s existing power structure, including the WHCA, selecting who gets any degree of meaningful influence. Gate-keeping is their power and they hate to see it slip.
The retort from WHCA leadership, including from board member Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News (aw, they let Fox News have a seat), is to warn that a future Democrat will stack the pool with friendly journalists. “You would not have trusted the any [sic] Democratic admin to pick its own pool,” Henrich wrote on X of Trump supporters, “but now that door is open. … Just wait til a Dem admin plays that same game. You’ll hate it.”
Hilarious. Democrats have relied on the Washington press corps for friendly coverage for decades. The effect that icing out right-leaning outlets will have covering a Democrat president in person will be negligible.
This has nothing to do with the “free press” and everything to do with the Washington media — so arrogant as to have someone like Eugene Daniels as its mascot — dying a slow death.