Following a court victory over the Associated Press, the Trump administration has announced it will take over assignment duties for press coverage inside the White House.
“A group of DC-based journalists, the White House Correspondents Association, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. “…Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team.”
President Donald Trump kicked the AP out of Oval Office events and Air Force One after it refused to comply with his executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The news wire service then filed an emergency request to restore its access, which a federal judge rejected on Monday.
Pressing its advantage, Leavitt appeared in the briefing room next to two screens reading “VICTORY” over a map of the gulf before making her announcement.
“We want to double down and give even greater access to the American people,” Leavitt said. “We want more outlets and new outlets to have a chance to take part in the press pool to cover this administration’s unprecedented achievements up close, front and center.”
The press pool is a rotating group of 18 people, including one of five television stations, one of 30 print outlets, wire services such as the AP, a rotating print seat, a radio seat, and photographers, who attend daily events inside the White House such as speeches or executive order signings inside the Oval Office. The Washington Examiner is part of the existing print pool rotation.
Leavitt stressed that “legacy outlets” will continue to be part of the pool but that new ones will be added. The Trump White House has already allowed several additional outlets to attend news briefings inside the Brady Press Briefing Room, turning them into standing-room-only events.
The WHCA released a statement slamming the move.
“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” WHCA president Eugene Daniels, a Politico reporter, said. “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.”
Since its founding in 1914, WHCA has historically handled assignments for pool duties rather than the White House itself, and Daniels stressed that new outlets have been added continuously over the last 111 years.
“The WHCA has sought to ensure that the reporters, photographers, producers, and technicians who actually do the work – 365 days of every year – decide amongst themselves how these rotations are operated so as to ensure consistent professional standards and fairness in access on behalf of all readers, viewers, and listeners,” Daniels said.
The WHCA board was not given prior notice of the announcement and was not included in any discussions, he added.
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The Trump administration’s view is that the First Amendment does not guarantee access to the president, meaning that his team can make decisions about those allowed into the room.
“Asking the president of the United States questions in limited spaces such as the Oval Office and Air Force One is a privilege that unfortunately has only been granted to a few,” Leavitt said. “It is not a legal right for all. The Trump administration has already proven to be the most transparent ever, and this president is the most accessible in history.”