The White House press corps has long been governed by the White House Correspondents’ Association, which assigns seats in the briefing room and determined who was in the press pool that covers the president.
This has changed since the White House announced in late February that it would take more of a role in deciding the news outlets that cover President Donald Trump up close. New additions to the press pool included non-legacy organizations that favor conservative viewpoints, like the “Sage Steele Show” and Right Side Broadcasting Network.
The Trump administration has also taken a more public approach in expressing opposition to media coverage. White House press releases include statements discrediting the reliability of traditional outlets, echoing Trump’s personal remarks over the years.
Notably, the White House has also started to evict legacy outlets from the Oval Office and other places where only a few reporters are allowed at a time — including Reuters and The Associated Press, the latter of which the White House banned for refusing to change its style guide to include references to the Gulf of America.
A federal judge will rehear AP News’ case on March 20, but so far courts have refused to lift the ban.
The Biden White House also limited access to certain reporters, cutting “hard passes” to 442 outlets in 2023, as Politico reported. Several of the reporters who were barred had been critical of the president.
In a press conference Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back at an AP reporter who called tariffs tax increases and said they would hurt American consumers.
“I’m sorry, have you ever paid a tariff? Because I have. They don’t get charged on foreign companies, they get charged on importers,” AP reporter Josh Boak said to Leavitt.
“I think it’s insulting that you’re trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made,” Leavitt said, then added: “I now regret giving a question to The Associated Press.”
Leavitt has not given many questions to The Associated Press since the outlet was banned from the pool, limiting their access to the Oval Office and Air Force One, among other places. Traditionally, press secretaries would allow the AP to ask the first question in press briefings, a tradition that ended when Trump returned to the White House.
Trump has also lately filed lawsuits against CBS News and Des Moines Register for allegedly producing journalism that fails to protect consumers from deceptive advertising, per The New York Times.
Earlier this year, Trump and Elon Musk falsely accused Politico and The New York Times of accepting government funds to write positive coverage for Democrats. That money turned out to be for subscriptions.
The Federal Communications Commission also launched an investigation into NPR and PBS concerning their financial sponsors. Other close allies of Trump have either filed lawsuits or made online accusations that news sources are pursuing “vendettas” against Trump.
The bulk of these lawsuits and accusations have had little effect, due in large part to First Amendment protections in the Constitution.
Despite his public antipathy for mainstream media, research from Axios found that Trump still sources much of his information from such outlets, including the AP and CBS News.
Nevertheless, he cites Fox News far more than any other outlet.
Other news organizations have won Trump’s approval in recent weeks, including The Washington Post, which is overhauling its editorial page.
Restructuring follows a shift by owner Jeff Bezos (who also owns Amazon), who said he wanted the paper’s opinion section to reflect support for “personal liberties and free markets.”
Several of the Post’s columnists have quit and criticized Bezos’ choices, while the White House has expressed admiration.
“I would like to commend The Washington Post, who I believe is in the room today,” Leavitt said during Tuesday’s press conference.
“It appears that the mainstream media, including the Post, is finally learning that having disdain for more than half of the country that supports this president does not help you sell newspapers.”
Leavitt also granted Saagar Enjeti, host of political news channel and podcast “Breaking Points,” the first question of the press conference.
“Breaking Points” features a left-leaning anchor and a right-leaning anchor, Enjeti.
