White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted a New York Times reporter as a “left-wing stenographer” after he compared President Donald Trump to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on press freedoms.
The heated exchange with Peter Baker was sparked by his questioning the administration’s decision to seize control of the press pool and to bar Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One.
Baker, a veteran journalist and former Moscow correspondent, compared the White House’s move to Kremlin tactics in a post on X Tuesday.
“Having served as a Moscow correspondent in the early days of Putin’s reign, this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access,” Baker wrote.
Leavitt, 27, fired back with a clown emoji, followed by a pointed rebuttal.
“Give me a break, Peter,” she wrote.
“Moments after you tweeted this, the President invited journalists into the Oval and took questions for nearly an hour. Your hysterical reaction to our long overdue and much-needed change to an outdated organization is precisely why we made it.”
She then took a personal jab at Baker, criticizing what she described as a biased media landscape.
“Gone are the days where left-wing stenographers posing as journalists, such as yourself, dictate who gets to ask what,” she added.
The Post has sought comment from the White House, Baker and the Times.
Since the early 1900s, the White House Correspondents’ Association — comprising journalists from major news organizations — has been responsible for determining which media outlets gain access to cover the president.
Members elect representatives who make decisions about seating arrangements and press pool coverage.
However, that system changed on Tuesday when Leavitt declared that the administration would take charge of deciding which reporters could cover the president most closely.
“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,” Leavitt said, adding: “Not anymore.”
She framed the move as a shift toward democratizing press access.
“Today, I was proud to announce that we are giving the power back to the people. Moving forward, the ‘White House Press Pool’ will be determined by the White House Press Team,” she said, emphasizing that legacy outlets would not be excluded but that decisions on access would now rest with the administration.
Baker responded with another sharp critique, warning that the move was meant to deter tough questioning.
“Every president of both parties going back generations subscribed to the principle that a president doesn’t pick the press corps that is allowed in the room to ask him questions,” he wrote.
“Trump has just declared that he will.”
Despite the shift, Baker insisted that journalists would continue to hold the administration accountable.
“None of this will stop professional news outlets from covering this president in the same full, fair, tough and unflinching way that we always have,” he said.
“Government efforts to punish disfavored organizations will not stop independent journalism.”
Traditionally, the White House press pool has included reporters from wire services such as the Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg — along with representatives from television, print and radio as well as photographers.
The shake-up followed a recent controversy in which the Trump administration removed an AP reporter and photographer from the president’s trip to Mar-a-Lago and Miami over their refusal to use the administration’s preferred term, the “Gulf of America,” instead of the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite the open seats, no replacements were assigned, highlighting the escalating tensions between the administration and the press.
