Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) suggested throwing out foreign news outlets of the White House briefing room as she appears to have taken an issue with a reporter’s accent during a press briefing on Friday.
Greene reacted to Friday post on the social media platform X shared by political commentator Gunther Eagleman from the Friday White House press briefing. In it, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt about staffing at various federal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in light of Wednesday night’s collision between an American Airlines flight and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people.
The Georgia Republican reposted Eagleman’s tweet, praising Leavitt’s work since assuming the role as the youngest ever White House press secretary, but she also took issue with the journalist’s accent who asked the questions about agency staffing.
“@PressSec is doing a wonderful job! Bringing sanity and common sense and throwing it in the faces of the nasty legacy media. How about that accent from that reporter? I think we need to throw out all the foreign press! American media first,” Greene wrote on Friday.
Greene’s call comes amid other changes in White House press briefing operations. Leavitt announced on Tuesday, during her first press briefing, that the administration is welcoming “new media” members, influencers and podcasters to obtain White House press passes and ask questions about the current administration. Since then, the White House has gotten over 7,000 press pass requests, The Hill reported.
She also said the White House would reinstate press credentials for around 440 journalists that were “wrongly revoked by the previous administration.”
Another new policy in the James S. Brady room is that seats that were in prior instances held by some White House aides would be now open to members of the new media and they would be able to ask the first question at the briefings, according to Leavitt.
Greene has had an up-and-down relationship with journalists. In January, she snapped at a Punchbowl News reporter, telling Melanie Zanona that Americans are “sick and f‑‑‑ing tired” of discussing the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
She accused a Times of London reporter last July during the Republican National Convention of sowing political division and, in part, responsibility for the first assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pa.
“You don’t get to ask any more questions,” Greene said at the time. “I’m done with you, because you’re the cause of … our country being divided. You’re the cause of President Trump almost being assassinated; you’re the cause of everything wrong in America.”
