A fight over an inside-the-Beltway media tradition has become emblematic of a bigger battle between the Trump administration and the press.
At issue is the makeup of the White House press pool, the rotating group of journalists who cover the president on occasions when it is impractical or impossible to have the full press corps in attendance.
The pool is overseen by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) — at least until this week.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared the administration would now “determine” who would comprise the pool. Leavitt contended that the WHCA wrongfully holds a “monopoly over the privilege of press access.”
Leavitt also characterized the shift as being intended to reflect “the media habits of the American people in 2025, not 1925” and claimed “the White House will restore power to the American people who President Trump was elected to serve.”
The WHCA and advocates for press freedom see things very differently.
They contend the switch is an ominous effort to bring media coverage of Trump under his control, elevating outlets that are sympathetic and sidelining those that take a more objective approach.
The issue is larger than the topic of the press pool — a subject of limited interest to the general public, many of whom are unaware of its existence. Instead, critics worry about what they see as a MAGA World desire to hollow out media independence.
WHCA President Eugene Daniels said the administration’s move “tears at the independence of a free press in the United States. 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.”
The broader context of Trump’s battles with the media also has to be considered.
It was, after all, Trump who almost single-handedly shifted the meaning of the phrase “fake news” from its original purpose — to describe willfully false social media content that sought to turn a profit by gaming algorithms and exploiting users’ biases — into a slogan that seeks to delegitimize critical coverage.
While most presidents have complained about the press coverage they receive, Trump takes that approach to new heights.
During his first term, he frequently referred to the media as “enemies of the people” and, on at least two occasions, disseminated memes showing cartoonish violence against CNN, a frequent target of his ire.
A little more than a month back in the White House, Trump is already enmeshed in a legal battle with The Associated Press. At issue is the wire service’s refusal to fully adopt Trump’s preferred nomenclature for the body of water off southern Louisiana, western Florida and eastern Mexico.
This was universally known as the Gulf of Mexico until Trump issued an executive order declaring that it should be known as the Gulf of America.
The AP has said it will keep referring to the Gulf of Mexico in its coverage, in part because it has a large international readership and client base, but that it will also note Trump’s executive order declaring the new name.
This did not mollify the administration, which has barred the AP from key events and from the press pool.
That decision is now subject to a legal case. A judge this week rebuffed AP’s request for an immediate reinstatement but set a fuller hearing on the matter for next month.
Separately, on Wednesday, Trump mischaracterized what happened in relation to a CBS “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Harris in the closing stretch of last year’s campaign.
Trump has filed suit over the interview, and in his Tuesday remarks, he said the parties are in discussion to settle the case.
The complaint centers on a condensed quotation from Harris — an edit that Trump alleges amounts to electoral interference, and which many journalists consider standard practice owing to time constraints.
On Wednesday, Trump said of CBS, “They gave her an answer. … And they wrote out a — they put her words from another question that was asked about a half an hour later, and they put that into the question.”
CBS did not “give” Harris an answer, nor were her words answering a different question.
For the moment, however, much of the focus, at least in Washington, is on the matter of the press pool.
The pool exists because of basic logistical challenges. The entire White House press corps is far too big to fit into the Oval Office or onto Air Force One, for example.
Instead, reporters take turns performing “pool duty,” sending frequent, usually brief updates from such events to their colleagues and the other media organizations.
Journalists with very small organizations, or who are unaffiliated, rarely participate in the pool because of the hefty travel costs involved.
But those who are part of the pool take turns in a rotation that is sent out on a monthly basis, and usually is ordered alphabetically.
There was a new twist after Leavitt’s announcement, when the liberal-leaning HuffPost said its reporter S.V. Dáte, who had been due to do pool duty on Wednesday, had been kicked out of the rotation.
HuffPost said Dáte had been informed after 10 p.m. the previous night that there was “no room” for him in the pool, but that Axios had ended up taking his spot.
An Axios spokesperson told Politico the outlet was “unaware” of the circumstances in which it was offered the Wednesday role.
Meanwhile, the succession of controversies has sparked some notable examples of media unity.
Newsmax and Fox News have both supported the AP’s bid to lift the White House’s sanctions against it.
And, on Tuesday, Fox News Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich warned conservative social media users who were taking glee in the administration’s move over the press pool that they would rue doing so.
“Just wait til a Dem admin plays that same game. You’ll hate it,” Heinrich wrote on social media.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.
