The White House said Tuesday that it would take over which outlets are allowed into the press pool covering the president, wrestling such control from the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said moving forward, the White House press pool, a small group of reporters that travels with and cover the president’s daily activities, will now be determined by administration officials. Traditionally, the press pool is coordinated by the Correspondents’ Association, which White House officials across multiple administrations have traditionally given deference to.
“It’s beyond time the White House press pool reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025,” Leavitt said during a briefing with reporters.
The goal, Leavitt said, is to give new or alternative media companies greater access to the administration while still keeping certain “legacy” outlets in the rotation.
Leavitt’s announcement comes as the White House continues to bar The Associated Press from access to President Trump in the Oval Office, on Air Force One, and in other spaces where typically only the pool gathers, due to lack to space.
The barring came in response to the news organization indicated it would not change its influential stylebook to reflect Trump’s renaming of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.”
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday declined to restore The Associated Press’s access to certain spaces open to the media at the White House, saying AP failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits and emphasized that additional briefing on the matter is necessary “given the stakes” for both parties. The judge set an expedited schedule and ordered arguments on a preliminary injunction for March 20.
Leavitt celebrated the judge’s ruling Tuesday and said the White House wants “more outlets and new outlets to cover the press pool.”
Legacy outlets such as The New York Times and wire services will still be allowed to join the pool, she said, but the White House would work to make sure “well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility.”
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the WHCA said the White House “did not give the WHCA board a heads up or have any discussions about today’s announcements.”
“This 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 organization said.
“For generations, the working journalists elected to lead the White House Correspondents’ Association board have consistently expanded the WHCA’s membership and its pool rotations to facilitate the inclusion of new and emerging outlets.”
