White House bans AP, Reuters, and more from covering Trump meeting
4 Min Read
The White House press secretary has stated that while mainstream media organizations would continue covering Trump daily, the administration intends to change who gains access to more restricted spaces.
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President Donald Trump speaks during a joint press conference with France's President Emmanuel Macron in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, February 24, 2025. (AP)
The White House barred reporters from several news outlets, including Reuters, from attending President Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting, aligning with the administration's new media coverage policy.
An Associated Press photographer and three journalists from Reuters, HuffPost, and the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel were denied entry.
Meanwhile, TV crews from ABC and Newsmax, as well as correspondents from Axios, The Blaze, Bloomberg News, and NPR, were allowed to cover the event.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that the White House would decide which media outlets could cover the president in smaller venues like the Oval Office.
Traditionally, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) has managed the rotation of the presidential press pool, with Reuters—a major international wire service—being a longstanding participant.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that while mainstream media organizations would continue covering Trump daily, the administration intends to change who gains access to more restricted spaces. The WHCA’s pool system has historically allowed selected television, radio, wire, print, and photojournalists to report on events and share coverage with the wider press.
Leavitt further said that the five major cable and broadcast networks would retain their rotating seats in the pool, with the White House also incorporating streaming services. Rotating print and radio reporters would continue to be included, along with additional outlets and radio hosts.
The media responds
In response, the three wire services that have traditionally held permanent spots in the White House press pool—AP, Bloomberg, and Reuters—issued a statement on Wednesday, emphasizing their longstanding role in providing accurate, fair, and timely coverage of the presidency to a diverse audience across the US and worldwide.
"Much of the White House coverage people see in their local news outlets, wherever they are in the world, comes from the wires," the organizations noted.
"It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press," the statement added.
Meanwhile, HuffPost criticized the White House’s decision, calling it a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of press freedom.
On Tuesday, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) also issued a statement opposing the new policy.
AP sues White House staff over press access limits
The move comes after the Trump administration barred the Associated Press from the press pool for refusing to adopt the name "Gulf of America"—a term Trump assigned to the Gulf of Mexico—or update its widely used stylebook accordingly.
AP, one of the world’s oldest news agencies, in turn, filed a lawsuit against three senior White House officials, accusing them of restricting press access in retaliation for its editorial decisions.
The complaint, submitted Friday to the US District Court in Washington, D.C., alleges that AP journalists were barred from covering presidential events at the White House, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, and from traveling on Air Force One.
"The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government," AP stated in its lawsuit, which names White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as defendants.
The lawsuit argues that these actions violate both due process and the First Amendment, stating, "This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the First Amendment. This court should remedy it immediately."
Read more: DOGE guns Politico: Is the Trump admin going after the media industry?
