They called it a "bombshell" on Tuesday, when Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced they were going to take the credentialing and pooling powers away from the liberal press. Liberals screamed, conservatives cheered. New York Times reporter Peter Baker tweeted "this reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access." That's not what Trump did.
Managing Editor Curtis Houck joins the show as our White House briefing expert. As he wrote it, "White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sent shockwaves down the paper-thin spines of the White House press corps as she declared the end of the press pool as we know it and that the administration, not the smarmy White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), would determine the rotation of reporters who’d accompany the President in tighter confines, such as the Oval Office and on Air Force One."
While anti-Trump reporters like Baker railed about limited access for the press, that's not currently factual. Curtis noted that at Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, the usual liberal suspects were in the room.
National Journal White House correspondent George E. Condon Jr. reported that his news outlet tracked 1,009 questions the president had answered in the past month, "It took Trump only three days to eclipse the 141 questions former President Biden took in his first month; Trump took 164 questions by the end of his third day," Condon wrote.
Eugene Daniels, the current head of the WHCA, went on NPR and brazenly claimed Trump was wrong to do this: "Because at the end of the day, in free countries, like the United States is, leaders don't get to pick the people who cover them day in and day out. The WHCA, our job has been -- for many, many years, as you know -- to not keep people out. We consistently bring new organizations in, new types of media in, outlets that are right down the middle -- which is the vast majority of them -- but also outlets that are conservative or left-leaning, right?"
In the real world, in mid-2023, the WHCA installed new eligibility rules that removed 442 journalists from the "hard pass" list, those who can come in daily. They demanded that reporters prove their news outlet has a Washington presence, and demanded your outlet get press credentials on Capitol Hill and at the Supreme Court. In other words, leaders don't get to limit the press pool. Other reporters get to limit the press pool.
One target of this policy was Simon Ateba of the nebulous website "Today News Africa." The other correspondents wanted him out. He liked to yell at Biden's press secretaries, which was rude. That was heroic if the president was Trump and the yeller was Jim Acosta of CNN.
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