White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared Sunday on the Fox News Channel’s MediaBuzz and debated host Howard Kurtz on a slew of subjects over two segments, including the Associated Press hubbub over its ban from the press pool (the smaller, rotating group of journalists that follow the President to smaller events and on Air Force One) and the press shop taking over the pool’s make-up.
On the AP lawsuit and the Gulf of America/Gulf of Mexico name change, Kurtz framed the back-and-forth as “the White House trying to dictate the editorial stance of an independent media outlet,” but Leavitt countered this was keeping a promise she made in her first briefing that “we were going to hold news media outlets accountable if they were pushing lies.”
Leavitt pointed out the AP was who took this matter to court (thinking their lack of pool access was a danger to the First Amendment) and lost the first round with the judge ruling, in her summation, “it is not a right of any news organization to walk into the Oval Office[.]”
She also emphasized the AP is still welcome on White House grounds, including the Briefing Room and that covering the White House is a “privilege,” not a right:
The Associated Press still has their credentials. They are still loud — allowed to cover the White House. They are still in the brief room with me, I have taken questions from them. The only privilege that has been revoked is that privilege of going into the Oval Office, being part of that corps, 13 press pool members and not every outlet has the ability to go in there every single day like the Associated Press has for decades. It’s a privilege. We’re opening up that privilege to other outlets who deserve a seat at that table.
Kurtz made clear his feelings about the pool from the top of the show, explaining the press and White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) were right to be “up in arms about a major change to the White House pool” because “White House officials will grant this privilege mainly to friendly reporters who have sympathetic questions.”
He also argued the WHCA should remain in power of who gets access to the President because “the big media companies pay most of the charges for flying on Air Force One[.]”
At another point, Kurtz brought up the press pool and said she could be looking to bar “legacy media outlets as part of the pool, largely picking friendly reporters who will ask friendly question.”
Leavitt said she’d “have to fundamentally disagree” noted two of their more recent poolers were vehemently anti-Trump outlets in The Independent and the Los Angeles Times on the print side and CNN as a TV pooler (on both Friday and Saturday).
“This is not about revoking the right of — of biased news organizations to be in the Oval Office or to cover this President. It’s simply about ending the monetized monopoly that the White House Correspondents’ Association has had over press coverage at the White House...The [WHCA] began more than 100 years ago. Certainly, the media and digital age has changed since the nine — early nineteen hundreds and we are simply trying to reflect that change,” she added.
Kurtz then defended the WHCA against claims of being “an elite group” because “its members are elected by the press corps at large to represent their interests and also there’s the question of who pays for flights on Air Force One as “a lot of people don’t know that the reporters are charged for that.”
Leavitt addressed both plus whether she still believes legacy media outlets have a role in the press corps (click “expand”):
LEAVITT: They are, yes, and they will continue to be. In terms of the issues that the White House Correspondents’ Association has since raised, saying that the Trump White House won’t be able to handle the logistics of this is frankly laughable to us. Because many of us inside of the Trump White House were just on President Trump’s historic campaign. There was no White House Correspondents’ Association helping us with that press coverage.
KURTZ: Right.
LEAVITT: We were putting together seven rallies a day across the country in multiple locations, and the press were traveling with us everywhere we went, so our team is well-equipped to burden these logistical challenges and we’ve already been doing that for several days throughout this week and we’ve opened up that access up to new voices while also maintaining the respect for the legacy media who have invested resources and who have covered this White House for decades —
KURTZ: Yeah.
LEAVITT: — and we respect that.
KURTZ: You’ve rightly pointed out that the President provides endless access to the mainstream media. I mean, he makes news, you know, 10 times a day.
LEAVITT: Every second.
KURTZ: Okay, but he’s continued to do a number of podcasts as he did during the campaign. So, are the old-line news outlets much less important now from your point of view?
LEAVITT: I think that they have a different place in this digital landscape and I think we need to recognize that Americans are consuming their news in very different ways than just tuning in to cable television at night and President Trump recognizes that as well, but very much —
KURTZ: You don’t have a problem with tuning into cable, I hope.
LEAVITT: — no, no, trust me, I have cable on my office at the White House all day every day.
Kurtz closed by jokingly saying she “clearly [went] too far and cross[ed] the line in saying that you and the President are having fun, but the media don’t want you to have fun.”
Leavitt clapped back that “we are having fun” while “the media are having a hard time covering a President who is genuinely having fun when they do have an inherent bias against him” that’s “ingrained in their own personal opinions of the President.”
To see the relevant FNC transcript from March 2, click here.
