The Associated Press complained Monday that the White House did not allow its photographer and reporter to attend an Oval Office meeting with President Trump and El Salvador’s leader Nayib Bukele, despite a court order to reinstate its access.
Last week, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the White House to restore access to the wire service that had been blocked because the wire service declined to change its style guidance from “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.”
“Our journalists were blocked from the Oval Office today,” an AP spokesperson told The Post. “We expect the White House to restore AP’s participation in the pool as of today, as provided in the injunction order.”
The lower court order had been paused for five days until Monday to allow time for an appeal to be filed. Trump’s team is appealing the ruling to the US Court of Appeals for the DC circuit and is slated to face a hearing on Thursday.
DC US District Judge Trevor McFadden, whom Trump appointed in 2017, declined to delay his order from taking effect Tuesday despite a request from the Trump administration to give more time for an appeal.
The AP, whose style guidance is used in newsrooms across the country, had first been barred from the Oval Office in February and has been battling the administration in court ever since.
Before the second Trump administration, the AP enjoyed special daily access to the White House pool, a select group of reporters that gets more intimate access to the president at events with restricted access for other reporters.
Most reporters get into the White House pool on a rotational basis, but the AP and fellow wire services Reuters and Bloomberg used to enjoy daily access to the pool.
Trump’s team changed that during his second term and condensed what used to be three slots for the wire services into one spot that rotates daily. They used that to make room for “new media” positions.
Additionally, the Trump administration has since injected itself into the pool assignment process, which used to be handled by the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), and has removed reporters it doesn’t want in the mix
AP still has not garnered access to the rotating wire slot in the White House pool since the ban.
Last Tuesday, McFadden determined that the White House doesn’t have to invite the AP to every event but needs to give it similar access that it provides to other outlets.
“The Court simply holds that under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists—be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere—it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution requires no less,” McFadden wrote in a 41-page ruling.
McFadden also clarified that “the AP is not necessarily entitled to the ‘first in line every time’ permanent press pool access it enjoyed under the WHCA” but contended “it cannot be treated worse than its peer wire services either.”
The Post contacted the White House for comment.
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