The Trump administration has conveniently restricted access to the Associated Press and other wire services after finding a way to comply with a federal judge’s order.
The loophole exploited by the White House, as the New York Post reported Tuesday, came a week after U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ordered the administration to include the AP in the press pool once again. The administration had banned it for refusing to publish Trump’s preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico: the “Gulf of America.”
“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,” McFadden wrote then. “The Constitution requires no less.”
An outlet’s viewpoint was no cause to restrict its access, added McFadden, who also wrote that the AP “cannot be treated worse that its peer wire services.”
The White House has decided to effectively punish two other wires—Reuters and Bloomberg—by equating their level of access with the AP’s.
Rather than giving the wires guaranteed access, the White House is instead providing a second, rotating opening to print journalists. According to the Post, “print” now means wire reporters.
A senior White House official told the outlet that “the makeup of the pool is far more reflective of the media habits of the American people in 2025. They added: “The White House press policy continues to be grounded in fairness for all outlets that wish to cover the White House.”
Yet the White House, which admitted it won’t even engage with reporters who use pronouns in their bio, also has been censoring pool reports it deems unflattering, Status News reported last week.
The Trump administration has denied doing so.
“The White House does not intentionally withhold any pool reports,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history.”
In February, the White House took control of how reporters would be chosen to follow the president via the press pool. The White House Correspondents Association vehemently opposed the move, with New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker writing that it reminded him “of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access.”
Trump has called the press the “enemy of the people” for reporting he deems unsatisfactory. Just yesterday, he snapped at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for asking about a Maryland man his administration admittedly deported by mistake but has refused to return to the states.
Collins, Trump said, should just praise his immigration record instead.
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