The White House removed The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg from President Donald Trump’s traveling press pool on Thursday, two days after Trump berated the reporter during a tense Oval Office exchange.
Feinberg was scheduled to cover Trump’s trip to Sioux City, Iowa, but was informed Wednesday that he would no longer serve as the designated print pool reporter, according to Semafor’s Max Tani. The White House Correspondents’ Association condemned the decision as retaliation amid a separate legal fight over the administration’s restrictions on press access.
“The White House Correspondents’ Association strongly objects to the decision to restrict a journalist’s coverage simply because the president didn’t care for their questioning,” WHCA President Jacqui Heinrich said in a Wednesday statement.
“That is retaliation,” Heinrich added. “The American public’s right to an independent press depends on reporters being able to do their jobs without fear that challenging the president will cut off their access.”
The decision followed a contentious exchange Tuesday, when Feinberg questioned Trump about a proposed administration program offering financial rewards to whistleblowers who expose government fraud. Vice President JD Vance accused Feinberg of asking a “fundamentally dishonest question,” while Trump warned the reporter, “I don’t know who the hell you are, but you better be careful.”
Later, when Feinberg attempted to ask another question about Trump’s golf courses, the president told him to be quiet and called him a “sick person.”
In a statement to TheWrap on Thursday, a White House official defended the administration’s authority to restrict journalists’ access to presidential facilities.
“No person and no journalist has a constitutional right to access the President’s Oval Office, Air Force One, or other sensitive and private facilities,” they stated. “When publications lie, fabricate and ignore the truth, proximity matters less and they can write their fiction from outside of these secure facilities.”
The exclusion comes amid a separate legal battle over White House press restrictions involving CNN, MS NOW and Politico. As TheWrap previously reported, the Trump administration appealed a federal judge’s ruling last week blocking its efforts to revoke the three outlets’ White House credentials.
The injunction restored their access to White House grounds but did not guarantee participation in presidential press pools or travel aboard Air Force One. Feinberg’s removal is not part of that lawsuit.
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