Mike Allen Pushes Karoline Leavitt On White House Punishing the AP: They ‘Reach Half the World’s Population’
Axios co-founder Mike Allen interviewed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday and asked about the White House’s punishing of the Associated Press after its style guide did not adopt the “Gulf of America” name change.
“You have curtailed access to the Associated Press, which reaches half the world’s population every day. The most definitive photo of President Trump, the fight, fight, fight photo after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was made by Evan Vucci, who’s the chief photographer in Washington for the Associated Press. Do you worry about history being lost with these new restrictions?” Allen asked.
“I don’t view them as restrictions, we view them as opening access to more outlets, more voices, more news journalists and outlets. We shouldn’t have a few outlets who have a monopoly over the briefing room or over that 13-person press pool that covers the president,” Leavitt replied, adding:
And so we’ve actually ensured that more print outlets, like Axios, have a greater chance of being part of that 13-person press pool. There are thousands of outlets who have White House press credentials, there are hundreds that actually show up every day and cover the beat. Why should a single outlet have the privilege of being in that 13-person press pool every single day?
And so the changes we’ve made have actually created more transparency, more accessibility and greater access for a broad variety of outlets and a diversity of journalists, which I think is a good thing and we’ve seen that play out. I mean we started this, I think you’re all still getting your news, right? You’re still hearing about what the administration is doing every single day because we have good journalists who are in that room covering the president every single time.
“The counter to that is in a White House Correspondents Association statement about the White House changes to the position of wire services in the pool. And the statement says the government should not be able to control the independent media that covers it. Do you agree with that statement?” Allen pressed.
“Well, I think that a small group of journalists who comprise the board of the White House Correspondents Association should not dictate who gets to go into the Oval Office and who gets to ride on Air Force One. There should be equal access for all outlets, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Leavitt pushed back, adding:
And if we were trying, by the way, to create positive press for the President, if we were trying to make it easier on him or on the administration, we wouldn’t allow some of these fake news leftist outlets in, but we continue to do that. No one has been restricted, we’ve just given more spots to more outlets and more voices.
It’s not about ideology, it’s just about increasing the wide array of outlets that have access. And we live in a digital age and we’re recognizing that at the White House. The president ran a non-traditional media campaign which propelled him back to the highest office in the land. We felt it was our responsibility to continue that in our coverage at the White House.
In early April, a federal judge ruled that the White House must restore the AP’s full access to the White House. “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,” U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, a Trump appointee, wrote. “The Constitution requires no less.”
Watch the clip above via C-SPAN.
