‘You Can’t F*ck Around With That’: Megyn Kelly Warns ‘We’re on Dangerous Ground’ With Trump White House Choosing Press Pool

SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly expressed her concern over the Trump administration’s decision to dictate which reporters are assigned to the White House press pool on Thursday, arguing that “you can’t fuck around” with something so important.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Tuesday that the administration intended to strip the White House Correspondents’ Association of its responsibility of determining who is part of the pool on a daily basis and take on the task itself.

“Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team. Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join, fear not, but we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility,” said Leavitt at a press briefing. “Just like we added

a new media seat in this briefing room, legacy media outlets who have been here for years will still participate in the pool, but new voices are going to be welcomed in as well. As part of these changes, we will continue the rotation amongst the five major television networks to ensure the president’s remarks are heard far and wide around this world.”

On Thursday, Kelly explained why she was “uncomfortable” with the new arrangement during a segment with guest Buck Sexton.

“The pool reporting job is very important. It’s you know, the pool was-, is the reason we saw Ronald Reagan get shot. They were covering Ronald Reagan — I mean, he wasn’t doing anything extraordinary that day –but pool is there because they always have eyes on the president. Pool was there covering even, you know, President Trump when he got shot before he actually got reelected in Butler, Pennsylvania. Pool has to be there. And as a former reporter at Fox News — and I did White House duty when I was in my very young years there, here and there — pool is like a serious responsibility. You can’t fuck up pool, like you really do have to get it right,” she began before continuing:

And typically the media will decide who can do pool because it’s very expensive and everybody understands it’s important that you get somebody in

there who’s really going to tell you what happened. So I will say for the record, I don’t know how I feel about the White House saying, ‘We’re now going to decide who’s in pool.’ It’s not the same as saying ‘We’re going to bring in new voices to the press briefing room.’ I love all that, but I actually happen to believe the media should decide who’s in pool, like, because it’s a matter of resources. Just the TV lane alone, and they seem to be saying TV will not change, TV will decide who is doing TV, but the number of wires you’ve got to get in there to get the cameras ready. Getting an experienced photog in there to make sure he gets moments like, God forbid, there’s a presidential assassination attempt. Like you can’t fuck around with that. You need true pros who have got a lot of experience, you know, setting up a shot, being ready for breaking news. I speak only from the TV realm because that’s the one I know. I got questions about this before I really endorse it or criticize it.

Sexton, on the other hand praised Trump’s senior staff, arguing that “these are very talented people” who “should be given the ability to handle it their way.

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Still, Kelly’s worries weren’t assuaged:

Well let me ask you this, Buck. The other thing about this that makes me somewhat uncomfortable. And I’m all for pushing back on a left-wing bias, I don’t have to prove that to anybody. But I do think the independence of the press is important. I realize the press has lost its mind, but it’s written right into the Bill of Rights that yeah, a free press is one of our most fundamental values, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the White House saying, ‘This is who will cover me. This is who I will allow to cover me at all.’ It’s one thing to say to the AP, ‘F you, you don’t-, you’ve lost your right to be in these intimate spaces.’ But there is a difference in saying, ‘We will decide, not you members of the press who gets to come into every space and ask questions of the president.’ I mean, we could be in a Democratic administration next, where they’re like ‘Nobody other than MSNBC and, you know, the the AP can have access and ask questions.’

“I think your example there is, though, what we’ve what we’ve dealt with with all Democrat administrations, which is that you effectively have regime, you

have the regime picking regime media to cover the regime,” replied Sexton.

“Yes, but Fox is always in there. Fox is always in there,” pointed out Kelly. “And listen, this White House, they haven’t thrown out all left-wing media. It’s almost still the pools that they want, dominant, left-wing media. I’m just saying the principle of it, if we’re going to discuss the principle of it, we’re on dangerous ground here.”