The White House has said it will decide which reporters get access to US President Donald Trump in intimate settings such as the Oval Office, a move that some warn could be “dangerous” for the future of American democracy.
For decades, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), an independent group of journalists, has overseen the rotating pool of reporters that is granted access to the US president when space is limited.
However, White House White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Tuesday that the Trump administration will end this system.
“The White House press team, in this administration, will determine who gets to enjoy the very privileged and limited access in spaces such as Air Force One and the Oval Office,” Leavitt said.
Trump’s press secretary attempted to justify the decision as a modernising move.
“A select group of DC-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly of press access at the White House,” she told reporters.
“It’s beyond time that the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025, not 1925,” she added.
Her announcement came the day after a Trump-appointed judge refused a request from the Associated Press to be reinstated to pooled presidential events.
The Trump administration barred the news agency from having reporters on Air Force One and in the Oval Office due to its decision to continue using “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America”.
Trump, who ordered the name change early in his second presidential term, has tied the AP court case to the press pool decision announced by Leavitt on Tuesday.
“We’re going to be now calling those shots,” Trump said.
Media experts are troubled by the development, since it gives Trump the power to choose who covers him.
Jon Marshall, a media history professor at Northwestern University, described the change as “a dangerous move for democracy”.
Meanwhile, Eugene Daniels, the president of the WHCA, said that the decision “tears at the independence of a free press in the United States”.
Peter Baker, a journalist at the New York Times, also criticised the move.
“Every president of both parties going back generations subscribed to the principle that a president doesn’t pick the press corps that is allowed in the room to ask him questions,” he tweeted. “Trump has just declared that he will.”
