As we previously reported, a federal judge gave the Associated Press a lifeline last Tuesday in their case against the Trump administration, granting a preliminary injunction that restored, for the time being, their press access to the Oval Office and East Room, where they'd previously been banned in a dispute over usage of the term "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. The Constitution requires no less," U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a 2017 Trump appointee, wrote in his ruling.
However, McFadden also noted that "But this injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the Government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events." Further, he wrote, "It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the President or nonpublic government spaces."
Even after the ruling, the White House still excluded the Associated Press from Oval Office pressers, further outraging The Usual Suspects.
But perhaps seeing the opening in the ruling that the judge gave them, the Trump White House has now formally responded accordingly by changing the rules for wire service access, which more or less puts the AP back to square one:
Reporters from the three leading wire service organizations that regularly cover the White House — The Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg — will no longer share a rotating spot in the White House pool under new guidelines released by the administration Tuesday.
All three organizations will now be included in the larger group of print media organizations that are eligible to be part of the pool, usually about a dozen journalists who can attend events with limited space such as the signing of executive orders in the Oval Office or travel with the president on Air Force One. The change was first reported by the New York Post.
[...]
The loss of the privileged wire service position for the pool means that the AP, Reuters and Bloomberg would generally have less access to the president.
Just sent: The White House has already removed the Wire spot from the pool lineup.
— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) April 16, 2025
There is no wire service represented in a print reporting slot tomorrow. The new secondary print slot went to The Heritage Foundation’s publication (The Daily Signal) pic.twitter.com/aDZHg8LU9j
Naturally, the AP is already clutching pearls, and demanding McFadden once again intervene:
“The new policy abandons the longstanding role of wire services, which have been included in the pool since its inception to assure that White House reporting reaches the broadest possible audience in the United States and around the globe as quickly and reliably as possible,” the AP wrote to McFadden in its filing. “This change marks the latest reduction in wire service participation, which the White House continues to use as a pretext for targeting the AP.”
There was also this statement:
Statement from the AP: “The administration’s actions continue to disregard the fundamental American freedom to speak without government control or retaliation. This is a grave disservice to the American people.” https://t.co/OZzNpiX2gM pic.twitter.com/xh8F5lVPqi
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) April 16, 2025
Previously, the Trump White House explained why their actions towards the AP were about more than just their refusal to use "Gulf of America" as the official term for the body of water formerly known as the "Gulf of Mexico":
President Trump’s decision to limit AP reporters' access is as much fight over the Gulf of America as it is a protest of what White House advisers say is years of liberal word choices that AP’s influential stylebook has spread across mainstream mediahttps://t.co/H7hJrsY44r
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) February 17, 2025
As I've written before, outside of their media colleagues and Democrat sycophants, few people are shedding tears over the AP's predicament, considering its notorious history of one-sided "journalism." Whatever the ultimate outcome of this case ends up being, Trump and his team are (rightly) shining a mega-spotlight on a big problem with the AP over the fact that they really aren't neutral observers and recounters of current (and past) events and haven't been for quite some time.
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