White House Restricts Media Access to Trump Cabinet Meeting, Barring AP and Reuters

WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) – The White House on Wednesday barred reporters from Reuters and other major news organizations from covering President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting of his second term, enforcing a new media access policy.

Reporters from the Associated Press, Reuters, HuffPost, and Der Tagesspiegel, a German newspaper, were denied entry. However, TV crews from ABC and Newsmax, alongside correspondents from Axios, The Blaze, Bloomberg News, and NPR, were allowed to attend.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced that the White House would now control which media outlets could cover the president in smaller spaces, such as the Oval Office, shifting away from the traditional White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA)-managed press pool system.

For decades, the AP, Bloomberg, and Reuters have been permanent members of the White House press pool, which rotates coverage among select television, radio, wire, print, and photojournalists to ensure broad access to presidential events.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that while traditional media organizations will continue day-to-day coverage, the administration is revising press access in smaller venues. She added that major cable and broadcast networks will retain their rotating seats, while new streaming platforms and radio hosts will also be included.

In response to the policy change, the three major wire services—AP, Bloomberg, and Reuters—issued a joint statement emphasizing the importance of press access:

"It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press."

The WHCA also condemned the decision, while HuffPost called it a violation of the First Amendment.

The move follows the administration’s recent decision to bar the Associated Press from the White House press pool after it refused to adopt the term "Gulf of America" instead of "Gulf of Mexico" in its reporting.

Der Tagesspiegel has not yet responded to requests for comment.

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