You really can’t make this stuff up. The very same press corps that spent years clutching its pearls over Trump’s “threats to democracy” is now in full meltdown mode—why? Because they just lost their grip on the White House press pool.
During Tuesday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered the bombshell that the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) would no longer be the sole gatekeepers of press access to the Trump administration. The White House itself will now determine which journalists are included in the press pool.
Scoop @PuckNews: Politico White House correspondent and WHCA President @EugeneDaniels2 is leaving Politico to join MSNBC, where he will co-host a weekend roundtable show.
— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) February 25, 2025
Leavitt didn’t hold back:
“It’s beyond time that the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025, not 1925,” she stated. “A select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House.”
And just in case the legacy media was hyperventilating, she added:
“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.”
Now, let’s be real: this was long overdue. For decades, the WHCA has controlled which media outlets got access to the White House, effectively deciding which voices were considered “legitimate” and which weren’t. The result? The same old players—CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the rest of the Beltway press—monopolized coverage while smaller, independent, and conservative outlets were pushed to the sidelines.
Unsurprisingly, the WHCA did not take the news well. Its president, Politico’s Eugene Daniels, rushed out a statement warning that the move would “tear at the independence of a free press.”
“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States. It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”
And just like that, the same people who spent the last several years insisting that “private organizations” (like Twitter, before Musk) had the absolute right to control who got access to their platforms are suddenly outraged that a government institution is making its own access decisions.
But here’s where it gets really funny. Almost immediately after Daniels’ statement went out, MSNBC—aka “MSDNC”—broke the news that the WHCA had been secretly lobbying the Biden White House for months to block conservative media outlets from gaining access. So much for “independent journalism.”
The same day everybody is defending the WHCA as some impartial bastion of integrity holding public officials accountable, its President announces he is going to MSNBC.
Just perfect.
— I’m Writing in Gary Johnson (@colorblindk1d) February 25, 2025
