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The White House has said it will select the journalists allowed to have the closest access to Donald Trump, stripping that choice from a body of reporters that for decades has decided who participates in the “pool” that covers US presidents.
The move was announced by Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, during a briefing on Tuesday in which she said her team would “determine who gets to enjoy the very privileged and limited access in spaces such as Air Force One and the Oval Office”.
“We are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch your television shows and listen to your radio stations,” Leavitt said, saying the move was designed to bring in “new voices” to cover Trump in addition to “legacy media” organisations.
Trump later told reporters, “we’re going to be calling those shots”.
Leavitt’s push overturns the current system, in which the White House Correspondents’ Association, a body of reporters that has existed since 1914, sets up a rotation of outlets to be part of the pool.
The group has the closest access to US presidents in Washington and on domestic and overseas trips.
“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” the White House Correspondents’ Association, whose members include Financial Times reporters, said on Tuesday.
“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.”
The step will add to concerns that Trump is moving quickly to undermine some of the fundamental norms and institutions of US democracy.
The White House has already taken steps to take more control of independent agencies of the government, purge the civil service of any dissenting staffers and fire officials appointed by former president Joe Biden.
Trump has a history of criticising traditional media organisations throughout his political career, labelling them as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”.
In the early months of Trump’s second term, the White House has moved to exclude the Associated Press from access to the “pool” because of its refusal to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.
Trump had instructed the US government to adopt the new name soon after he re-entered the White House.
The AP has sued the White House to restore its access to the pool based on the constitutional right to free speech. However, on Monday a federal judge ruled in Trump’s favour for now, saying the AP was not facing “irreparable harm” from its lack of participation in the pool.
Despite the ongoing nature of the litigation, Leavitt cheered the judge’s ruling, saying it reinforced the notion that asking questions of the president in limited spaces was “a privilege that, unfortunately, has only been granted to a few” and was “not a legal right for all”.
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