The move, which affects The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Reuters, is another effort by the Trump administration to exert more control over the press corps that covers it.
The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would no longer reserve a regular slot in the presidential press pool for three independent newswires that have participated for decades, including The Associated Press.
The move is the latest effort by the White House to exert more control over the dedicated press corps that reports on its day-to-day activities. It was also a new wrinkle in an unfolding legal battle with The A.P., whose journalists have been barred for the past two months from covering small-scale events with the president.
A federal judge said last week that the White House had to restore full access to A.P. journalists, ruling that the administration’s ban amounted to a violation of the First Amendment. The White House has appealed, and a hearing is set for Thursday.
The presidential press pool is a small, rotating group of reporters who are granted access to more intimate events with the president, such as Oval Office receptions, and relay the proceedings to other journalists and the broader public. It is a logistical accommodation for smaller spaces that cannot fit dozens of reporters, and an opportunity for journalists to interact up close with the president and ask him direct questions.
In February, breaking decades of bipartisan precedent, the administration said it would begin handpicking the members of the pool, wresting control from the independent White House Correspondents’ Association, which decried the move. “In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps,” the group said at the time.
