On Tuesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sent shockwaves down the paper-thin spines of the White House press corps as she declared the end of the press pool as we know it and that the administration, not the smarmy White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), would determine the rotation of reporters who’d accompany the President in tighter confines, such as the Oval Office and on Air Force One.
Leavitt led into this with more bad news for the liberal media, which was her reaction to a federal judge denying “Associated Press’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order against” her and two colleagues for kicking them out of the pool for their refusal to relabel the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
She correctly pointed out the pool and its perks are “a privilege that unfortunately has only been granted to a few” and “not,” despite what they assert, “a legal right for all.”
This led directly into her insistence that the pool — made up of one correspondent each from print, radio, and TV, the three wire services (AP, Bloomberg, and Reuters), and three photojournalists — would be expanded to ensure “new outlets to have a chance...to cover this administration’s unprecedented achievements up close, front and center.”
She provided those watching with a brief history lesson, including the elitist WHCA’s stranglehold on whomever they view as legitimate. Even in her announcement, she made clear such outlets would still be part of the rotation (click “expand”):
As you all know, for decades, a group of D.C..-based journalists, the White House Correspondents Association, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the President of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not anymore. I am proud to announce that we are going to give the power back to the people who read your papers, who watch television shows and listen to your radio stations. Moving forward, the White House press pool will be determined by the White House press team. 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. Just like we added a new media seat in this Briefing Room, legacy media outlets who have been here for years will still participate in the pool, but new voices are going to be welcomed in as well. As part of these changes, we will continue the rotation amongst the five major television networks to ensure the President’s remarks are heard far and wide around this field. We will add additional streaming services that will reach different audiences than traditional cable and broadcast. This is the ever-changing landscape of the media in the United States today. We will continue to rotate a print pooler, who has the responsibility of quickly describing the President’s remarks and disseminating them to the rest of the world. We will add outlets to the print pool rotation who have long been denied the privilege to partake in this experience but are committed to covering this White House beat. We will continue to rotate a radio pooler and at other radio hosts who have been denied access, especially local radio hosts to serve as the heartbeat for our country. And we will add additional outlets and reporters were well-suited to cover the news of the day and ask substantive questions of the President of the United States depending on the news he is making of a given day.
Before shifting to the latest new media seat recipient (Semafor’s Shelby Talcott, formerly with the Daily Caller) and their questions about Venezuela and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Leavitt reminded the smug liberal wannabe celebrities that “it is beyond time that the White House press operation reflects the media habits of the American people in 2025, not 1925” and thus “[a] select group of D.C.-based journalists should no longer have a monopoly over the privilege of press access at the White House.”
“All journalists, outlets, and voices deserve a seat at this highly coveted table. Deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day-to-day basis, the White House will be restoring power to the American people who President Trump was elected to serve,” she concluded.
This sent off a shockwave of angry tweets. Along with WHCA President Eugene Daniels (a flaming Politico progressive and incoming MSNBC host), those enraged included The New York Times’s Peter Baker (and his wife Susan Glasser of The New Yorker), former NBC host Chuck Todd, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell, NPR’s Tamara Keith, PBS’s Amna Nawaz, carnival barker Brian Karem, CNN’s Brian Stelter, and yes, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich to name a few.
After Talcott, the aforementioned Heinrich had an exchange about DOGE and Elon Musk’s basic e-mail to federal workers to respond with what they accomplished in the previous week:
JACQUI TIME: “So, about the deadline. Alina Habba said that you have until tonight. Elon Musk said a failure to respond a second time would result in termination. SO, is that a real deadline? Should — should federal workers be working to that guidance, or should they be looking… pic.twitter.com/ZH7Jr6YeuO
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 25, 2025
In a series of follow-ups, she asked Leavitt to confirm an NBC News report claiming the e-mail response would be fed through an artificial intelligence tool to judge the necessity of their job and then whether she believes Musk should hire a spokesperson.
Real America’s Voice host and longtime radio talk show host John Fredericks was next and invited her to expand upon both the AP case and the arrogance of the WHCA
.@JFRadioShow: “In the ruling by Judge McFadden yesterday who dismissed the lawsuit that AP brought against yourself and — and your — your team members here, President Trump, in there, he said why not just do away with the entire White House Correspondents Association along with… pic.twitter.com/MxzOrfyTev
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 25, 2025
A few minutes later, Daily Caller’s Reagan Reese wondered if the resumption of border wall construction meant new federal contracts would be opened up and then a crucial question no one else in the room had brought up concerning Homeland Security investigations into leaks about Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids (click “expand”):
REESE: And on the DHS investigation into people who might be leaking within the administration. Will the White House released the names of the individuals that DHS Secretary Noem said were caught leaking details of the ICE raid and can you share how many have been caught so far and what agency they were part of?
LEAVITT: I would defer for you to DHS on the leakers that they have identified, but I know the President and this White House commend Secretary Noem for an internal investigation to identify those leakers because it’s unacceptable for career bureaucrats who are standing in the way of the will of the American people in enacting President Trump’s agenda. If they don’t want to adhere to the will of the 77 million Americans who’ve reelected President Trump, then they should go find another job. And if, they continue to leak information, especially with that which is critical to protecting Border Patrol agenda and ICE agents who are out there doing jobs that not many people are willing to do, put their lives on the line to protect national security, then those individuals absolutely should be fired and this administration is committed to finding them.
The Washington Post’s Jacqueline Alemany was next and went the other way, expressing sympathy for illegal immigrants sent to the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
The Washington Post’s @JaxAlemany: “I wanted to get your response to some Washington Post reporting of the migrants who stayed over at Guantanamo Bay for the last two weeks. They told The Post they were rarely led outside, shackled and placed in what they described as cages, and… pic.twitter.com/qsbMdLWa5n
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 25, 2025
Newsmax’s James Rosen later brought up the rear in being granted the final questions of the briefing and he certainly didn’t waste it with this necessary line of questioning about negotiations to end the war in Ukraine triggered by Russia’s invasion of the sovereign nation.
To see the relevant transcript from the February 25 transcript, click here.
