White House Censoring Embarrassing Pool Reports of Trump

Source: The New Republic

White House Censoring Embarrassing Pool Reports of Trump
Trump is still continuing his war on the White House press pool.


Donald Trump speaks to reporters outside the White House.
PAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

In its latest attack on the free press, the Trump administration is withholding pool reports that make it look bad. ... Two recent dispatches from White House pool reporters, a rotating group of reporters designated to cover the president and share information with the rest of the press corps, never made it public, Status reported Wednesday. (1)

On Tuesday evening, Dallas Morning News reporter Joseph Gordon, who was in the pool that day, sent a standard email noting that reporters were following Trump to a dinner but that two photographers from the Associated Press were “turned away from joining the pool.” The pool report never made it to news outlets, Gordon later learned. In February, the Associated Press was banned from the White House press pool for refusing to adopt Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, but a judge ordered the White House to lift the ban Tuesday. (2), (3)

Also earlier this week, Philip Wegman of RealClearPolitics sent a report noting the abrupt cancellation of a joint press conference with Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That report also never made it to press, Status reported. ... The White House press pool is essential to distributing information to news outlets across the country, and the censorship of its reports marks yet another attempt by the Trump administration to control journalists. In February, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Trump’s press team would take over the press pool and determine which journalists get to travel with the president, declaring the job “a privilege, not a legal right.” (4)

The announcement broke decades of historical precedent and marked the beginning of unparalleled hostility between the White House and reporters. Trump, Leavitt, and other MAGA members have since tried a number of ways to control the media and avoid being held accountable for their attack on democracy—it looks like censoring pool reports is their next attempt to do so.

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(1) https://www.status.news/p/white-house-censors-pool-reports

(2) https://newrepublic.com/post/191566/donald-trump-ban-ap-gulf-america-mexico

(3) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/08/judge-orders-white-house-restore-associated-press-access

(4) https://newrepublic.com/post/191974/donald-trump-press-secretary-karoline-leavitt-white-house-press

Read more: https://newrepublic.com/post/193845/white-house-censor-pool-reports-trump