#press-access
2 entries with this tag
The White House Counsel Sent Politico a Letter Giving It 48 Hours to Retract Three Stories About Chief of Staff Susie Wiles or Face an "Immediate Review" of Its White House Access and "Available Legal Remedies" — While the Administration Floated Moving the Entire Press Corps Out of the Building and Restoring the Briefing Room to Its Old Use as a Swimming Pool; Politico Corrected the One Error It Found and Refused the Rest
In late October 2026, the Trump White House escalated its campaign against the press from exclusion to coercion. On October 19, White House Counsel Will Scharf wrote to Politico's global editor-in-chief, Jonathan Greenberger, demanding that the outlet retract or correct three stories about Chief of Staff Susie Wiles within 48 hours — warning that noncompliance would trigger an "immediate review" of Politico's relationship with the White House and "consideration of available legal remedies." That a government lawyer, whose duty runs to the Constitution, would threaten a news organization's access and hint at legal action over unflattering coverage is a direct inversion of the First Amendment. Politico did not capitulate: its attorney, Theodore Boutrous, said the outlet "categorically rejects the false accusations," had reexamined all three articles, concluded exactly one warranted a correction and corrected it, and said the demand "further confirms the unlawful retaliatory and viewpoint discriminatory motives" behind the administration's September ban of Politico, CNN, and MS NOW. At the same time, the New York Times reported the administration was weighing moving the entire White House press corps out of the building — with Trump floating restoring the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room to its original use as a swimming pool. Together the two moves describe the project plainly: the press is to be corrected, relocated, or removed until coverage of the White House is coverage the White House controls.
The New White House Press Secretary, Katie Zacharia, Debuted With a Roughly 14-Minute, Heavily Scripted Briefing That Took Questions From Only Three Friendly Outlets — Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail — the Daily Government Briefing Now Reduced to a Short, Curated Event After the Administration Banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico and the Television Pool Walked Out; the Rocky Personal Debut Made the Headlines, but the Hollowing-Out of the Briefing Itself Is the Real Story
On October 13, 2026, Katie Zacharia — the new White House press secretary, the 37th, who replaced Karoline Leavitt — held her first briefing. The coverage fixated on how it went for her personally: it ran only about 14 minutes (Fox's Bill Hemmer noted the clock on air), much of it a prepared statement on Trump's midterm rallies and economic and border messaging, and she drew mockery for a nervous slip in which she referred to her husband as "my president," along with visible reliance on her notes. Critics called it a train wreck; defenders fairly noted it was essentially her first day on the job, and the "bombs" framing is the critics' verdict, not a neutral one. A rough first briefing is not, by itself, a scandal; everyone has a first day. What belongs in a record of this administration is not Zacharia's nerves but the shape of the event she was handed. She took questions for roughly five and a half minutes, from exactly three outlets — Breitbart, Fox News, and the Daily Mail, all friendly to the administration. That is not an accident of her debut; it is the current design. The briefing did not simply shrink — it had largely gone dark: Karoline Leavitt left the podium at the end of August, and for roughly six weeks the White House had no press secretary and no regular briefings at all, filling the gap only with occasional sessions led by Vice President JD Vance and Attorney General Todd Blanche. After the White House banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, and the five-network television pool suspended coverage in protest, the daily briefing — once the central venue where the free press questions the government on the public's behalf — has been pared down into a brief, controlled appearance before a hand-picked, sympathetic audience. (For scale: Leavitt's briefings averaged about 45 minutes; Zacharia's ran under 15.) The new press secretary's debut is notable less for how she performed than for what the performance now consists of.