The Deep End of the Pool
On Wednesday morning, The Associated Press returned to court—again—in its ongoing fight to rejoin the White House press pool, the group of reporters granted access to cover smaller events on behalf of the broader press corps. A federal court last week had ordered Donald Trump’s White House to reinstate the AP’s access within five days, but that deadline came and went without action.
Instead, the administration took a new tack: On Tuesday, it announced that it had eliminated the wire service seat in the pool altogether. The move was a not-so-subtle trick designed to sidestep the court order by barring all wire services—not just the AP—thus claiming neutrality while continuing to shut out the Julie Pace-led newsroom.
“Specifically, the new policy abolishes the wire service seat that the White House itself established on February 25, replacing it with a second print reporter seat for which wire services are ostensibly eligible – but the AP was immediately skipped over for that second print seat,” the AP wrote in its latest filing to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Moreover, AP photographers are still excluded from the four photo seats, which continue to be assigned exclusively to AFP, Getty, The New York Times, and Reuters. The AP therefore requests the Court’s immediate assistance in enforcing its Injunction Order.”
While the AP waits for its court hearing, which is scheduled for this Friday, the Trump administration is continuing to make a mockery out of the White House press pool—long overseen by the independent White House Correspondents’ Association. On Wednesday…
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FCC chair Brendan Carr. (Photo by Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)
Carr vs. Comcast: Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr turned to X on Wednesday to yet again pick on Comcast. Carr blasted the Brian Roberts-led company, which he has already launched an absurd D.E.I. investigation into, for supposedly “misleading the American public” by way of its coverage of how Donald Trump wrongly deported a Maryland man accused of no actual crimes. In his X post, Carr…
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