The Associated Press accused the Trump administration of illegally blocking it from covering President Donald Trump’s remarks in the Oval Office on Monday.
The outlet was initially blocked in connection with its refusal to comply with the president’s executive order renaming the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America” in its stylebook. Exclusion on such a basis would violate a recent court order that ruled the Trump administration could not block the AP from accessing press events over disagreements surrounding “Gulf of America” language.
“Our journalists were blocked from the Oval Office today. We expect the White House to restore AP’s participation in the pool as of today, as provided in the injunction order,” a spokesperson for the news agency told the Washington Examiner. The Oval Office event on Monday was Trump’s meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.
It is unclear whether the exclusion was due to the Gulf of America disagreement or changes made to the press pool to allow more independent media to cover intimate White House affairs, including Oval Office events.
The White House did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
As part of those changes, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced in February that the AP and two other legacy news wires, Bloomberg and Reuters, which had each previously enjoyed a dedicated spot in the pool, would begin rotating a single seat to open up spots for other media.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES TAKEOVER OF PRESS ROTATION FOR WHITE HOUSE EVENTS
The recent court order followed the AP’s February lawsuit against members of the Trump administration over its lack of access, arguing that the exclusion violated the First Amendment.
A Washington D.C. judge agreed with the newswire, handing down a ruling earlier this month that “under the First Amendment, if the Government opens its doors to some journalists — be it to the Oval Office, the East Room, or elsewhere — it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints.”
Christian Datoc contributed to this report.
