White House bars AP, Reuters, HuffPost and Der Tagesspiegel from covering first cabinet meeting of Trump’s second term.

The White House denied access to an Associated Press photographer and three reporters from Reuters, HuffPost and Der Tagesspiegel.

The White House on Wednesday barred reporters from Reuters and several other news organizations from attending President Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting, granting access instead to select media outlets.

TV crews from ABC and Newsmax, along with correspondents from Axios, The Blaze, Bloomberg News, and NPR, were allowed to cover the event.

A day earlier, the Trump administration announced that it would take control of determining which media outlets can cover the president in smaller spaces such as the Oval Office— a process traditionally managed by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA). Reuters, a longtime participant in the presidential press pool, has been part of this system for decades.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that while major news organizations would still have daily access to Trump, the administration plans to reshape press participation in more limited settings. The WHCA’s long-standing pool system has allowed select journalists from television, radio, wire services, and print to cover events and share their reporting with the wider media landscape.

In response to the new policy, three major wire services— the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters— issued a joint statement emphasizing the importance of press access.

“These services have long worked to ensure that accurate, fair, and timely information about the presidency is communicated to a broad audience of all political persuasions, both in the United States and globally. Much of the White House coverage seen in local news outlets worldwide comes from the wires,” the statement read. “It is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press.”

HuffPost condemned the decision, calling it “a violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of the press.”

The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The WHCA also released a statement on Tuesday, protesting the administration’s decision.

The move follows the White House’s recent decision to bar the Associated Press from the press pool after the agency refused to adopt Trump’s preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico— the “Gulf of America”— in its reporting or update its widely used style guide to reflect the change.

Despite the new policy, Leavitt confirmed that the five major cable and broadcast networks would retain their rotating seats in the press pool. Print reporters and radio journalists would also continue to be included, though the White House plans to expand access to additional outlets, including streaming services and new radio hosts.

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