Donald Trump and his administration have given the media plenty to cover in their first five weeks in office, and the press has also found itself as part of the story.
One of the first announcements White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt made in her inaugural press briefing was that she would be opening up seats to and taking questions from ‘new’ and independent media outlets that have previously been left out of the room.
The administration also caused a stir when it revoked the Associated Press’ access from the Oval Office and Air Force One (it still has access to the White House and briefing room) over its refusal to update its widely used style guide to reflect Trump’s executive order that renamed the “Gulf of Mexico” the “Gulf of America.” The AP has since sued and a federal judge denied an emergency motion to restore access.
The latest controversy deals with the White House press pool. On Tuesday, the administration announced officials “will determine” which news outlets make up the pool that is responsible for reporting on the president’s every move – a decision previously left up to the White House Correspondents Association.
Leavitt said the change would rotate traditional outlets from the group in an effort to reflect the current media climate, but critics say it will allow the Trump administration to deny access to outlets considered adversarial or unfavorable. Megyn admitted the directive gave her pause, and, on Thursday’s show, she and Buck Sexton debated the pros and cons of the new policy.
Megyn’s Concerns
Megyn broke down why she has some reservations about the change in protocol:
“The White House announced this week that they are going to decide who is in the White House press pool. The press pool… is a group of representatives from television, radio, now streaming, and print reporters – usually from a wire service like AP or Reuters. It is a small group of representatives from each one of those realms that gets to follow the president around at all times. They are not in the residence of the White House, but they are in the more intimate spaces like the Oval or on trips. You are not going to take everybody who is in that press briefing room with you when you are the president of the United States. But if you are part of pool, you get to go and it is your responsibility to report everything he does back to all the other media and the public.
Pool reporting job is very important. It is the reason we saw Ronald Reagan get shot. He wasn’t doing anything extraordinary that day, but pool was there because they always have eyes on the president. As a former reporter at Fox News, I did White House duty when I was in my very young years there. Pool is a serious responsibility. You can’t f-ck up pool. You really do have to get it right. And typically, the media will decide who can do pool because it is very expensive and everybody understands it is important that you get somebody in there who is really going to tell you what happened…
At times, there is one pool reporter who we depend on to tell us what happened to the president… and I do think there needs to be a basic minimum standard of having had experience covering the president, having covered the White House, coming from an institution that can cover the costs. By the way, you can’t be in pool unless you can cover your own costs, which can be over $100,000 year…
I am all for pushing back on left wing bias… but I do think the independence of the press is important. I realize the press has lost its mind, but it is written right into the Bill of Rights that a free press is one of our most fundamental values. I am not sure I am comfortable with the White House saying, ‘This is who I will allow to cover me.’
It is one thing to say to the AP, ‘Eff you. You lost your right to be in these intimate spaces.’ But there is a difference in saying, ‘We will decide – not you members of the press – who gets to come into every space and ask questions of the president’. We could be in a Democrat administration next, where they say nobody other than MSNBC and the AP can have access and ask questions…
It isn’t that [Trump team has] thrown out all left-wing media… I am just saying if we are going to discuss the principle of it, we are on dangerous ground here… I am not a knee-jerk defender of the press, but I am not a knee-jerk defender of the president either. There is an important role for an independent press in this country… and there are limits to the controls that can be placed on them…
I will say, for the record, I don’t know how I feel about the White House saying, ‘We are now going to decide who is in pool.’ It is not the same as saying, ‘We are going to bring in new voices to the press briefing room.’ I love all that, but I actually happen to believe the media should decide who is in pool because it is a matter of resources… You need true pros who have a lot of experience setting up a shot, being ready for breaking news…
I have questions about this before I really endorse it or criticize it, but the media is in a full on meltdown over it. What they are upset about is that they – the ‘vaunted’ media – are starting to lose more and more control about how Trump gets covered and in what way he gets covered.”
Sexton’s Support
Sexton explained why he is less concerned about the update:
“The stated concern is: It is an important job, and if the media doesn’t decide, it won’t be handled as well.’ What I would say to that this team that Trump has brought in, is the pro team… These are very capable, competent people that are making these decisions… And I think they should be given the room to cook; they should be given the ability to handle it their way. If there are problems with the pool… we’ll hear about it. I think they can figure this out…
[But] I absolutely admit there are complexities here… I think that, no matter what, you want there to be a degree of at least objectivity in the facts and in the sense of getting facts about what is going on day to day about an administration. You want people to have some ability to judge what is really going on.
Now that all said… I do think it is quite clear that President Trump is sharing thoughts directly with the people via Twitter or Truth Social on a daily basis. I think the access that we all have to information – it is not like if there isn’t some press stenographer standing there writing it down, we are not necessarily going to know what is happening…
I think the whole notion of an objective journalism or objective media is farce… There is a cartel that has existed in the White House Correspondents Association… Why should they get to choose?
I think they are going to have a good mix of different people in there. There is an assumption that is being made that it is only going to be people that the left-wing Democrat media is going to freak out about… I don’t want to throw them under the bus, but it is not just going to be, like, Daily Caller and Breitbart in there. There will be other people involved in the coverage, and I think Trump wants to add to it…
I think the everything you are saying makes sense and is very rational, but it is like we are assessing a problem that hasn’t occurred yet, meaning that they may pick people who are highly competent and do an excellent job. That is what I meant by they brought in the A-team so far…
I think, in time, you are going to say that they surprise you with how well they handled this. But if I’m wrong, I will come on here and give you a mea culpa.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Sexton by tuning in to episode 1,015 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.