submitted by Neil Young
by Antoine Sanfuentes
President Donald Trump has changed the relationship between the White House and the journalists assigned to cover him, and I am not sure the American public yet understands the consequences. What is happening can seem like one more running fight between Trump and the media, but it is much more than that. In an effort to control the narrative, the Trump administration is steadily shrinking access to the president and the spaces where experienced journalists can ask difficult questions. If this continues, the American public risks losing one of its most important means of holding the president accountable, as the People’s House increasingly becomes the president’s house.
That pressure is visible in the president’s own conduct. This week, ABC News White House correspondent Karen Travers questioned Trump about his decision to ease sanctions on Russia, and he responded by asking, “Are you a stupid person? Who do you work for?” When Travers said, “ABC News,” he called her “a stupid person” and added that her network was “the worst of all.” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, pressing him on the same issue, was called a “dummy” and a “low-IQ person.” Trump previously told Bloomberg’s Catherine Lucey, “Quiet, quiet, piggy,” when she questioned him about Jeffrey Epstein.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, asked by journalist Chris Whipple about Trump’s treatment of women reporters, offered this explanation: “He’s a counterpuncher. And, increasingly these days, women are doing the punching.” But asking a president a question is not throwing a punch. It is the job.
Trump has often relied on women to defend him, including former White House press secretaries Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who went on to become governor of Arkansas, and Kayleigh McEnany, who moved to Fox News. Both were expected to advocate for the president, often performing for him before television cameras. His short-lived press secretary, Katie Zacharia, lasted just five days, conducting a single 14-minute briefing during which she took questions from Breitbart, Fox News and the Daily Mail. The women journalists questioning Trump, however, have an entirely different responsibility: to seek answers on behalf of the American public.
The president’s personal attacks against women journalists reflect a pattern condemned by the International Women’s Media Foundation, and reporters should call out that behavior immediately, every single time it happens. Allowing such attacks to go unchallenged risks normalizing the president’s treatment of journalists who are simply doing their jobs. By portraying legitimate scrutiny as hostility, the White House creates a justification for excluding reporters who refuse to play along. That concern is no longer hypothetical when established news organizations are already fighting in court to retain access to the presidency.
But advocating for a president has always been the press secretary’s job. When Bill Clinton appointed Dee Dee Myers in 1993, she became the first woman White House press secretary, but she had to fight for the access and authority needed to do her job. Clinton eventually intervened on her behalf. Marlin Fitzwater, Mike McCurry and Joe Lockhart also understood that facing skeptical reporters was an essential part of representing the president. McCurry, in particular, helped establish the regular televised midday briefing as an important part of the White House’s public accountability.
There was even a flak jacket kept in a closet beside the fireplace in the press secretary’s office, handed down as a symbol of the resilience needed to face the press corps. It reflected an understanding that taking the heat was part of the job, not a reason to eliminate the people asking difficult questions.
That relationship began changing during Trump’s first term. Stephanie Grisham served as press secretary without ever holding a formal briefing, and when the pandemic arrived, Trump effectively became his own press secretary, appearing at the podium almost daily to address a national audience. Those appearances provided important access to the president during a national emergency, but they also transformed the traditional briefing into a forum in which Trump personally confronted reporters and challenged their coverage.
In April 2025, Sean Spicer, Trump’s first press secretary, returned to the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, this time sitting among the questioners during a special briefing for influencers and independent media. There is nothing wrong with welcoming new media organizations into the White House. Americans increasingly receive their news from digital platforms, and access should reflect that reality. The concern arises when an administration elevates friendly voices while marginalizing journalists whose questions it dislikes.
The stakes are now considerably higher. CNN, MS NOW and Politico won a federal court order restoring their White House press credentials, yet disputes have continued over access to Air Force One and participation in the rotating press pool. In Sherrill v. Knight, a federal appeals court established protections against arbitrary denial of White House press credentials, although access to particular presidential events presents additional legal questions. The constitutional issue is whether access is being restricted in retaliation for independent reporting.
There are other forms of pressure. Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion over its misleading editing of his January 6 speech. The broadcaster made a serious journalistic error, acknowledged it and apologized, but whether that justifies a lawsuit of this magnitude is another matter. ABC and CBS have already reached multimillion-dollar settlements with Trump, leaving news organizations and their corporate parents to weigh the expense of defending their reporting against the risk of further litigation. That is how self-censorship can take hold.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, Trump’s wealthiest financial backer, has reportedly invested about $1 billion in Skydance, the company that now owns CNN and CBS News. There is no evidence Musk has directed editorial decisions, but the relationship between political influence and corporate media ownership deserves scrutiny.
I’ve written before about the importance of the traveling press pool, but the history of the White House briefing room deserves attention as well.
Richard Nixon opened the White House briefing room in 1970, directly above the swimming pool built for Franklin Roosevelt and later used by John F. Kennedy. Ronald Reagan remodeled it into the formal briefing room we recognize today in 1981, and Bill Clinton named it in honor of Reagan’s press secretary, James Brady, who was gravely wounded during the assassination attempt outside the Washington Hilton. George W. Bush later oversaw a major renovation, reopening the room in 2007.
Members of the Presidents’ Club, Republicans and Democrats alike, contributed to preserving a permanent home for the journalists responsible for questioning them. Some had notorious run-ins with the press, yet they recognized the importance of maintaining the institution. When Clinton dedicated the room to Brady in 2000, a plaque honoring him bore the words “strengthening the bond between government and press.” It was intended to remain permanently in the room, a reminder of the relationship between the presidency and the journalists who cover it.
When I first set foot in the White House press briefing room toward the end of George H. W. Bush’s presidency, the walls were lined with telephones. Reporters relied on those phones to urgently file their stories and communicate with their newsrooms. The same urgency applied aboard Air Force One, where the traveling press pool could use a telephone for what was known as an “urgent wire call,” alerting news organizations when important news broke during presidential travel.
The technology has changed enormously since then. Beneath the briefing room floor is an extensive network of cables and broadcast equipment that enables journalists to share their reporting with the world almost instantly. What hasn’t changed is the importance of having reporters permanently stationed just steps from the Oval Office.
The briefing room has been the setting for consequential presidential announcements, sometimes shortly after decisions that would shape the course of history. Presidents have walked to the podium to explain their actions and face questions, offering Americans an immediate demonstration of how our democracy works.
On occasion, presidents have shared the podium. In December 2010, President Barack Obama brought former President Bill Clinton into the Brady briefing room to support a compromise agreement on tax cuts and unemployment benefits. Obama eventually left for a White House holiday event, leaving Clinton at the podium to answer questions from the press corps. The exchange was an extraordinary reminder that the briefing room is a national forum, not simply a platform for whoever occupies the Oval Office.
What concerns me most is the incremental nature of the current administration’s approach. Trump officials are grinding away, perhaps counting on the public and the news cycle to tire of hearing about another dispute over press credentials or another exclusion from Air Force One. Each confrontation can appear to be an isolated disagreement between the White House and the news media, obscuring its cumulative effect on the ability of journalists to cover the presidency.
Where does this end? Could the administration eventually bar the traditional press pool from Air Force One altogether, or close the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room and move journalists off White House grounds? Neither step has been announced, but the restrictions already imposed make these questions worth asking.
The White House press corps is not the enemy here. The journalists covering this president continue doing their jobs despite the insults and threats to their access. What concerns me is whether the American public understands what is at stake if an institution that presidents from both parties spent decades supporting is allowed to erode.
Once that access is gone, Americans may discover too late that what disappeared was not a privilege enjoyed by the Washington press corps, but an essential means of holding their government accountable.
The flak jacket in the press secretary’s office represented an old understanding: difficult questions came with the job. The answer was never to get rid of the people asking them.