AP journalists testify over White House revoking access

The Hill

27-03-2025

A pair of top journalists for The Associated Press covering the White House testified on Thursday to the damage caused to the outlet by President Trump's decision to revoke its access to key West Wing spaces over the organization's refusal to use 'Gulf of America' in its widely used stylebook.
AP Chief White House Correspondent Zeke Miller and Evan Vucci, the AP's top photographer in Washington, D.C., described what they called 'diminished' and delayed reporting because of the administration's banning them from being part of the small group of journalists who document the president each day, otherwise known as the press pool.
The pair took the stand during a court hearing over whether to restore the wire service's access to the pool, which is allowed in certain areas of the White House with limited space such as the Oval Office and their access to traveling with the president on Air Force One.
AP has a long tradition of having a reporter and photographer in the press pool each and everyday both at the White House and when the president is traveling.
'AP's barred time and again because of our journalism,' Miller said in open court on Thursday.
The AP sued three top White House officials last month over the ban after its reporters were barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the outlet refused to change its stylebook guidelines to use 'Gulf of America' after Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico.
News organizations across the industry use the AP Stylebook for spelling, grammar and guidelines on how to refer to certain people and places in aim of making such references widely understood both in the U.S. and worldwide.
The AP and press freedom groups have argued the Trump administration is, in effect, trying to suppress coverage it does not view as favorable enough and send a chilling effect through the mainstream media.
Miller testified that on Feb. 11, he was summoned to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt's office, where she informed him she was 'just the messenger' but the president was not pleased with AP's decision not to conform to the new reference of 'Gulf of America.'
Trump had decided to bar the AP from entering the Oval Office until it changed its policy, Leavitt told Miller.
AP's access was further limited from there.
After she told Miller of Trump's decision, Leavitt announced the White House would take control of the press pool, a job usually handled by the White House Correspondents Association. She said the White House would decide which outlets would be allowed in the pool. So far, the White House has maintained the same rotation of news outlets that the correspondents association had, but added two more spots – one for television and another for new media, which are typically filled with right-leaning news organizations.
Though the administration has argued in court filings that AP remains eligible to be part of the press pool, it has yet to be selected to serve in the press pool since the White House took control of the body.
Both AP journalists testified their reporting lacks the completeness it did when they were granted full access.
Vucci recalled his physical presence traveling with former President George W. Bush as being key to his status as the only journalist to photograph the Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at Bush.
'We don't know what we're not going to see,' Miller said.
Lawyers for the AP noted that Vucci captured an 'iconic piece of history' last summer — the widely seen image of Trump pumping his fist after an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., which they noted Trump used as the cover of his own book 'Save America.'
But since AP's access was revoked, Vucci said he's gone from 'being in every single event to not being able to do anything.' He called the AP's photojournalism the 'gold standard' and warned that Trump's ban on the wire service has drastically altered its ability to gather a historical record.
Vucci pointed to an Oval Office meeting between Trump, Vice President Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last month, which went off the rails and drove headlines for days.
No American AP photojournalists were allowed in the meeting, though a Ukrainian videographer who freelances for the AP joined with that country's envoy.
'When we get our butt kicked, you know immediately – and that happened this day,' he said, citing long delays in receiving images from poolers in the room instead of the AP photographers themselves, which also impacts competition.
On cross-examination, DOJ lawyer Brian Hudak pointed to White House events where foreign AP photojournalists or photographers with licensing agreements were allowed to attend. AP's journalists and lawyers, however, noted that print journalists were not allowed to attend all the events and pushed back against the government's contention that they were allowed at all tarmac events, when the president's plane took off or landed.
'As far as journalism goes, it's 360,' Vucci said. 'You've got to be there.'
Miller also described an apparent chilling effect on other journalists who cover the White House, describing a 'softening of tone and tenor' in questioning the president and other officials.
Aside from AP, however, the same contingent of reporters at national independent news outlets continue to populate the White House briefing room during Leavitt's briefing and ask the president questions during remarks he gives from the Oval Office and Roosevelt Room, though both tend to give deference now to publications seen as more friendly.
Charles Tobin, a lawyer for the AP, argued that the wire service's reporters would not say that the president's 'bullying' had chilled them because of their commitment to independent journalism. But he urged the judge to consider that the First Amendment protects journalists who both stand by their convictions or 'succumb.'
The AP is meanwhile waging a pressure campaign against the White House outside the courtroom.
In an editorial published this week in the Wall Street Journal, AP executive editor Julie Pace said the wire service 'pursued every possible avenue to resolve the issue before taking legal action.'
'If we don't step up to defend Americans' right to speak freely, who will?' she asked. 'Today the U.S. government wants to control the AP's speech. Tomorrow it could be someone else's.'