On February 25-26, 2025, the White House announced it was seizing control of the presidential press pool from the White House Correspondents' Association, removing the permanent positions held by Reuters and Bloomberg News in addition to the Associated Press, which had been barred from White House events since February 11. The administration simultaneously added right-leaning outlets Newsmax and Blaze Media to the pool rotation.
The leaders of AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg issued a rare joint statement warning that the changes "threatened press freedom" and that "it is essential in a democracy for the public to have access to news about their government from an independent, free press." For decades, the nonprofit WHCA had managed press pool scheduling, ensuring the rotation of reporters remained free from government interference.
The press pool restructuring represented an unprecedented assertion of executive control over which journalists cover the president. Wire services had maintained permanent pool positions since the system's inception because their nonpartisan, fact-based reporting serves as a shared resource for all news organizations. By replacing independent wire services with ideologically aligned outlets, the administration converted the press pool from a tool of democratic accountability into an instrument of media control. The move followed Trump's ban on AP over the outlet's refusal to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America," establishing the precedent that access to the president would be conditioned on editorial compliance.