White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended revised media access protocols at a media event hosted by Axios co-founder Mike Allen, highlighting the contrast between President Donald Trump’s accessibility and that of Biden while addressing concerns from the White House Correspondents Association.
While speaking at the event, Leavitt highlighted the contrast between President Donald Trump’s accessibility and that of Biden. She also pointed out that many in the media overlooked Biden’s avoidance of the media and his largely “hiding” behavior during his four years in office.
“You have tailed access to the ‘Associated Press,’ which reaches half the world’s population every day. The most definitive photo of President Trump, the fight, fight, fight photo after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was made by Evan Vucci, who’s the chief photographer in Washington for the ‘Associated Press.’ Do you worry about history being lost with these new restrictions?” Allen asked Leavitt.
Leavitt Explains White House Media Access Changes
“I don’t view them as restrictions. We view them as opening access to more outlets, more voices, more news, journalists and outlets. We shouldn’t have a few outlets who have a monopoly over the briefing room or over that 13 person press pool that covers the president. And so we’ve actually ensured that more print outlets like Axios have a greater chance of being part of that 13 person press pool,” Leavitt began.
“There are thousands of outlets who have White House press credentials. There are hundreds that actually show up every day and cover the beat. Why should a single outlet have the privilege of being in that 13 person press pool every single day. And so the changes we’ve made have actually created more transparency, more accessibility, and greater access for a broad variety of outlets and a diversity of journalists, which I think is a good thing. And we’ve seen that play out,” Leavitt added.
“I mean, we started this. I think you’re all still getting your news, right? You’re still hearing about what the administration is doing every single day, because we have good journalists who are in that room covering the president every single time,” Leavitt said.
White House Correspondents Association Questions Pool Changes
Allen jumped in and asked: “The counter to that is in a White House Correspondents Association’s statement about the White House changes to the position of wire services in the pool. And the statement says the government should not be able to control the independent media that covers it. Do you agree with that statement?”
“Well, I think that a small group of journalists who comprise the board of the White House Correspondents Association should not dictate who gets to go into the Oval Office and who gets to ride on Air Force One. There should be equal access for all outlets,” Leavitt responded.
“And that’s exactly what we’re doing. And if we were trying, by the way, to create positive press for the president, if we were trying to make it easier on him or on the administration, we wouldn’t allow some of these fake news leftist outlets in. But we continue to do that. No one has been restricted. We’ve just given more spots to more outlets and more voices,” she said.
Biden’s Media Evasion Record Highlighted
Leavitt concluded, “It’s not about ideology. It’s just about increasing the wide variety of outlets that have access. And we live in a digital age, and we’re recognizing that at the White House. The president ran a nontraditional media campaign, which propelled him back to the highest office in the land. And we felt it was our responsibility to continue that in our coverage at the White House.”
In July, Axios published a story titled “Biden’s media evasion,” revealing that the Democrat held fewer press conferences and media interviews than any of the last seven presidents at the same point in their term. At that time, Biden had conducted only 164, compared to Trump’s 468. The next lowest were George W. Bush with 248 and Ronald Reagan with 262.
