WHCA accuses Trump admin of taking charge of press briefing room seating chart to 'punish' journalists

White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) President Eugene Daniels issued a statement on Monday following the scoop that the White House intends to shake up the seating arrangement in the press briefing room. The Trump administration has made a great deal of changes to the press corps in the months since taking office and this latest change would see the White House, not the WHCA, take charge of where journalists sit in the room.

In his statement, shared by Daily Wire White House reporter Mary Margaret Olohan, Daniels has accused the White House of attempting to pressure journalists to cover Trump in positive ways or face retribution. It was only a few weeks ago that Trump banned the Associated Press from covering the Oval Office, Air Force One, and Mar-a-Lago over the outlet's refusal to use the new term Gulf of America for that body of water formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. The AP continues to use the old term.

"We're aware of new reports," Daniels wrote, "indicating the White House is considering taking over the briefing room seat assignments and want to underscore what we're doing and what we believe." This is the same WHCA that had initially booked a well-known anti-Trump comedian to headline their annual correspondents dinner, later dropping the comic in favor of having no comic.

After suggesting that the White House "should abandon this wrong-headed effort" to change the seating arrangement in the briefing room, Daniels said that if they push forward "it will become even more clear that the administration is seeking to cynically seize control of the system through which the independent press organizes itself, so that it is easier to exact punishment on outlets over their coverage."

The White House had previously taken over designating which outlets would have access to the president, a task that had previously been the purview of the WHCA. "The reason the White House wants control of the briefing room," Daniels continues, "is the same reason they took control of the pool: to exert pressure on journalists over coverage they disagree with." Daniels brought up the banishment of the AP as an example of his point.

The press team at the White House has let in an unprecedented number of journalists from new media outlets. Press briefings routinely feature a member of new media sitting in the gallery to the right of the press secretary's podium, where the journalist is given the honor of asking the first question. The Trump press team has also reinstated over 400 press badges that were revoked under the Biden administration and has given the same access to podcasters and digital media reporters as was previously only granted to more mainstream outlets.

Daniels accused the administration of using their efforts to open up the briefing room as cover for ideological favoritism, saying, "The administration has sought to obscure that fact by suggesting that they are ushering in new media outlets that are somehow excluded from the WHCA. Daniels then touted the WHCA's attempts to open up to new media as well, before saying that "the most obvious end result" of the White House's change in the press room's seating plan "is the punishment, not elevation, of journalists."