From the blue corner, weighing in at 179 years and counting, is The Associated Press, the venerable newsgathering organization that counts itself first among equals in the White House press room.
From the red corner, hailing from Mar-a-Lago and weighing in at four weeks into his second term, is President Trump, keen on taking down the media and figuring he has finally found his opening.
Amid all the fights the president has picked so far, his feud with AP is the spiciest: one part petty, one part subversive and one part pure power politics.
Mr. Trump says AP has forfeited its special solicitude from the White House by refusing to use the “Gulf of America” to refer to the body of water east of Texas, west of Florida and south of Louisiana. AP is sticking with the “Gulf of Mexico” and says it won’t be bullied into changing.
The result is that the White House has blocked AP reporters from a place in a select group of reporters that tracks presidential news on Air Force One and in the Oval Office. Like with the United Nations Security Council, most news outlets rotate, but AP and others are considered permanent members.
AP’s defenders say the blockade is an assault on the First Amendment because a government actor is punishing a news outlet for its ideological views.
The dispute threatens to break new ground in presidential-press relations and could force the courts to consider a law that has always been vague.
Some legal scholars said they are not sure which side would prevail.
“I think that for Air Force One and Oval Office appearances, the best I can say is that the First Amendment analysis is unsettled,” Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert, wrote on his influential legal blog, “The Volokh Conspiracy.”
He said presidents have long been free to select who gets an interview or a question in a gathering of reporters. No news outlet would win a lawsuit arguing for that right.
Courts have also held that public officials can’t exclude news outlets from events generally open to the press, at least when that exclusion is based on ideological or viewpoint differences.
First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams told The Washington Times that AP has the better argument.
“The issue of when a press entity has a constitutional right to attend a White House event is sometimes difficult,” Mr. Abrams said. “But when it is clear, as it is in this situation, that AP is being barred from being present solely because it has made a journalistic decision with which the president disagrees, it has a strong First Amendment argument that it may not be excluded.”
Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the White House’s reason for denying access matters. He said cutting off access that AP previously had violates the First Amendment.
“The AP — a major news agency that produces and distributes reports to thousands of newspapers, radio stations, and TV broadcasters around the world — has had long-standing access to the White House. It is now losing that access because its exercise of editorial discretion doesn’t align with the administration’s preferred messaging,” he wrote.
Mr. Trump said he is committed to the fight.
“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that’s the Gulf of America,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “We’re very proud of this country, and we want it to be the Gulf of America.”
The president spoke at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home. AP said two of its reporters were denied access to the event and had to report from a television feed.
Mr. Trump said his problems with AP go beyond the naming dispute, and he sees the fight as a matter of reciprocity.
“They’re not doing us no favors, and I guess I’m not doing them any favors. That’s the way life works,” he said.
Mr. Trump pointed out that the official federal designation is now “Gulf of America.” He said AP “just refuses to go with what the law is.”
AP’s influential style guide sets the word choices for much of America’s media. That makes it the 800-pound gorilla of the press corps and an obvious target for Mr. Trump, who has shown a willingness to strike at targets once thought beyond reach.
AP said it is reticent to rename the Gulf because the name dates back 400 years and the news wire has a global reach. It said its names must be “easily recognizable to all audiences.”
It did adopt another of Mr. Trump’s renaming decisions, which reverted North America’s tallest mountain from Denali — an Obama-era change — to Mount McKinley. AP said the mountain “lies solely in the U.S.” and that Mr. Trump could change federal geographic names.
The Obama presidential campaign ousted The Washington Times and New York Post from its airplane rotation in 2008.
In the White House, the Obama team tried to block Fox News from its space in the pool of reporters for an interview with a top official.
“We’ve demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews,” an Obama spokesperson said.
In 2018, after a testy exchange, Mr. Trump moved to revoke the White House press pass of CNN’s Jim Acosta.
A federal judge ordered the credential restored, citing “due process” concerns rather than First Amendment issues.
AP has not lost any credentials but has lost specialized access.
The Washington Times is part of the rotating group of White House reporters. The Times has signed a letter objecting to the White House’s treatment of news services.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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