The Trump administration is preparing to take control of the seating assignments in the White House press briefing room, potentially elevating conservative news outlets to more visible positions to pose more questions to press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
It is President Trump’s most visible confrontation yet with the Washington press corps, which has been his staunchest adversary since he burst onto the political scene nearly a decade ago.
A White House official confirmed that the administration was considering rearranging briefing room seats but did not provide details, including whether any outlets would be removed from the room or whether the seating chart would be rearranged.
The move had been widely expected since Mr. Trump returned to office in January.
For decades, left-leaning “legacy” media outlets such as ABC News, The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post have had seats in the front rows of the briefing room. In those preferred seats, their journalists often dominate press briefings. Meanwhile, journalists seated toward the back strain to get in a single question per week.
That dynamic could change with Mr. Trump’s team in charge of seating assignments.
The White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents news outlets covering the White House, currently controls the seating chart for the briefing room. The Washington Times is a member of the WHCA and has a seat in the briefing room.
The first few rows include well-established news outlets, including some of the country’s biggest television networks, newspapers, wire services and radio outlets.
Sixty outlets, some taking turns, occupy the 49 seats in the briefing room. The WHCA last updated the seating chart in December 2021.
WHCA President Eugene Daniels sent the organization’s members a letter calling plans to shuffle briefing room seating a “wrong-headed effort.”
“If the White House pushes 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,” he wrote.
Mr. Daniels said the WHCA reached out Sunday about a conversation to discuss plans to reassign briefing room seats.
Some Trump allies have cheered the move.
“Yes to this – keeping going @PressSec,” Sean Spicer, Mr. Trump’s first press secretary during his first term, wrote to Ms. Leavitt on X.
If the White House follows through, it would be the latest dustup between the administration and reporters. In February, Mr. Trump ousted The Associated Press from its special reserved access to presidential events. Mr. Trump was displeased that the news service, which has covered the White House for more than 100 years, continues to use “Gulf of Mexico” instead of Mr. Trump’s new official “Gulf of America” name.
Ms. Leavitt declared that the White House would pick the “press pool” of reporters traveling with the president and attending small-scale events without room for more reporters. The move stripped the WHCA of its authority to organize and manage the pool.
The White House added conservative-leaning websites and news outlets to press pools and daily briefings. Some of those reporters have asked Mr. Trump friendly questions. A reporter on Friday asked Mr. Trump why “he’s so good to women.”
Left-leaning journalists have lobbed plenty of softball questions at Democratic presidents, including a pool reporter asking President Biden his favorite ice cream flavor.
Even as he moves to upend traditional coverage, Mr. Trump has offered the press startlingly open access, taking questions from reporters at a pace unseen in modern times.
Since Mr. Trump’s first term, the media coverage of the president has been overwhelmingly negative. A study by the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog, found that negative campaign coverage of Mr. Trump compared with his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, was “the most lopsided in history.”
Americans’ perceptions of Mr. Trump’s relations with the news media are divided mainly along party lines.
A Pew Research poll released Monday, hours before the White House confirmed it would take control of the briefing room, found that 70% of Democrats say Mr. Trump has been too critical of the media, compared with 23% of Republicans who say the same.
It found that 69% of Republicans and 12% of Democrats say the media are too critical of Mr. Trump. Roughly 60% of Democrats say the media haven’t been critical enough of Mr. Trump.
The poll found that 39% of respondents view the media as too critical of the Trump administration, just above the 36% who say it hasn’t been critical enough.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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