\nThe author (at right) in a gaggle with President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One on May 4, 2025 returning to the White House after spending the weekend in Florida (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
His first four years in power were often a non-stop barrage of news that left journalists exhausted but well-fed on copious amounts of leaked information from various camps within the West Wing looking to knife one another, plus less useful \u2014 and often far less truthful \u2014 information delivered by a rotating cast of press secretaries and spokespersons.<\/p>\n
Sean Spicer\u2019s now-infamous 2017 debut in the briefing room, during which he castigated the press for reporting on the far smaller crowd that attended Trump\u2019s first inaugural compared with either of Barack Obama\u2019s swearings-in, set the tone that more or less characterized the next four years. Things got weirder from there, with his appearances in the briefing room becoming so bizarre \u2014 remember \u201cHolocaust centers?\u201d \u2014 that he was infamously parodied by Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night Live.<\/p>\n
Press briefings got fewer and farther between as Trump moved on from the oft-combative Spicer to the more affable but equally unhelpful Sarah Huckabee Sanders (who is now living her best life as governor of Arkansas) to Stephanie Grisham, who did not hold a single press briefing for her entire tenure.<\/p>\n
And even though Trump\u2019s official schedule didn\u2019t kick off until mid-morning then, reporters such as myself got in the habit of arriving at the White House as early at 7am because administration officials, most often Kellyanne Conway, would engage in pugilistic back-and-forths with us<\/u> after appearing on Fox News.<\/p>\n
The president himself discovered the briefing room during the Covid-19 pandemic, often spending as many as 90 minutes a day there as he took questions from a pared-down press corps while Americans sheltered at home.<\/p>\n
And while Trump often liked to attack or belittle specific reporters or outlets, his administration more or less let us do our jobs.<\/p>\n
We expected more of the same when Trump was sworn in for a second time, and as I and other colleagues greeted the incoming Trump II press staff \u2014 some of whom we\u2019d gotten to know during his previous term \u2014 on inauguration day, one person remarked to me that the atmosphere had a \u201cfirst day of school\u201d vibe that portended a smoother ride than last time around.<\/p>\n
Well, guess again.<\/p>\n\n\nKaroline Leavitt and The Independent\u2019s White House reporter Andrew Feinberg (at right) in March. (Getty)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
To be sure, there are positive differences between Trump I and Trump II from the perspective of a beat reporter. Whereas the Trump I press staff was more likely to scream at you than answer a question if you walked into their office, their counterparts in his second administration are often so cheerful and friendly that it\u2019s more than a bit disconcerting.<\/p>\n
Unlike the heady days when Spicer, Sanders and Grisham ran an amateurish and uncommunicative press shop, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Communications Director Steven Cheung are generally professional behind the scenes and their subordinates actually respond to queries on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
But on the whole, this administration has not been much like the last.<\/p>\n
Unlike the leaky ship that was Trump I, Trump\u2019s White House this time around is far more disciplined. From a reporter\u2019s perspective, that\u2019s not exactly a good thing.<\/p>\n
But the real difference is how Trump\u2019s new-look team has put his combative attitude towards the free and independent press into action.<\/p>\n
In February, Leavitt\u2019s office announced it would take control of the \u201cpool\u201d rotation under which a group of outlets \u2014 including The Independent<\/em> \u2014 cover Trump as he holds court in the Oval Office and while he travels around the country aboard Air Force One.<\/p>\nWhile I and my colleagues from reputable and legitimate news outlets still take our turns and dutifully file pool reports that are used by the rest of the press corps to write the \u201cfirst draft of history,\u201d we\u2019ve been joined by more and more people chosen by the White House while some outlets (such as the AP) have been banned for dubious reasons that are currently being evaluated by the courts, s<\/strong>uch as refusing to acknowledge Trump\u2019s proclamation that the Gulf of Mexico should now be referred to as the Gulf of America.<\/p>\nSome of the newcomers are from conservative-leaning outlets who approach their jobs in a responsible, reputable manner. But others, to be frank, are sycophants and clowns who do little to help inform the American people.<\/p>\n
Leavitt has often given pride of place to these people by letting them ask the first question at White House briefings (traditionally the role of the AP) in a \u201cnew media\u201d seat located in a section of the briefing room usually reserved for White House staff.<\/p>\n\n\nPresident Donald Trump gestures to a ‘Gulf of America’ graphic in the Oval Office. The U.S. Geological Survey, a federal agency in charge of the country’s geographic names, told its staff not to respond to journalists’ questions after Trump first announced the change, a new report reveals (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
In one instance, she hosted notorious plagiarist turned MAGA troll Benny Johnson there and let him kick off a briefing with a fabricated tale of how he and his family had fled Washington after their \u201chouse was set ablaze in an arson\u201d (according to the DC Fire Department, it was his neighbor\u2019s house that was set on fire).<\/p>\n
Another Leavitt guest, beanie-wearing podcaster Tim Pool, used his time there to complain about how legitimate news outlets had characterized him and other \u201cnew media\u201d seat occupants and asked Leavitt to join him in disparaging the mainstream press. Leavitt diplomatically replied that the administration \u201cwelcomes diverse viewpoints.\u201c<\/p>\n
More recently, I (and others) have been placed on White House-authored lists attacking us as biased in retaliation for reporting accurately on the president\u2019s own words and actions.<\/p>\n
My counterparts in the Pentagon press corps and elsewhere in Washington have had it worse.<\/p>\n
Last year, they surrendered their press credentials en masse after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that they all sign documents pledging not to ask anyone in the federal government or elsewhere for information about anything while only publishing pre-approved information \u2014 the definition of propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\nEx-congressman Matt Gaetz, now a journalist at One America News Network, asks a question at a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday December 2 2025 (Department of Defense)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
They were replaced in the halls of the Pentagon by a coterie of sycophants and influencers aligned with Hegseth and his vision for his department.<\/p>\n
One attempt at a briefing for the \u201cnew Pentagon press corps\u201d saw seats in the Pentagon briefing room taken by self-described \u201cproud Islamophobe\u201d Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz, the disgraced ex-Florida congressman who was briefly Trump\u2019s pick for Attorney General before resigning from the House in a fruitless attempt to avoid release of a damning ethics committee report that allegedly found substantial evidence he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and allegedly also was found in possession of illegal drugs. Gaetz has denied both allegations and a Justice Department probe into Gaetz\u2019s alleged actions with the girl produced no charges.<\/p>\n
And just this past week, FBI agents searched the home of a Washington Post<\/em> reporter who the government alleged to be communicating with a suspected leaker \u2014 even though it\u2019s not illegal for a journalist to receive leaked documents, even classified ones.<\/p>\n\n\nVice President JD Vance took time from his week to shout at the press about their coverage of last week\u2019s shooting in Minneapolis (Reuters)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Agents seized her phones and laptops, ostensibly as part of a probe into a Defense Department employee who\u2019d mishandled classified information, but perhaps as a warning to others who might dare correspond with journalists from inside the government.<\/p>\n
And while the president has largely avoided the briefing room during his first year back, he has dispatched Vice President JD Vance there on more than one occasion, most recently last week when he appeared there to berate me and my White House press corps colleagues about coverage of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting of Minneapolis resident Renee Good.<\/p>\n
One would think the Vice President of the United States has better things to do than scream at a bunch of journalists because he doesn\u2019t like the headlines on a story, but here we are.<\/p>\n
And Leavitt hasn\u2019t been shy about unleashing over-the-top rebukes when cornered with legitimate questions she\u2019d not answer. Days ago, she laid into one of my colleagues from The Hill<\/em> \u2014 an affable gentleman who originally hails from Northern Ireland \u2014 for having the temerity to offer an opinion contrary to hers after she\u2019d asked him to tell her what he thought of last week\u2019s shooting.<\/p>\nShe reacted to his honest answer by angrily raising her voice and smearing him as \u201ca biased reporter with a left-wing opinion\u201d and \u201ca left-wing hack\u201d who was \u201cpretending like you\u2019re a journalist.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tactic Trump himself has used on numerous occasions \u2014 often with female or non-white journalists \u2014 when hit with tough questions on subjects he\u2019d prefer to avoid.<\/p>\n
Still, the dirty little secret about Trump \u2014 then and now \u2014 is that he actually likes reporters. One of the things he missed most about the presidency wasn\u2019t the plane or the other similar perquisites of the world\u2019s most powerful job, it was having a \u201cpool\u201d of reporters he could summon any time he wanted to talk about anything at all.<\/p>\n
For all his talk about \u201cfake news,\u201d he\u2019s spent years calling journalists and still takes calls from them on his mobile phone (and if you\u2019re reading this, Mr. President, you can always ask Karoline for my number).<\/p>\n
What\u2019s different \u2014 and chilling \u2014 this time around is that Trump has now surrounded himself with people who actually believe the anti-press talk he has spent years spouting in public while remaining friendly in private.<\/p>\n
Trump may occasionally call me and my colleagues \u201cthe enemy of the people,\u201d but people like Vice President JD Vance, Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi and others actually believe it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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