Leavitt defends banning AP from Oval Office over ‘Gulf of America’ stance

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended a decision by the White House on Tuesday to keep The Associated Press out of the pool of reporters allowed inside the Oval Office to cover an executive order signing with President Trump and billionaire Elon Musk.

“We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office,” Leavitt said during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday when asked about the move, calling it a “privilege to cover the White House.”

The AP on Tuesday said it had been blocked from covering two White House events over its refusal to “align its editorial standards with President Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.”

Leavitt was pressed Wednesday by CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins over the decision, asking if the White House’s posture toward the AP should be viewed as retaliatory in nature or can be seen as antithetical to Trump’s stated First Amendment prerogatives.