A week after the White House banished the Associated Press from official events over the wire service’s refusal to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” 40 news outlets signed onto a confidential letter sent by the White House Correspondents’ Association urging the Trump administration to reverse course.
While most of the signatories were unsurprising, such as NPR and CNN, the MAGA networks Fox News and Newsmax also added their names to the letter. “It’s rare for this level of solidarity,” one source familiar with the effort told media reporter Oliver Darcy, who first reported on the letter.
Yet, while the pro-Trump channels support this behind-the-scenes campaign to pressure Trump to end the unprecedented AP ban, their on-air coverage has been a completely different story altogether.
With Fox News hosts calling on the Trump administration to “kick them out” while declaring “the White House is right” to block the Associated Press’ access, Newsmax talent have labeled the news organization “Associated Propaganda” and “Fake News AP” while telling the AP to “get over it, buttercup!”
Darcy reported on Wednesday evening that both the AP’s editorial leadership and the WHCA have been engaging with White House officials in an effort to persuade the administration to drop the ban — which so far has been unsuccessful as President Donald Trump has relished the manufactured controversy. “We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” he said earlier this week.
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While AP executive editor Julie Pace flew to Florida on Wednesday for a “high-stakes meeting” with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, the WHCA sent its letter to Wiles, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, and other Trump officials. “Rather than engaging in a public battle with the White House, the WHCA has opted for quiet diplomacy, believing that a private approach stands the best chance of restoring the AP’s access,” Darcy noted.
The letter, which has not spurred a reversal from the White House, said that the ban on the AP was a violation of the First Amendment and demanded that the global news service’s access be restored. The AP eventually filed a lawsuit suit against three Trump administration officials on Friday afternoon, accusing the White House of violating the First Amendment by ordering the outlet “to use certain words in its coverage or else face an indefinite denial of access.”
“The First Amendment prohibits the government from asserting control over how news organizations make editorial decisions. Any attempt to punish journalists for those decisions is a serious breach of this Constitutional protection,” the letter states.
Insisting that this ban is “an escalation of a dispute that does not serve the presidency or the public,” the WHCA added that “news organizations must be free to make their own editorial decisions without fear of government intrusion.” Additionally, the group asked the White House “to lift this ban on the AP immediately and to underscore its support for press freedom.”
While Newsmax and Fox News are privately backing the AP in its press freedom fight with the Trump administration, the two right-wing networks have aired coverage denouncing the Associated Press while defending Trump for policing the outlet’s language.
Representatives for Newsmax and Fox News did not respond to requests for comment. Newsmax, however, did release a statement on Thursday explaining why it signed the WHCA letter.
“We can understand President Trump’s frustration because the media has often been unfair to him, but Newsmax still supports the AP’s right, as a private organization, to use the language it wants to use in its reporting,” the network stated. “We fear a future administration may not like something Newsmax writes and seek to ban us. This is why news organizations like Newsmax and Fox News are supporting the AP’s First Amendment rights though we may disagree with its editorial point of view from time to time.”
The night before Darcy first reported on the letter, Fox News star Jesse Watters said on his primetime show that the AP “took Mexico’s side” and was “deadnaming the Gulf,” saying they got deservedly “kicked out of the White House” because of it.
A week earlier, Watters also declared that the Associated Press was “banned from the Oval Office” for sticking with Mexico before doubling down on the Trump administration’s action. “Kick them out,” he exclaimed. “Kick them out, and kick some other people out while you're there. I have a list.”
Agreeing with Watters, Fox News anchor Julie Banderas added: “First of all, I don’t know why they care. Are they from Mexico? Is the AP a Mexican news outlet, and they are offended by this? It has been changed, get over it. And you know what, under the Biden Administration, they didn’t like the conservative media either, it goes both ways.”
Elsewhere on Fox, fill-in host Jason Chaffetz proclaimed that “the White House is right” because the AP showed a “commitment to misinformation,” while Fox News contributor Joe Concha snarked that it was the “best unintentional comedy of the week” and it was ridiculous to think the ban was “somehow a threat to free press and a chilling attack on the First Amendment.”
Over on Newsmax, which subscribes to the AP and publishes its articles on the network’s website, the channel’s MAGA-boosting hosts chastised the Associated Press while cheering Trump on for banning the wire service.
Former Trump transition team adviser Carl Higbie, for instance, mocked Pace for saying it was “alarming” that the White House banned the AP before defending the decision. “You’re not independent journalists, and yes, you are being punished,” he sneered. “Get over it, buttercup!”
On February 13, Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt ran an entire segment ridiculing the Associated Press. He labeled the publication “Fake News AP” and “Associated Propaganda” and brought on Newsmax colleagues Ed Henry and Rick Leventhal to blast the organization.
After Schmitt said “the media has no right to be” in the Oval Office, Henry — a disgraced ex-Fox News anchor who was once the president of the WHCA — claimed he was not being a “hypocrite” and was a First Amendment defender before backing Trump’s ban.
“If you are not going to follow the actual name of the body of water, then I can understand why they don't want to give you access,” Henry said. “You’re not playing with the basic facts.”
Leventhal, another former Fox News reporter turned Newsmax personality, also ripped into the AP. “You're saying you don't agree with the president, you don't like what the president did, and you're not going to play by his rules,” he stated. “That is completely opposite of what the Associated Press is supposed to be.”
Still, there have been some Fox News pundits who have pushed back against the White House in its fight with the AP. Fox Radio host Guy Benson wondered how conservatives would react if a “future Democrat administration” decided to rename the Mississippi River after Barack Obama and retaliated against media outlets that wouldn’t immediately switch to calling it the Obama River.
Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume tweeted his agreement to a statement from free-speech advocacy group FIRE blasting the White House’s decision while noting that “the role of our free press is to hold those in power accountable, not to act as their mouthpiece.”
At the same time, although a handful of Fox News personalities have condemned Trump’s actions, many of the network’s conservative commentators have mocked calls for the rest of the media to boycott the White House in solidarity with the AP. After former CNN anchor Jim Acosta urged the White House press corps to take action, host Greg Gutfeld said “the scam is up,” and colleague Charlie Hurt proclaimed that “his derangement syndrome is in full swing.”
