When Donald Trump took the oath of workplace one 12 months in the past, I used to be watching on a laptop computer display screen within the White Home briefing room whereas bracing myself from the absurdly chilly air that flooded the small house each time somebody opened the door.
As he delivered not one however two separate stemwinding addresses within the Capitol — first the standard post-inaugural speech within the Capitol rotunda, then a second, way more partisan and unscripted rant to supporters who’d been seated in an overflow space — I seemed as much as see a colleague from one other information outlet who, like me, had been on the White Home beat for the reason that begin of Trump’s tumultuous first time period almost a decade earlier.
Because the president rambled on concerning the varied grievances and slights he’d been made to endure since shedding the 2020 election and decamping to Florida for what turned only a temporary exile from energy below the Biden administration, she rolled her eyes and turned to me with a figuring out smile.
“Right here we go once more,” she mentioned.
These of us who coated Trump’s first administration thought we knew what to anticipate. Boy, had been we fallacious.
The writer (at proper) in a gaggle with President Donald Trump aboard Air Power One on Could 4, 2025 returning to the White Home after spending the weekend in Florida (AFP/Getty)
His first 4 years in energy had been usually a continuous barrage of stories that left journalists exhausted however well-fed on copious quantities of leaked data from varied camps inside the West Wing trying to knife each other, plus much less helpful — and sometimes far much less truthful — data delivered by a rotating forged of press secretaries and spokespersons.
Sean Spicer’s now-infamous 2017 debut within the briefing room, throughout which he castigated the press for reporting on the far smaller crowd that attended Trump’s first inaugural in contrast with both of Barack Obama’s swearings-in, set the tone that roughly characterised the following 4 years. Issues acquired weirder from there, along with his appearances within the briefing room changing into so weird — keep in mind “Holocaust facilities?” — that he was infamously parodied by Melissa McCarthy on Saturday Night time Dwell.
Press briefings acquired fewer and farther between as Trump moved on from the oft-combative Spicer to the extra affable however equally unhelpful Sarah Huckabee Sanders (who’s now dwelling her finest life as governor of Arkansas) to Stephanie Grisham, who didn’t maintain a single press briefing for her whole tenure.
And though Trump’s official schedule didn’t kick off till mid-morning then, reporters akin to myself acquired within the behavior of arriving on the White Home as early at 7am as a result of administration officers, most frequently Kellyanne Conway, would interact in pugilistic back-and-forths with us after showing on Fox Information.
The president himself found the briefing room throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, usually spending as many as 90 minutes a day there as he took questions from a pared-down press corps whereas Individuals sheltered at residence.
And whereas Trump usually preferred to assault or belittle particular reporters or retailers, his administration roughly allow us to do our jobs.
We anticipated extra of the identical when Trump was sworn in for a second time, and as I and different colleagues greeted the incoming Trump II press workers — a few of whom we’d gotten to know throughout his earlier time period — on inauguration day, one individual remarked to me that the environment had a “first day of faculty” vibe that portended a smoother journey than final time round.
Effectively, guess once more.
Karoline Leavitt and The Unbiased’s White Home reporter Andrew Feinberg (at proper) in March. (Getty)
To make sure, there are constructive variations between Trump I and Trump II from the attitude of a beat reporter. Whereas the Trump I press workers was extra prone to scream at you than reply a query when you walked into their workplace, their counterparts in his second administration are sometimes so cheerful and pleasant that it’s greater than a bit disconcerting.
In contrast to the heady days when Spicer, Sanders and Grisham ran an amateurish and uncommunicative press store, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Communications Director Steven Cheung are usually skilled behind the scenes and their subordinates truly reply to queries frequently.
However on the entire, this administration has not been very like the final.
In contrast to the leaky ship that was Trump I, Trump’s White Home this time round is way extra disciplined. From a reporter’s perspective, that’s not precisely a great factor.
However the true distinction is how Trump’s new-look group has put his combative perspective in direction of the free and unbiased press into motion.
In February, Leavitt’s workplace introduced it could take management of the “pool” rotation below which a gaggle of retailers — together with The Unbiased — cowl Trump as he holds courtroom within the Oval Workplace and whereas he travels across the nation aboard Air Power One.
(Reuters)
Whereas I and my colleagues from respected and legit information retailers nonetheless take our turns and dutifully file pool reviews which are utilized by the remainder of the press corps to put in writing the “first draft of historical past,” we’ve been joined by increasingly more individuals chosen by the White Home whereas some retailers (such because the AP) have been banned for doubtful causes which are at the moment being evaluated by the courts, akin to refusing to acknowledge Trump’s proclamation that the Gulf of Mexico ought to now be known as the Gulf of America.
Among the newcomers are from conservative-leaning retailers who strategy their jobs in a accountable, respected method. However others, to be frank, are sycophants and clowns who do little to assist inform the American individuals.
Leavitt has usually given satisfaction of place to those individuals by letting them ask the primary query at White Home briefings (historically the position of the AP) in a “new media” seat positioned in a piece of the briefing room normally reserved for White Home workers.
President Donald Trump gestures to a ‘Gulf of America’ graphic within the Oval Workplace. The U.S. Geological Survey, a federal company accountable for the nation’s geographic names, advised its workers not to reply to journalists’ questions after Trump first introduced the change, a brand new report reveals (AFP/Getty)
In a single occasion, she hosted infamous plagiarist turned MAGA troll Benny Johnson there and let him kick off a briefing with a fabricated story of how he and his household had fled Washington after their “home was set ablaze in an arson” (based on the DC Hearth Division, it was his neighbor’s home that was set on hearth).
One other Leavitt visitor, beanie-wearing podcaster Tim Pool, used his time there to complain about how reliable information retailers had characterised him and different “new media” seat occupants and requested Leavitt to affix him in disparaging the mainstream press. Leavitt diplomatically replied that the administration “welcomes various viewpoints.“
Extra not too long ago, I (and others) have been positioned on White Home-authored lists attacking us as biased in retaliation for reporting precisely on the president’s personal phrases and actions.
My counterparts within the Pentagon press corps and elsewhere in Washington have had it worse.
Final 12 months, they surrendered their press credentials en masse after Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded that all of them signal paperwork pledging to not ask anybody within the federal authorities or elsewhere for details about something whereas solely publishing pre-approved data — the definition of propaganda.
Ex-congressman Matt Gaetz, now a journalist at One America Information Community, asks a query at a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday December 2 2025 (Division of Protection)
They had been changed within the halls of the Pentagon by a coterie of sycophants and influencers aligned with Hegseth and his imaginative and prescient for his division.
One try at a briefing for the “new Pentagon press corps” noticed seats within the Pentagon briefing room taken by self-described “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer and Matt Gaetz, the disgraced ex-Florida congressman who was briefly Trump’s decide for Lawyer Normal earlier than resigning from the Home in a fruitless try and keep away from launch of a damning ethics committee report that allegedly discovered substantial proof he had intercourse with a 17-year-old lady and allegedly additionally was present in possession of unlawful medicine. Gaetz has denied each allegations and a Justice Division probe into Gaetz’s alleged actions with the lady produced no prices.
And simply this previous week, FBI brokers searched the house of a Washington Put up reporter who the federal government alleged to be speaking with a suspected leaker — though it’s not unlawful for a journalist to obtain leaked paperwork, even categorized ones.
Vice President JD Vance took time from his week to shout on the press about their protection of final week’s capturing in Minneapolis (Reuters)
Brokers seized her telephones and laptops, ostensibly as a part of a probe right into a Protection Division worker who’d mishandled categorized data, however maybe as a warning to others who may dare correspond with journalists from inside the federal government.
And whereas the president has largely averted the briefing room throughout his first 12 months again, he has dispatched Vice President JD Vance there on a couple of event, most not too long ago final week when he appeared there to berate me and my White Home press corps colleagues about protection of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement capturing of Minneapolis resident Renee Good.
One would assume the Vice President of the US has higher issues to do than scream at a bunch of journalists as a result of he doesn’t just like the headlines on a narrative, however right here we’re.
And Leavitt hasn’t been shy about unleashing over-the-top rebukes when cornered with reliable questions she’d not reply. Days in the past, she laid into one in every of my colleagues from The Hill — an affable gentleman who initially hails from Northern Eire — for having the temerity to supply an opinion opposite to hers after she’d requested him to inform her what he considered final week’s capturing.
She reacted to his trustworthy reply by angrily elevating her voice and smearing him as “a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion” and “a left-wing hack” who was “pretending such as you’re a journalist.”
It’s a tactic Trump himself has used on quite a few events — usually with feminine or non-white journalists — when hit with powerful questions on topics he’d want to keep away from.
Nonetheless, the soiled little secret about Trump — then and now — is that he truly likes reporters. One of many issues he missed most concerning the presidency wasn’t the airplane or the opposite comparable perquisites of the world’s strongest job, it was having a “pool” of reporters he may summon any time he needed to speak about something in any respect.
For all his speak about “faux information,” he’s spent years calling journalists and nonetheless takes calls from them on his cell phone (and when you’re studying this, Mr. President, you may at all times ask Karoline for my quantity).
What’s completely different — and chilling — this time round is that Trump has now surrounded himself with individuals who truly imagine the anti-press discuss he has spent years spouting in public whereas remaining pleasant in non-public.
Trump might often name me and my colleagues “the enemy of the individuals,” however individuals like Vice President JD Vance, Hegseth, Lawyer Normal Pam Bondi and others truly imagine it.