President Donald Trump clashing with the legacy media is nothing new. But the president just took his fight with biased journalists a step too far.
It all began after Trump, hilariously, signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” For some reason, the journalists at the Associated Press have stubbornly refused to recognize this name change and are continuing to refer to it as the “Gulf of Mexico” in their coverage. This seems petty and biased, and the Trump administration and its allies have every right to criticize the AP for its choices. But they’re doing more than that.
The White House is explicitly punishing the AP for its word choice by restricting its access to the Oval Office and official events. We don’t have to speculate about the White House’s motivation or read between the lines. When asked about its decision to restrict the AP’s access, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt specifically said, “If we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable. And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America.”
That’s right: The federal government is telling reporters to cover things the way it wants them to and use the word choice it likes or suffer the consequences. That’s not OK, and it’s not a precedent Republicans should want to set. It may also be unconstitutional.
The nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression slammed the White House’s move, saying in a statement, “Punishing journalists for not adopting state-mandated terminology is an alarming attack on press freedom. That’s viewpoint discrimination, and it’s unconstitutional.”
“President Trump has the authority to change how the U.S. government refers to the Gulf,” FIRE concluded. “But he cannot punish a news organization for using another term.”
(Disclaimer: I do a small amount of freelance work with FIRE.)
This is spot-on. Trump is free to criticize the AP, and consumers can boycott its work if they find it biased or inaccurate. But the government cannot retaliate against news outlets for their coverage choices — at least not without violating the First Amendment. It’s true, as some defenders point out, that not every outlet gets access to the Oval Office. But the criteria for who gets access should be viewpoint-neutral, and explicit viewpoint retaliation of any kind raises constitutional concerns.
Regardless, do Republicans really want to play this game?
Under this same thought process, a future Democratic administration could just as easily deny access to Fox News, Breitbart News, or other right-of-center media outlets if they, for example, refuse to use the “correct” pronouns for a transgender Democratic official. If you don’t want progressive presidents punishing conservative media for their coverage choices, you can’t support Trump doing so to liberal-leaning media outlets.
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The obvious problems with this precedent may explain why even many Fox News pundits, such as Brit Hume and Guy Benson, condemned the Trump White House’s move. They wisely seem to understand how important protections for a free press are for liberal and conservative media outlets alike.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration doesn’t seem to get it. It should reconsider, or courts should force it to.
Brad Polumbo is an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs Everyone podcast.