The White House kicked HuffPost, Reuters and a representative of the foreign press out of the traditional ‘pool’ Wednesday, making good on press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s pledge to pick which outlets cover the president in confined spaces.
Ahead of President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting, the three reporters were told they weren’t allowed to join the rest of the pool by press aides.
They were banished alongside the Associated Press’ reporter and photographer, who were ousted from the pool indefinitely earlier this month over the wire service’s refusal to use the term ‘Gulf of America’ instead of ‘Gulf of Mexico’.
HuffPost’s longtime White House reporter S.V. Date told DailyMail.com that the White House was aware ahead of time that he was scheduled to serve as the representative for print outlets – newspaper and online – for events at the White House Wednesday.
For decades, the White House Correspondents’ Association, a membership organization made up of journalists from an array of outlets, determined a rotation for the daily pool.
On Wednesday, instead of allowing Date to join the pool, the White House had a reporter from Axios take his place.
‘I will say this, I’ve been pooling now for 10 years, since the Obama administration,’ Date told reporters in the briefing room.
‘The number of times that the Obama White House, Trump White House 1, Biden White House and Trump White House 2 in the times that I’ve pooled so far have asked for a mistake to be corrected in one of my pool reports? Zero. None. Never,’ he argued.
‘The number of times that any of those White Houses have asked for a correction in one of my stories, that’s also zero.’
‘So, it’s not about accuracy, it’s not about competence, and I’ll let them explain what it’s about,’ said Date, who penned a book about Trump entitled ‘Useful Idiot.’
A White House official told DailyMail.com that the ‘[White House Correspondents’ Association] pool that HuffPost was a part of no longer exists.’