Reporter blocked from Oval Office for 'pushing lies' after refusing to call the 'Gulf of Mexico' the 'Gulf of America'
12 February 2025, 19:22
A US reporter who was "barred from the Oval Office" for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America has been accused of "pushing lies" by the Trump administration.
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The Associated Press journalist claims they were banned from Tuesday’s Oval Office executive order signing in an effort to “punish” the agency for refusing to adopt Trump's terminologies.
Confronted my the media during Wednesday's White House press conference, Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt equated the refusal to adopt the new phrasing to "pushing lies".
She added that access to the White House is "a privilege" and that "no one has a right" to access the president's activities in the Oval Office.
"We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office,” she added, “if we feel there are lies being pushed”.
Shortly after his inauguration, President Trump signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
The media countered, questioning whether the move contravened their "first amendment right" to free speech.
Following the incident on Tuesday evening, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) protested the decision on social media.
President Eugene Daniels explained: "The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions.”
“The move by the administration to bar a reporter from the Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable.”
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On Wednesday, AP’s executive editor, Julie Pace, said in a statement: “As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.”
“Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.”
During the press conference, Karoline Leavitt also spoke on the Trump's call with Putin - as the US President is set to visit Moscow amid "negotiations" to end the war.
During the press conference on Wednesday, Ms Leavitt also outlined the president was "delivering on a promise 77 million people want him to do".
It comes as she hit out at judges who ordered the administration to reinstate FEMA funding, after the justices ruled Trump had violated a court order by refusing to reverse a freeze of billions in government funds.
Claiming Trump is a "master of the art of the deal", Trump's press secretary added that the judges were "attempting to thwart the will of the people" with the ruling.
She also labelled the justices "judicial activists”, saying the ruling had been made “without citing any evidence or grounds for their law suits”.