Trump Bans AP From Oval Office for Not Saying ‘Gulf of America’
This week, Donald Trump’s presidential administration reportedly barred the Associated Press (A.P.) from the Oval Office for not adopting his preferred geographical nomenclature. Unfortunately, the childish squabble could carry major First Amendment implications.
Among dozens of executive actions issued on his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order declaring that the Gulf of Mexico would henceforth be known as the Gulf of America.
Not everybody adopted the change right away. According to its style guide, in an entry published three days into Trump’s term, the Associated Press said it would “refer to [the Gulf of Mexico] by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”
This apparently did not sit well with Trump.
“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,” A.P. Executive Editor Julie Pace said in a February 11 statement. “This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.”
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” Pace added. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”
At a press conference the following day, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the decision to bar the A.P. over the organization’s style guide language was “retaliatory in nature” and set a “precedent that this White House will retaliate against rep
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