Karoline Leavitt Declines to Attend White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has made it clear: she won’t be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner. Her reason? The organization has long been an exclusive club that shuts out independent and new media voices while prioritizing the same old legacy outlets.

Leavitt announced her decision during an interview on Sean Spicer’s podcast, a fitting venue given Spicer’s own experience as President Trump’s press secretary during his first six months in office.

Rejecting the Old Guard of Media

“I will not be in attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and that’s breaking news for The Sean Spicer Show,” Leavitt revealed.

She explained that the WHCA, originally formed to ensure presidents engaged with the press, is now more of an elitist club that protects the interests of legacy media rather than representing the evolving landscape of journalism.

“This is a group of journalists who’ve been covering the White House for decades,” Leavitt said. “They started this organization because the presidents at the time were not doing enough press conferences. I don’t think we have that problem anymore under this president, so the priorities of the media have shifted, especially with this new digital age.”

Opening the Doors to Real Journalism

Leavitt has made expanding press access a priority, ensuring that independent and alternative media outlets—often dismissed by the mainstream press—can have a voice in White House coverage.

“The Correspondents’ Association is an exclusive group of journalists who cover this White House, and they have not really welcomed other people, new media, independent journalists with open arms,” she stated. “We thought it was time to expand the coverage and determine who gets to be part of that 13-person press pool, who gets to ask the president of the United States questions in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One.”

Under the new system, a broader range of voices—including those who challenge the status quo and legacy media narratives—now have the opportunity to engage with the administration.

“Since we have started this new process of determining the daily rotation, so many new voices and outlets who have never been part of this small and privileged group of journalists have been able to access those very unique and privileged spaces and cover this presidency,” Leavitt added. “And that’s very important.”

Media Backlash and a Changing Press Landscape

Predictably, the old-guard media isn’t happy. Eugene Daniels, the WHCA board president and a Politico correspondent, claimed the decision “tears at the independence of a free press.” But in reality, it does the exact opposite—ensuring a more diverse, representative, and truly free press, rather than a hand-picked club of insiders.

The Trump administration has also taken bold steps to reshape White House press access. Traditional wire services like the Associated Press, Bloomberg, and Reuters no longer have automatic, permanent spots in the press pool. Instead, they must rotate a single position in the 13-member group, making room for other outlets that the mainstream media often ignores.

The decision sparked a direct confrontation with the Associated Press when the White House barred the outlet from the press pool after it refused to acknowledge President Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The AP’s exclusion was temporarily upheld in federal court, with Judge Trevor N. McFadden cautioning that precedent wasn’t necessarily on the White House’s side. A further court hearing is scheduled for March 20.

President Trump Continues to Bypass the Swamp

During his first term, President Trump refused to attend the WHCA dinner, recognizing it for what it was—a self-congratulatory gathering for the Washington establishment media. It appears that in his second term, little has changed.

Instead of catering to the old media elite, the Trump administration is prioritizing transparency, accountability, and ensuring that a wider range of voices get access to the White House—not just the ones that push the left’s narrative.

Leavitt’s decision to skip the WHCA dinner is another strong statement: the days of media gatekeeping and backroom deals among liberal journalists are over. The American people deserve a press that represents them, not one that serves as a propaganda arm of the Democrat Party.

Stay tuned for more updates as the Trump administration continues to break down barriers and open up the White House press room to a broader, more representative media landscape.