The AP Is A Mouthpiece For The Progressive Movement That Trump Was Right To Ban From Oval Office
The White House has blocked the Associated Press (AP) from the Oval Office and Air Force One over the news organization's refusal to rename the "Gulf of Mexico" as the "Gulf of America" in its Stylebook.
The legacy media has come out in the defense of the AP.
On Friday, the New York Times condemned the administration for the decision with the following statement:
"We stand by the @AP in condemning repeated acts of retribution by this administration for editorial decisions it disagrees with. Any move to limit access or impede reporters doing their jobs is at odds with the press freedoms enshrined in the Constitution."
CNN host Kasie Hunt called "The Associated Press is an essential news source for America and the world." Adding, "It serves communities that voted for President Trump across America. It covers state legislatures when others have given up. It is a news service for all, especially in times of crisis. It is essential."
The press has positioned the banishment of the AP as an authoritarian measure against an objective not-for-profit news agency. But that's not what the AP is. The publication hasn't been that for a very long time
What's telling about the refusal to abide by what the White House describes as a "lawful geographic name change" is that the AP has notoriously updated its guidelines to adhere to whatever random language change progressive lawmakers and lobbyists have ordered.
WASHINGTON, DC - U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a series of executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on January 23, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
In 2020, the AP normalized capitalizing the word "black," referring to the skin color, and then explained why the word "white" deserved no such treatment.
"AP’s style is now to capitalize Black in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa," the outlet said in response to the death of George Floyd.
"The lowercase black is a color, not a person. AP style will continue to lowercase the term white in racial, ethnic, and cultural senses."
Nearly every month, the AP updates rules in compliance with the wishes of the ever-expanding LGBTQIA+ community. See some recent examples below:
In 2023, the AP asked journalists to put the words "woke" and "anti-abortion" in quotation marks due to the words "derogatory" use by conservatives.
"A slang term that originally described enlightenment or awakening about issues of racial and other forms of social justice," read an explanation of the word in an AP Stylebook post on Twitter.
"Some people and groups, especially conservatives, now use it in a derogatory sense implying what they see as overreactions. Avoid using the term other than in direct quotations."
Put simply, the AP is a mouthpiece for the progressive movement.
The refusal to refer to the "Gulf of Mexico" as the "Gulf of America" is entirely partisan. Even NPR, no ally of President Trump, acknowledged that the "Gulf of America renaming is official within the U.S., which is why apps like Google Maps refer to the oceanic basin as such.
Consider that White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt made clear the White House would hold outlets in the press room accountable if they purposely push lies about the administration.
"I was very upfront in my briefing on day one, that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable," she said this week.
The AP ignored an executive order and chose willful inaccuracy for mere political reasons. That does not describe an essential outlet or one to which the president is under an obligation to grant access to the Oval Office.