The Trump administration is planning to take over the seating assignments in the White House press briefing room, a senior official has confirmed. The plan, which could impact the relationship significantly between the administration and the media, would strip the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) of its long-standing authority to assign seats.
The WHCA is an independent organisation responsible for managing the seating chart and press access. The proposed change has sparked concerns among journalists, who see it as an attempt to exert influence over the media and limit independent scrutiny of the administration.
Axios first reported on the potential seating changes on Sunday, and Trump allies who view it as a way to marginalise mainstream media and elevate explicitly pro-Trump outlets. A senior White House official confirmed the plan to CNN but declined to provide further details.
However, several correspondents, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they had been expecting such a shift. The move is seen as symbolic and likely to be celebrated by pro-Trump media outlets.
“It doesn’t really matter where people sit,” one White House correspondent remarked. “But it does matter when the White House tries to impact what questions are asked, and how stories are covered, by taking control away from an elected group.”
The WHCA, which is governed by a rotating panel of elected journalists, has yet to issue an official response. Its current president, Eugene Daniels, did not respond to requests for comment regarding the status of the seating chart.
Uncertainty over media access
It remained unclear whether the administration intended to completely remove major news outlets from their assigned seats or simply reshuffle seating arrangements. Even a minor reordering could alter the dynamics of White House press briefings, potentially giving more prominence to right-wing media personalities and diminishing the presence of mainstream networks.
Under the current WHCA-managed seating arrangement, journalists from major TV networks, newswires, newspapers, and radio organisations sit in the front rows. The association updated the chart periodically to reflect shifts in the media landscape, ensuring representation for more than 60 outlets within the 49 available seats. The WHCA also assigned workspace booths and desks for the press corps.
Since Trump’s return to office in January, his administration has repeatedly clashed with the press. In February, news agency AP was banned from press conferences and other events. Around the same time, Leavitt announced that the White House, rather than the WHCA, would now handpick the reporters included in the “press pool”—a rotating group of journalists who travel with the president and attend smaller events.
In recent weeks, the administration has granted increased access to hyper partisan pro-Trump websites and smaller, lesser-known TV networks while excluding some mainstream outlets. During a recent briefing, Trump enthusiastically praised a reporter from the far-right network One America News after receiving what appeared to be a complimentary question.
Leavitt has also introduced a so-called “new media seat” at briefings, repurposing a chair formerly occupied by a White House aide to accommodate right-wing podcasters and independent commentators. Many of these pro-Trump media figures, however, are not based in Washington, DC, and do not regularly attend press briefings, potentially limiting their participation.
The White House’s effort to reshape press access extends beyond the briefing room. The Pentagon recently implemented a controversial “rotation” programme, removing major outlets from their long-established workspaces and replacing them with smaller media organisations that are openly supportive of Trump.
This is not the first time the Trump administration has attempted to alter the press seating arrangement. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the White House tried to reassign CNN’s Kaitlan Collins from her front-row seat to the back of the room. The move was widely seen as punitive. Both Collins and the affected reporter refused to comply, and the administration ultimately backed down.
At the time, then-WHCA President Jonathan Karl defended the association’s authority, “there is a decades-long bipartisan tradition of the WHCA determining the seating assignments in the briefing room,” hence, “we will challenge any effort to pick and choose what outlets are there or the manner in which they are in there.”
