Updated February 12, 2025 at 17:19 PM ET
The White House on Wednesday defended its decision to block a reporter from The Associated Press from covering two official events because the news service did not refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
President Trump signed an executive order on his first day renaming the Gulf "in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation's economy and its people," according to the order.
The AP recommends that its journalists and the news organizations that rely on it reflect the Gulf's historic name, but acknowledge Trump's desired shift in language, which directly affects usage by the federal government and inside the U.S.
His chief spokesperson made no apologies for seeking to impose the president's desired language on the news agency.
"It is a privilege to cover this White House," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday. "Nobody has the right to go into the Oval Office and ask the president of the United States questions. That's an invitation that is given."
"I was very up front 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," Leavitt continued, in response to questions from CNN's Kaitlan Collins. "And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. And I'm not sure why news outlets don't want to call it that. "
AP: White House infringing on independent news coverage
AP Executive Editor Julie Pace wrote a letter to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, as Pace put it, "to object in the strongest possible terms."
In her letter, shared with NPR, Pace wrote that Leavitt told an AP reporter that its access to the Oval Office would be restricted if the news service didn't immediately adopt Trump's preferred named for the Gulf.
"The actions taken by the White House were plainly intended to punish the AP for the content of its speech," Pace wrote. "It is among the most basic tenets of the First Amendment that the government cannot retaliate against the public or the press for what they say."
She wrote that the AP would "vigorously defend its constitutional rights and protest the infringement on the public's right to independent news coverage of their government and elected officials."
The events that the AP was stopped from covering were newsworthy. On Tuesday afternoon, Trump and his adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, spoke of the sweeping cuts they were making to the federal government as part of Musk's government efficiency effort known as DOGE. Tuesday evening, an AP reporter was blocked from attending an event with a U.S. prisoner who had been released by the Russian government.
The move comes as the Trump administration applies increasing pressure on mainstream news outlets, through limiting access to key venues and launching investigations.
AP style guide sets standards worldwide
The AP is part of a small pool of print and broadcast journalists who attend each presidential appearance to share with the larger press and the public. AP's Stylebook is used not only by its own journalists, but by other news outlets and institutions around the globe. In its guidance, the AP advises that the body of water to the east of Mexico that stretches from Texas to Florida should retain its historic title.
"The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years," the updated Stylebook entry states. "Refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen."
The U.S. Geological Survey has officially adopted "Gulf of America." Apple and Google Maps also call it by that name when searched by users based in the U.S. (Leavitt cited their shift in making her case on Wednesday.)
Outside the U.S., "Gulf of Mexico" is still used.
As the AP Stylebook notes, "Trump's order only carries authority within the United States. Mexico, as well as other countries and international bodies, do not have to recognize the name change."
A battle over speech
Other news organizations offered support for the AP. "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," said Politico's Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents' Association. "The move by the administration to bar a reporter from The Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable."
An article in The New York Times this week made the case that the move fits with Trump's efforts to remake the language of government, for example, by scrubbing the Biden administration's terms of programs about race and gender from agency directives.
The Times's Shawn McCreesh wrote that "The president said he was appointing a 'warrior for free speech' to run the Federal Communications Commission. That free speech warrior immediately launched investigations into NPR and PBS, and then set his sights on CBS and NBC."
The move echoes others taken against the press in the administration's first days.
Under Defense Secretary and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon has dislodged eight news organizations from their work stations there, including NPR, the New York Times, NBC News, CNN, the Washington Post, Politico, the Hill, and the War Zone.
Seven conservative and right-wing sites took their spots, including Breitbart radio, One America News Network, Newsmax and the New York Post. A liberal-leaning site that also was offered a workstation, HuffPost, had not asked for one.
Trump had filed lawsuits against ABC News and Facebook; their parent companies recently settled his suits by paying millions of dollars apiece for his future presidential library. CBS's parent company, Paramount, appears poised to settle another lawsuit Trump filed over a 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris during last year's presidential race, according to several people with knowledge. They spoke on condition of anonymity given the ongoing litigation.
Legal observers say the strength of Trump's cases ranged from weak (ABC) to frivolous (Meta and CBS).
At the FCC, Chairman Brendan Carr sent a letter to the chairman and chief executive of Comcast, the parent company of NBC, over its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts companywide.
"Promoting invidious forms of discrimination cannot be squared with any reasonable interpretation of federal law," Carr wrote, according to Newsmax, which first reported on his letter Tuesday. The FCC did not reply to NPR's request for comment.
In a statement shared with NPR, Comcast said it would respond to the FCC's questions and that its company "has been built on a foundation of integrity of respect for all our employees and customers."
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