White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

WHCA Announces New Seating Chart for White House Briefing Room

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The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) announced its new seating chart for the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the West Wing, as reported by Deadline. The changes will take effect Monday, January 3, 2022.

Image courtesy of Deadline.com

WHCA President Steve Portnoy wrote in a letter to WHCA members that of the 65 news organizations and entities that received assignments, 14 were getting their first ever seats in the room, and 30 news organizations are sharing seats.

The front two rows remain unchanged:

First Row: NBC News, FOX News, CBS News, AP, ABC News, Reuters, and CNN

Second Row: The Wall Street Journal, CBS News Radio, Bloomberg, NPR, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today

According the Deadline: “The organizations new to the seating chart from 2017: Telemundo, CNBC, The Grio, Fox Business, Nexstar, Newsy, Gray TV, EWTN, Cheddar, Hearst, Spectrum, Newsweek, The Daily Caller and The Washington Blade. All are sharing seats. Missing from the list compared to 2017: SiriusXM, Westwood One, The New York Daily News, Talk Radio News, OAN and BuzzFeed.”

“The White House Plumbers” Return to The Watergate

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The Watergate Hotel became ground zero once again this time for HBO’s actors, producers, and crew to recreate the break-in orchestrated by President Richard Nixon’s Watergate plumbers, with G. Gordon Liddy portrayed by Washington native Justin Theroux and E. Howard Hunt played by Woody Harrelson.

Justin Theroux as G. Gordon Liddy and Woody Harrelson as E. Howard Hunt, set in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Theroux and Harrelson flank Judy Greer as Mrs. Frances Liddy and Lena Headey as Mrs. Dorothy Hunt.

From HBO:  “Based in part on public records and the book Integrity by Egil “Bud” Krogh and Matthew Krogh, the five-part limited series The White House Plumbers will tell the true story of how Nixon’s own political saboteurs and Watergate masterminds, E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, accidentally toppled the presidency they were trying to protect.”

David Bernad, executive producer of the HBO hit “White Lotus,” developed the show with “Veep” writers Peter Hyuck and Alex Gregory. David Mandel, executive producer of “Veep” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is also an executive producer and the director of all “White House Plumbers” episodes. Frank Rich of “Succession” and “Veep” fame is also an Executive Producer.

HBO “The White House Plumbers” Executive Producer and Director Dave Mandel reunites with “Veep” consultant Tammy Haddad while shooting at the Old Executive Office Building

“The White House Plumbers” producers, writers, and crew on site-survey for Lincoln Memorial sequence

“The White House Plumbers” actor Ike Barinholtz, consultant Tammy Haddad, and G. Gordon Liddy star Justin Theroux with rescue Kuma on the roof of The Watergate

Justin Theroux as G. Gordon Liddy and Woody Harrelson as E. Howard Hunt with Dannia Hakki at Prettyman Courthouse

White House Plumbers Show Jacket

Former HBO Films president and show producer Len Amato and Justin Theroux on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House.

Biden White House Press Briefings Return to Full Capacity

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This week, the James S. Brady White House Press Briefing Room finally returned to full capacity for the first time since March 16, 2020, marking a hopeful landmark as the White House returns to pre-pandemic norms.

Photo courtesy of CBS News.

The change was announced by the White House Correspondents Association on Sunday, along with the reintroduction of the pre-pandemic seating chart for the press room, featuring reporters from NBC, Fox News, CBS News, the Associated Press, ABC News, Reuters and CNN, reported Politico. The WHCA also announced that press capacity limitations for the North Lawn and indoor press workspaces would be lifted as well.

For over a year, the White House press briefing room had a severely limited amount of available seating, forcing the WHCA to issue seating rotations to give each outlet an opportunity to ask their questions – an arrangement that had pleased then-President Donald Trump who admitted back in March 2020 that there were only “two or three” reporters that he actually liked, Philip Wegman of RealClearPolitics recounts. “We should get rid of another 75 to 80% of you,” the president remarked at the time.

In late May, the press room returned to 50% capacity, allowing – for the first time in over a year – a full lineup of news outlets to fill the 24 available seats. However, some reporters were alarmed on Monday to see the James S. Brady room make such a quick turnaround. White House reporter and Co-author of Politico’s West Wing Playbook Alex Thompson noted that the briefing room had around 83 attendees on the first day back – far more than the available 49 seats.

Shortly after the two-minute warning leading into the press briefing, an unnamed voice asked the additional reporters not to stand in the aisles, as was customary prior to the pandemic. However, the request was not heeded.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who has been giving briefings to a limited audience since she first started at the White House, was quick to adjust to the crowded room, reports CBS News. “I’m very thrown off to where everyone’s seated – I’ll adjust to it,” Psaki quipped before taking questions.

According to a survey issued by the WHCA, more than 97% of its members reported being fully vaccinated, serving as motivation for the most recent changes. As early as two weeks ago, journalists were required to take nasal swabs before entering the briefing room. Now, per the WHCA’s new guidance, fully vaccinated journalists do not need to be tested and the White House will not be asking for proof of vaccination.

The White House Correspondents Association’s President Zeke Miller wrote in the announcement that, “Since the onset of the pandemic, our priority has been to keep journalists safe, while ensuring that the critical work of informing the public could continue uninterrupted.”

“We appreciate the sacrifices made by every member of the press corps and we thank you all for your cooperation over the last 15 months,” he added.

CNN Reporter Kaitlan Collins Banned from White House Open Press Event

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CNN Reporter Kaitlan Collins, Photo Courtesy AP

Kaitlan Collins, a CNN reporter, was barred from covering an open press event with President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, July 25th, by Bill Shine, the former FOX News exec and current deputy chief of staff of communications. After shouting what Shine considered an “inappropriate” comment at an earlier press pool, Collins was told she would not be allowed to attend the event between Trump and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

Bill Shine, who joined the Trump administration in recent weeks, later pushed back on reports Collins had been banned from the event, claiming the reporter was simply “disinvited” from attending.

The question Collins was flagged for posing to the president concerned Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen. In the same open press event, she asked about the delayed meeting between Vladimir Putin and President Trump. Both questions went unanswered.

The White House Correspondents’ Association decried the move in a statement, sat that the move was a “misguided and inappropriate decision.”

Olivier Knox, this year’s president of the White House Correspondents Association, said “this type of retaliation is wholly inappropriate, wrong-headed, and weak,” and that “it cannot stand.”

FOX News president Jay Wallace condemned the move from the White House saying, “We stand in strong solidarity with CNN for the right to full access for our journalists as part of a free and unfettered press.”

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders addressed the controversy during a press briefing Wednesday evening. “At the conclusion of a press event in the Oval Office a reporter shouted questions and refused to leave despite repeatedly being asked to do so. Subsequently, our staff informed her she was not welcome to participate in the next event, but made clear that any other journalist from her network could attend.”

HHS Secretary Alex Azar Addresses Family Separations at Washington Post Health Event

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HHS Secretary speaks with Paige Winfield Cunningham at the Washington Post Health 202 Live event

The Trump administration policy forcing asylum seekers entering to US to split up with their children has sparked outrage around the world. As part of the Washington Post’s Health 202 Live event, health policy reporter Paige Winfield Cunningham spoke to HHS Secretary Alex Azar about his role in shaping the president’s policies, including immigration and child separation, as well as lowering insurance costs, and Medicare reform on Wednesday, June 20th.

On the controversial issue Azar said, “Nobody has ever desired to separate children from their families but, just like you or me, if you are arrested, your kids aren’t going to be with you. If you want to remain with your children, don’t come across the border illegally… Present yourself at a legal border crossing.”

Azar added, “Once members of Congress—the one who have actually visited facilities and toured it as opposed to those who are just talking about it—I think have been impressed. We take the mission quite seriously.”

Kellyanne Conway: Expect Staff Shake Up in Wake of Explosive White House Leaks

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Kellyanne Conway at the 2018 Garden Brunch

Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway took to the airwaves to defend the Trump administration against a series of leaks coming out of the White House press shop. One of the leaks has sparked outrage from all sides when communications staffer Kelly Sadler claimed that Senator John McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel becoming CIA Director “doesn’t matter” and that “he’s dying anyway.”

In an appearance on FOX News Monday morning, May 15th, Conway hinted that there may be personnel changes coming soon. “There are all kinds of leaks. Some leaks exist to hurt, I guess, colleagues, some leaks exist because they disagree with the policies that are being put forth, but none of them are helpful…Something else that’s gone on in this White House but not as badly as it was at the beginning, where it’s not so much leaking as using the media to shiv each other, and that was going on quite a bit at the beginning of this administration and it’s less so now.”

Meanwhile, President Trump took to Twitter to claim the leaks were “fake news”:

The White House has yet to issue an apology to Senator McCain for the staffer’s comments despite calls to do so from Congressmen and women on both sides of the aisle.

Trump Fails To Make State of the Union Ratings Great Again

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Media Post’s  

Donald Trump has been called the “ratings” President, because of his propensity to use the TV industry term to refer to his Presidential performance, and because he’s an ex-reality TV personality and producer. But based on Nielsen’s official ratings, the performance of his first State of the Union Address wasn’t exactly huge.

While it’s true that the ratings of Presidential State of the Union addresses have been trending downward in recent years, Trump’s first SOTU ranks only eighth in terms of viewers among the last 25 to be aired on the major broadcast and cable networks carrying it live, according to an analysis of Nielsen data.

Michael Wolff Celebrates Fire and Fury Success At Publisher’s Upper West Side Home

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Publisher Stephen Rubin toasts Michael Wolff at his Upper West Side Home, Photo Courtesy Haddad Media

 

From the moment its first excerpts leaked to the press, Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House was destined to be a bestseller. To top it off, on the same day that it was revealed the book will be turned into a TV series, The New York Times’ Shawn McCreesh writes in an article on Thursday, January 18th that Michael Wolff held a party in celebration of the book’s success at the Upper West Side home of publisher Stephen Rubin.

According to McCreesh, conservative firebrand Ann Coulter was in attendance, as was NPR’s David Folkenflik, CNN’s Dylan Byers, former Hollywood Reporter editor Janice Min, and Jane Friedman, the former CEO of HarperCollins.

Haddad Media CEO Tammy Haddad also made the bash, saying, “I’ve joined every other reporter in being incredibly jealous of Michael’s access.”

Read the full report from the party here.

Purchase Fire and Fury here.

Kremlin Considers Trump’s Tweets as Official White House Statements

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Photo courtesy Pixabay

The Kremlin has acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin reads tweets posted by President Donald Trump, and the Russian government considers them to be official positions of the administration.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed his government’s stance in a statement.

“In any case, everything which is published from [Trump’s] authorized Twitter account is perceived by Moscow as his official statement… Naturally, it is reported to Putin along with other information about official statements by politicians.”

Trump regularly posts on Twitter to make official policy announcements and also to appeal to his base of supporters and vent frustrations at those with whom he disagrees, including the media and lawmakers.

The president has frequently been criticized about his tweets, including criticizing U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May after a sharp rebuke following his retweeting videos originally posted by ultra-nationalists in the United Kingdom suggesting violence against Muslims.

Trump also recently lashed out at Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in a tweet saying she “would do anything for [campaign contributions]” after the Senator called for his resignation following “credible” and “numerous” allegations of sexual harassment against Trump.

Journalists Express Mixed Feelings On Attending White House Christmas Party

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Photo courtesy the White House

Following CNN’s announcement they will not attend the annual White House Christmas party for the media, other reporters have expressed mixed responses and reservations over socializing with an administration that often lambastes mainstream journalists as “fake news.”

For example, New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi wrote in an email to Politico that:

“While I don’t think it’s improper to attend social events with the president per se, I personally am uncomfortable with the idea of being a guest in this White House for a party (if I would not be covering the party), given Donald Trump’s stated threats to the First Amendment and general lack of understanding or interest in its importance. For that reason, my personal feelings are that it sends the wrong message to schmooze under mistletoe while our freedoms are under attack. That said, I don’t judge colleagues who arrive at a different conclusion.”

Another White House correspondent, who wished to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak on the record about this topic, said that he would attend the holiday event.

“I do get bothered [by the attacks on the press].  But I don’t view it as our role to engage in a fight with the president. I think that it’s our role to keep doing our jobs reporting the news and not treat it like we’re two warring institutions of American democracy. We don’t need to reciprocate that attitude.”

CNN announced earlier this week it would not be accepting the White House invitation, although they would send a reporting team to the event and report on any relevant news that may come out of the party.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded by posting on Twitter that “Christmas comes early!” because of CNN’s decision.


The White House Christmas party is held annually, and is normally a casual event where reporters mingle off-the-record with administration officials and staff.