The Associated Press has been banned from the Oval Office and Air Force One by the Trump administration in a statement move made to other news agencies.
The reason for these sanctions is the AP’s Stylebook, which sets capitalization and grammar rules for news articles and writing across the globe, and they did not update the name of the Gulf of Mexico.
The AP is an international news agency, so its style is geared toward international audiences. Since it is not recognized internationally as the “Gulf of America,” the Stylebook remains unchanged.
The Stylebook has updated to the Trump Administration’s changes in other cases, such as the renaming of Denali to Mount McKinley. The mountain is contained entirely in the US and its name was changed by the U.S., so the AP adapted.
“We’re going to keep them out until such time that they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago last week. “We’re proud of this country and we want it to be called the Gulf of America.”
Trump has also had issues with the AP in the past. Examples include the use of the term “gender-affirming care” for surgeries and medical care for transgender people and the capitalization of Black but not white when referring to race.
The latter was a particularly strong target of anguish from Trump as it was changed in the final year of his first term. The AP cites the reason behind the change as “white people generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color.”
The Trump Administration continued their policy of disdain towards the Stylebook, as Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich stated in an interview with Axios:
“This is about AP weaponizing language through their stylebook to push a partisan worldview in contrast with the traditional and deeply held beliefs of many Americans and many people around the world.”
Trump is also suing CBS for a 60 Minutes episode centered upon Kamala Harris, which he viewed as biased. Elon Musk has weighed in on the issue, calling for “lengthy prison sentences” for the show’s producers and showrunners.
This is not the first time that Trump has shown favoritism to different news sources or threatened the press over negative stories surrounding him. One of the main sound bytes from his first term was “fake news”, and he consistently claims that right-wing news sources that view him favorably such as Fox News, Newsmax, Breitbart, and OAN are the only “true” news sources.
The AP has fought this decision, claiming that it is a suppression of their First Amendment rights. The Trump Administration retaliates with the claim that access to the President and the White House is a privilege that they can revoke.
There seems to be no end to this conflict, as the AP has stood firm in its convictions to keep the Stylebook the way it is.
The Trump Administration also won’t budge. Trump stated: “The Associated Press just refuses to go with what the law is,” trying to frame the AP’s refusal as a legality issue, although no law requires the Stylebook to change.
Until a resolution is met, the AP will be banned from interacting with the president in any way, greatly reducing their ability to cover the new Trump Administration and politics at large.
