According to people who have seen the plan, the White House is creating a new "pool coverage" rule for small areas like the Oval Office and Air Force One. They also said that press secretary Karoline Leavitt will have the final decision on which journalists can ask her boss questions.

Requests for comment sent to the White House on Tuesday evening went unanswered.

A federal judge recently decided that the White House was wrong to punish the Associated Press by stopping their reporters and photographers from covering events. This punishment happened because the news organization would not change how they referred to the Gulf of Mexico. The judge, U.S. District Judge Trevor N. McFadden, ordered the government to treat the Associated Press the same way it treats other news groups.

The day after ignoring McFadden's order and keeping the ban on AP when Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele spoke to reporters in the Oval Office, the White House shared a new policy with some journalists.

For an extended period, the White House Correspondents Association has administered the pool for events with restricted capacity, consistently incorporating reporters from the wire services AP, Reuters, and Bloomberg. A print reporter was also granted access, chosen on a rotational system from over 30 news organisations.

The White House has decided to group the three wire services with print reporters, allocating them two slots, which means approximately thirty-six reporters will rotate for these two regular positions.

Even with personnel changes, the White House stated that Trump's press secretary "will maintain daily authority to decide the pool's membership." The updated regulation indicates that journalists will also be admitted "regardless of the editorial stance taken by an outlet."

In a statement, Lauren Easton of the AP expressed profound disappointment that the White House opted for restrictions across all wire services instead of reinstating the AP's access.

"Wire services serve numerous news agencies throughout the United States and globally," stated Easton, a spokesperson for the Associated Press. "Local newspapers and television channels in every state utilise our reporting to keep their communities informed."

Easton said on Tuesday evening that the administration's actions continue to ignore the basic American freedom to speak without the government controlling or punishing you.

The independent White House Correspondents' Association said the administration's demand to control who covers the president suggests they can't promise they won't keep showing bias based on people's views.

"The government should be prevented from exercising control over independent media outlets that report on its activities," stated Eugene Daniels, president of the association.

Under Leavitt, the White House has given more access to news organizations that support Trump. This was clear on Tuesday, when the first reporter Leavitt spoke to during a meeting asked two questions and also praised Trump's policy.

During a meeting at the Oval Office on Monday, Trump got angry when CNN's Kaitlan Collins asked about a man sent back to a prison in El Salvador. At one point, he said CNN 'hates our country.' He made sure to show how her questions were different from an easier question from another reporter.

Despite occasional contentious exchanges, Trump has been more available to the media than his predecessor, former President Joe Biden. He particularly favors smaller-scale events, especially in the Oval Office, making the updated access policy notably more effective.

The policy introduced on Tuesday failed to address photographers' access, a point underscored by testimony in a previous court session concerning the AP's case.

The disagreement started because AP chose not to follow the president's order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. However, AP style does mention that Trump wanted it to be called the Gulf of America. McFadden agreed with AP's point that the government cannot punish a news group for what it says, which is their right to speak freely.

The White House has said that journalists being able to see the president is a privilege, not a right, and that they should decide who gets this access, similar to how they choose who Trump gives private interviews to. In court papers from last weekend, his lawyers suggested that even after McFadden's decision, the Associated Press would no longer have easy access to public presidential events.

The government said, 'No other news group in the United States gets the same guaranteed access that the AP used to have. The AP might be used to being treated specially, but the Constitution doesn't say that this special treatment has to last forever.'

The administration has appealed McFadden's decision and will be in an appeals court on Thursday. They will argue that the decision should be stopped until the main points of the case are fully decided, maybe by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The administration has not limited the Associated Press's access to Leavitt's briefings in the last two months. However, it had stopped White House AP reporters from going to East Room events until one reporter was allowed to attend an event with the Navy football team on Tuesday.