The White House Representative Association dinner for this year will focus on “journalists and journalists” and at its departure from the past, it will include letters from the annual winners of the association, according to the president of this year, Eugene Daniels.
Daniels said that the evening in Washington Hilton does not seem just a departure from the tradition, as there will be no Potos or Comedy, but “will” correspond to the moment we live in now.
The moment is the time fraught with the Press Legion and the WHCA itself.
As a president, Daniels headed the transfer from the Biden administration to the Trump administration, while things generally went smoothly in the first two weeks, which changed rapidly on February 14 when the President’s team announced an unlimited ban on the Associated Press from its opening in the White House pool. A law was filed against AP, with Whica supporting the case through a friend of the court.
The day after the first hearing in the case, the White House press secretary Caroline Levitt She announced that the administration, not Whica, will take over the responsibility of who is in the complex and other logistics, and takes his duties with which it has been independently profitable for decades.
Although AP had been restored after the judge’s design that the White House was violating the first amendment, the White House indicated that it wanted to take other measures, such as controlling those sitting in the briefing room.
Daniels, who recently moved from Politico to MSNBC, said that there may be unexpected moments of the evening, but he warned that he does not want to overlook a set of surprises.
“when [the WHCA board was] Sitting, and since dinner has turned some extent, and with the transformation [was on] “You know what, we must hear from the people who are already doing all the work. We must hear from the people who have pushed for years and pushed the presidents, and who are the height of their career in obtaining this award, and we must honor them by giving them the lead center.”
The deadline spoke with Daniels on Thursday about what can be expected on Saturday, and how he and Whica dealt with Trump 2.0.
The deadline: So a very simple question: What can we expect to see it at dinner?
Eugene Daniels: Everyone can expect a dinner that tries to match the moment we live, which is working to match the mood of the Press Corps, which works to suit the need to celebrate the first amendment, celebrate the winners of the awards, and celebrate the scholarship students present there, and in its essence, in its essence who go to the White House every day, carry the strongest leaders in our country. It will look a little different for people. … Will there be moments of lifting? maybe. Maybe not. Even the videos that we have more serious and in defending the press and celebrating the work that Whica is doing every day.
The deadline: When did it clear that you had to drop plans for the comedy? [Amber Ruffin was originally set for the dinner.]
Daniels: Those conversations, this thinking began to happen soon that the White House began to ban AP. The reason is that the mood of the press corps, the feelings we felt on the blackboard and heard from some of our members. This became very clear over time, ultimately, the focus should be on journalists and the press, and raising the level of people in that room at a time when not everyone feels upgraded by the attacks on the press.
The deadline: The White House was also attacking the comedian. Was that a factor?
Daniels: No, it was not a worker. The White House objections to the comedian have nothing to do with our decision. We stand to the white house all the time. When they make wrong decisions, such as AP expelling, seizing the rotation of the pool, or getting rid of the locations of the wire in the complex, painting, and bond, our members are not afraid to go to the soles of the feet with any white home.
The deadline: Did you have any pre -warning before the press secretary announced that the White House would take over the pool?
Daniels: No, no, not at all. When she left the lecture and said that she was taking over the complex, this was the first time that the council was heard of it, and that they had reached this decision.
The deadline: I heard that some people say, why didn’t the press intersect just a briefing? Why was it not more than the unit offer??
Daniels: I think, as a council, because I can talk about the board of directors, we are an organized organization, and we can do what members want to do. So I think I may leave it there … many people felt in the press corps as if we must continue to perform our jobs, our presence in the rooms, and ask difficult questions, which I won at the end of the day. … we represent our members, and we, as a council, can do things that our organs do not want to do.
The deadline: Is there anything you would do differently before the White House made this step?
Daniels: I don’t know what to do differently. They did not come to us and ask us. They didn’t tell us, “Hey, as you know, let’s talk about this pool. Let’s see what we can do here. We were just like anyone else. So there was nothing else for us.
The deadline: There were some members who said he felt that everyone only alone. What was your response to that? [Andrew Feinberg, correspondent for The Independent, expressed concerns over print outlets’ access to accurate and timely pool reports].
Daniels: I do not want to talk about my response to Andrew Finberg. What he was talking about is an e -mail for printing. He was not talking about if people wanted to protest. People never missed notes that collected publications, so people were not on their own. The Board of Directors worked hard, on the basis of volunteering, on the basis of volunteering to fight for more access, and this continued with the change of the relationship with the White House.
The deadline: What are the other issues, sitting. Do you know what is the state of sitting in the briefing room?
Daniels: This is a question for the White House.
[As reports surfaced that the White House was considering such a move, the WHCA board released a statement saying that the administration was trying to “cynically seize control of the system through which the independent press organizes itself, so that it is easier to exact punishment on outlets over their coverage.”]
The deadline: The thing in the group is that there is an incredible amount of logistical services participating in it. What is your evaluation about how the White House is dealing with that?
Daniels: The reason is that for years, the White House Correspondents Council is working, and … people who are billiards that operate billiards and all other logistics services, because they are important. And if white homes also thought this, people who are covered do not choose those who cover them. I will not judge a kind of sentence or bad for the White House logistics. What I will say is that no one understands the needs of correspondents, two video photographers, sound technologies, radio correspondents, producers, wire correspondents, like people who are their actual colleagues. Anyone who suggests that WHCA control of logistics was completely bad. We have been able for decades, we were able to see beyond the following angles, knowing all the institutional knowledge on the blackboard and within the membership, knowing what can happen in any kind of journey, and there is no replacement.
The deadline: What do you think of the influence that was with the White House in controlling the pool? In the court session of the AP case, Zik Miller was asked this question and said, oh, there is a difference in the type of questions that the president receives.
Daniels: I will not talk to what my friend Zik said. But what I will say is that the position of the council was always a matter of addition, not the offering. So the White House adds people for years to swimming pools that might have loved more than us, and those who will ask different questions. We have never fought that. It is an addition, not offering. What we are talking about here is something completely different. Thus what you have is the government that chooses people who ask the president’s questions. What I felt was that despite all these attacks, members of our association continue to ask the arduous questions, benefit from the questions and questions that the American people deserve answers to the President of the United States, to his aides, to the people who know the corridor in the White House and are taking cabinet members. This did not stop. But yes, there is a set of other types of questions, but I will allow others to speak to that.
The deadline: The administration continues to say this is the most transparent White House in history. I hear this from Caroline Levitte a lot. Do you agree to that?
Daniels: I am 36 years old, and I was not here when George Washington was president, so I couldn’t talk to that. We see President Trump a lot, right? We hear from President Trump a lot. This is not a question, and this is not something that WHCA opposed in any form, shape or new shape.
Delivery date: Levitt has also made clear with a new media seat, more correspondents, and more cod in the briefing room. What do you think was the effect of that?
Daniels: As you see every day they have a press briefing, our people still ask the same difficult questions, regardless of who is in the room. I don’t really know how to answer this question, because at the end of the day, again, the issue of addition was, not the proposal. Our people in the room still ask difficult questions, and this is what matters.
The deadline: I also moved from Politico to MSNBC, which was a goal for the president, has this, has an effect at all, on how you deal with management.
Daniels: President Politico also attacked, just because it was very clear, on social truth and so on. I think at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. What people say about me and how they treat me is not my focus. My focus is to make sure that people inside the membership do what they need to do the jobs that they wake up every day to do. A personal bowl will not prevent me from defending, supporting and defending our association members.
