Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

1. White House Office · Minor

Reexamine ties to the White House Correspondents Association

Done

30 1. White House Office

“The new Administration should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body might be more suitable.”

What has happened

  1. Done

    The White House took the coordinating function away from the White House Correspondents Association and kept it. Until February 2025 the WHCA — in a federal court's words, "a private entity that controlled the pool's composition" — chose which credentialed journalists traveled with the President and attended events in the Oval Office and on Air Force One. The Press Secretary announced that the White House would make those selections itself, and it has done so since. That is the Quote's ask carried out: the relationship was reexamined and the coordinating body replaced, by the press office rather than by a new association. The WHCA still assigns Brady Briefing Room seats, but only "at the White House's discretion", which is noted rather than treated as a qualification, because the Quote's object is the coordinating role and that role has moved.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27, with Chapter 1’s other White House asks.

  • Associated Press v. Budowich, D.D.C. No. 25-0532, opinion of 2025-04-08, read in full from the court’s PDF. The court’s findings are the Primary record of the change: getting into the pool historically required selection “by the White House Press Correspondents’ Association (‘WHCA’), a private entity that controlled the pool’s composition”; “during this litigation, press pool procedures abruptly changed”, and the White House “would now choose which hard pass holders gained access to the press pool”. The WHCA’s residual role is seat assignment in the Brady Briefing Room, “at the White House’s discretion”.
  • The D.C. Circuit stayed the district court’s injunction on 2025-06-06 (CourtListener); that litigation is about the AP’s exclusion, not about the WHCA’s coordinating role, and does not disturb the fact above.
  • No presidential action, executive order or Federal Register document touches the WHCA; the White House presidential actions on whitehouse.gov have nothing on press or correspondents.
Action
other
Object
White House Correspondents Association relationship
ID
11