White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt presented a compelling statistic about how accessible President Donald Trump has been just a few months into taking office.<\/p>\n
While speaking at a media event hosted by Axios co-founder Mike Allen, Leavitt highlighted the contrast between President Donald Trump\u2019s accessibility and that of former President Joe Biden. She also noted how many in the media gave Biden a pass for dodging the media and largely \u201chiding\u201d for four years while in office.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have tailed access to the \u2018Associated Press,\u2019 which reaches half the world\u2019s population every day. The most definitive photo of President Trump, the fight, fight, fight photo after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was made by Evan Vucci, who\u2019s the chief photographer in Washington for the \u2018Associated Press.\u2019 Do you worry about history being lost with these new restrictions?\u201d Allen asked Leavitt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t view them as restrictions. We view them as opening access to more outlets, more voices, more news, journalists and outlets. We shouldn\u2019t have a few outlets who have a monopoly over the briefing room or over that 13 person press pool that covers the president. And so we\u2019ve actually ensured that more print outlets like Axios have a greater chance of being part of that 13 person press pool,\u201d Leavitt began.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are thousands of outlets who have White House press credentials. There are hundreds that actually show up every day and cover the beat. Why should a single outlet have the privilege of being in that 13 person press pool every single day. And so the changes we\u2019ve made have actually created more transparency, more accessibility, and greater access for a broad variety of outlets and a diversity of journalists, which I think is a good thing. And we\u2019ve seen that play out,\u201d Leavitt added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, we started this. I think you\u2019re all still getting your news, right? You\u2019re still hearing about what the administration is doing every single day, because we have good journalists who are in that room covering the president every single time,\u201d Leavitt said.<\/p>\n
Allen jumped in and asked: \u201cThe counter to that is in a White House Correspondents Association\u2019s statement about the White House changes to the position of wire services in the pool. And the statement says the government should not be able to control the independent media that covers it. Do you agree with that statement?\u201d<\/p>\n
WATCH:<\/p>\n