… this fight. We did NOT have pool access during Biden which was NOT a decision by the Biden White House but by the WHCA. So it’s actually WORSE than Vance is saying. The media themselves ganged up on us and in a totally underhanded way altered their rules to try to silence us. The WHCA is a corrupt organization and Jacqui Heinrich knows this all and yet does nothing to fix it.This is absolutely incorrect. I have been the Washington Bureau Chief (or Washington Political Editor — previous title) of Breitbart since October 2015. I was a reporter at Breitbart from December 2012 until then. So I’ve been here 14 years basically. I know every in and out of… https://t.co/6fqTjQcgGN
— Matthew Boyle (@mboyle1) September 22, 2026
Here’s the truth of what happened: We actually got our first hard badge during the end of the Obama administration. The Obama White House was actually very nice to us, and while we had clear political disagreements they were fine to work with and we did great stories from there. We had hired our first White House correspondent then, and he covered the White House and regularly attended press briefings. He also occasionally did pool coverage. It was a huge moment for us.
We had the hard badge credentialed White House correspondent up through the beginning of Biden and believe it or not, the Biden White House did allow us into some briefings. Whether they called on us was a different story. Happened occasionally. But we never had hard badge problems actually. To be clear, at some point during Biden Administration, we went separate ways with our then White House correspondent and didn’t refill the role until Trump term 2 so we didn’t have a hard badge correspondent during that time. But that was our decision not Biden White House — who to be clear and I’ve seen some of them talking about this never stripped us of that.
But there is a MASSIVE difference between access to the briefing room and briefings and pool access and that’s where the legacy establishment media are so underhanded and dishonest.
Up until THIS administration pool access had been solely determined by the WHCA. The WHCA when Trump won the first time colluded with the Senate Press Gallery to change its membership rules — this happened early 2017 — to strip us of our voting membership which we began under the Obama administration. The Senate Press Gallery stripped us of our Capitol credentials based on a lie — that has since been rectified and we have them on the Hill again — and the WHCA stripped us of voting membership, which we had, by changing its rules arbitrarily.
The WHCA does NOT allow under these new arbitrary rules any member without voting rights to have POOL ACCESS. Pool is the key — it’s where the President and key members of the administration interact with a smaller group of press daily than the broader entire White House press corps. That’s like when you see the president taking questions in the Oval Office or something.
So we were stripped from the pool BY THE REST OF THE MEDIA during TRUMP TERM 1. Biden did not fix this during his term; Trump term 2 HAS FIXED IT, they added new media to the pool and we regularly have our White House correspondent in the pool and he asks great newsworthy questions often of the President, Vice President, and cabinet officials.
The WHCA still does not allow people like us to be voting members; it still does not allow people like us to be members of the pool. The ONLY reason we have that access is because the Trump White House has gone out of their way to add the new media components to press coverage and overrode the WHCA to add new media to the pool.
So it’s actually way more complicated than what Vance is saying— in fact the truth makes the media look even worse because it was the MEDIA who censored us thereby making all these people whining about what Trump is doing massive hypocrites (as far as I’m concerned for what it’s worth I could care less whether they have press badges and what not but the idea they are crusaders for the First Amendment is ridiculous nonsense) — but what Sam is saying here is absolutely untrue. Because of the WHCA we didn’t have pool access then. So it’s technically not Biden’s fault or Trump fault in term one, but until Trump term 2 the White House didn’t lift a finger to help us when the rest of the media ganged up on us to try to silence us. Because of what Karoline Leavitt and her team did in this administration, Trump term 2 is actually genuinely the most transparent administration I’ve covered and that dates back to Obama — I covered both of Obama’s terms, Trump’s first, Biden, and now Trump term 2.
All that said, we should all be asking ourselves why a cartel of global corporations— the WHCA is exactly that — is so hellbent on silencing an outlet with approximately just under a hundred journalists with laptops. Why do they hate us so much? Maybe it’s because time and again we continually show them up and beat them to absolutely massive stories. Maybe just maybe these mega corporations like FOX, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, NYT, WAPO, AP, etc are using their collective corporate power through a corrupt institution to silence the one little guy who regularly kicks their asses in news. Just saying.
VP Vance—"You can make an objective argument that Breitbart's coverage of the Biden Administration was more fair than Politico's coverage of the Trump Administration — but Breitbart did not have a place of special access in the White House.".@VP: "You can make an objective argument that Breitbart's coverage of the Biden Administration was more fair than Politico's coverage of the Trump Administration — but Breitbart did not have a place of special access in the White House." https://t.co/zcYfZprKDv pic.twitter.com/GMA8geHzPV
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 22, 2026