News/Commentary

AP sues the White House and it’s on!

February 22, 2025 | | Print Article

The battle between the White House and the Associated Press over the deadnaming of the Gulf of America is headed to the courts as the news organization is claiming its free speech rights are being violated over restrictions on their reporters.

On Friday, AP filed its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. seeking to use the legal system to force the Trump administration to give access to their propagandists after they were banned from White House events and press briefings over the organization’s insistence on continuing to refer to the massive body of water as the Gulf of Mexico after President Donald J. Trump’s executive order formally changed its name.

“The Associated Press just refuses to go with what the law is and what has taken place, it’s called the ‘Gulf of America’ now,” Trump said at a press conference this week which AP was not allowed to attend.

“We’re going to keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America,” the president said on Tuesday.

The organization insists that their suit is about an “unconstitutional effort by the White House to control speech” by forcing AP to use the Gulf of America which it refuses to acknowledge in its influential Stylebook which is used as a guideline for the domestic and international media.

“The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences,” the Stylebook states.

The same Stylebook, which many reporters are forced to comply with for employment, banished the word ‘illegal’ when referring to illegal immigrants many years ago, in just one example of its bias.

AP’s lawsuit names three White House officials, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the Associated Press said in the lawsuit which was assigned to U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden who was appointed by Trump.

“This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the First Amendment,” AP said. “This court should remedy it immediately.”

The Constitution’s First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, speech and religion and bars the government from obstructing any of them.

It’s worth noting that there was no outcry from the AP when a New York Post reporter was banned during the Biden administration

X users reacted to AP’s abuse of the court system.

AP’s Stylebook also required that the “B” in black be capitalized as a part of the George Floyd cultural revolution while not similarly directing that the “W” in white also be capitalized, a prime example of the institutional racism of the Biden era as well as the “news” organization’s blatant left-wing bias.

“I really would love to answer this question, but upon driving over here from the White House, I actually learned that I have been sued by the Associated Press,” Leavitt said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Friday. “We’ll see them in court.”

Chris Donaldson
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