The White House Press Pool, Italian Fascism, and the Bulwark Pope

When Sarah Matthews was deputy White House press secretary in the first Trump administration, the press pool operated under a simple logic: a rotating group of about 15 to 20 reporters from different outlets followed the president's movements each day, then shared what they saw with the broader press corps. The system existed because you cannot fit hundreds of credentialed journalists into the Oval Office or onto Air Force One. More importantly, it existed because the White House has every incentive to be selective about what it shares with the public. "They can tell you here's what happened when the cameras were off," Matthews said. "Here's who walked into this meeting or left this meeting."

That system has been dismantled. Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt took control of the pool rotation away from the White House Correspondents Association early in Trump's second term, deciding which outlets got seats. Then the administration banned Politico, CNN, and MSNBC from White House access entirely. Matthews sees this as a deliberate layering of propaganda: the White House invites in friendly "new media" outlets like OAN and Newsmax while ejecting independent ones, then launches its own streaming platform. "We're not there yet," she said, "but that is the trajectory this is going."