White House pool boycott leaves Trump helipad speech hard to hear

By Sandra Rhodes (/journals/sandra-rhodes)

Usually when President Donald Trump makes a speech, he comes through loud and clear.

That was not the case Monday during a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the White House that was only covered by the White House’s official feed and not covered live by the WH television pool.

Since the president was not near a network mic at the ribbon-cutting for the new helipad, his words were drowned out by background noise.

Watch: https://x.com/atrupar/status/2102093387281088592?s=20

The so-called “chopper talk” is often difficult to hear, but the White House press pool clears out the background noise with their mics, the outlet reported.

Fox News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News have suspended their coverage of the White House in response to CNN, MS NOW and Politico being banned from covering the White House.

“The public has a vital interest in receiving accurate, independent information about its government. No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting,” said the five networks of the White House TV press pool in a joint statement.

Weijia Jiang, the former president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, wrote about the pool’s infrastructure in a Monday tweet.

“Actually, the networks literally built the infrastructure to transmit from the White House. They’re the ones with the resources to do it daily. That includes a considerable amount for staff, equipment, & travel costs. We then pool footage to other outlets. It is a public service,” she wrote.

https://x.com/weijia/status/2102083232036421895

The boycott was announced by White House TV pool rotational chair and Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton.

“Effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President. This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place,” he said.

Broughton’s advisory was for Monday and it is unclear if it applies going forward.