Taylor Budowich, White House deputy chief of staff, said in a post to X Friday — one that was later released as a White House statement — that the AP “continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America.
AP, whose influential stylebook is used by news outlets as an arbiter of language and usage, advised that because of its broad set of global customers, it would both refer to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico and also reference Trump’s order changing the name to the Gulf of America within the United States.
The White House barred a credentialed Associated Press reporter and photographer from boarding the presidential airplane Friday for a weekend trip with Donald Trump, saying the news agency’s stance on how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico was to blame for the exclusion.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who on Wednesday used the word “lies” in describing AP content, posted on X Friday afternoon about executive orders Trump had signed before his departure.
The administration has blocked the AP from covering a handful of events at the White House this week, including a news conference with India's leader and several times in the Oval Office.
