Fact Check: Did Joe Biden’s administration cut 442 reporters from White House press pool in 2023?

WASHINGTON, DC: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced in February a change to how the news media covers the POTUS.

As per the change, the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) would no longer be in charge of selecting journalists for the White House press pool but President Donald Trump's administration would pick the members of the press pool itself. 

Amid all this, there were claims that former president Joe Biden's administration cut 442 reporters from the White House press pool in 2023. But is there any truth to this? Let us find out below.

Claim: Biden administration cut 442 reporters from White House press pool in 2023

After Karoline Leavitt announcement of the decision of the Trump administration, WHCA President Eugene Daniels, a reporter for Politico, objected saying that the White House gave the WHCA no warning. Daniels added that the decision "tears at the independence of a free press in the United States".

Similarly, WHCA board member and Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich said on X that the decision would not "give the power back to the people - it gives power to the White House."

After these statements by WHCA members, Fox News posted an article on February 26 with the headline "FLASHBACK: Biden also changed White House press pool, cutting off more than 440 reporters' credentials."

The article compared the Trump administration's press pool change to a decision about journalists' White House access during the Biden administration, according to Snopes.

An X user also wrote on February 26, "I'm old enough to remember when the Biden White House revoked 442 reporters' press credentials ...and the WHCA responded with an 'officially noncommittal stance'."

Another user posted, "BIDEN CUT 440 REPORTERS' WHITE HOUSE ACCESS BEFORE TRUMP'S POOL CHANGES. While media focuses on Trump's new press pool system, they forget Biden slashed press credentials from 1,417 to 975 in 2023."

Partly True: Comparing the two actions is misleading

The Biden administration tightened the requirements for obtaining an all-access White House press credential called a "hard pass" in 2023, according to Snopes.

After the stricter norms were implemented, the number of hard passes issued dropped from 1,417 to 975 as many journalists chose not to renew them, per the fact-checking outlet.

However, it did not cut or replace reporters in the "press pool", a small group of journalists selected by the White House Correspondents' Association that has privileged access and travels with the president at almost all times.

Moreover, it is unclear how many journalists turned ineligible for hard passes because of the Biden administration's tightening of the requirements.

Donald Trump's administration to pick members of 'press pool'

The Trump administration's decision to pick members of the "press pool" did affect the small rotating group of journalists who travel with the president and "relay the president's activities to the public," per the New York Times.

The "press pool" has been traveling with the president since Franklin D Roosevelt's administration in the 1930s and 1940s, per the WHCA website.

Notably, the White House's announcement that it would control the press pool came after the Trump administration barred a news agency from the White House for not following its demand to replace the term "Gulf of Mexico" with "Gulf of America", per the website.