Donald Trump’s White House does what he accused Joe Biden of doing: Using a list of reporters to call on at press briefings

Attorney General Todd Blanche acknowledged that White House staff provide officials with a list of reporters to call on during press briefings, drawing attention to a practice President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized former President Joe Biden over.

Blanche, who was filling in as White House press secretary after Karoline Leavitt‘s departure, appeared to be working from such a list during a briefing in the White House Rose Garden. When several reporters began calling out questions at once, Blanche told them, “They give you a list, guys. Everybody calm down,” before calling on a reporter from National Review.

Before taking questions, Blanche said he would “start out with” a reporter, prompting several journalists to call out at once. He then stopped them and explained why he was not simply choosing among raised hands.

“They give you a list, guys. Everybody calm down,” Blanche said.

He then called on Caroline Downey of National Review, the first reporter named on his list. The transcript shows Blanche subsequently taking questions from reporters at the Daily Caller and other outlets, although he also accepted some questions spontaneously.

Questions focused on administration priorities

The first questions gave Blanche an opportunity to address issues central to the Trump administration.

The National Review reporter asked whether the Supreme Court’s rejection of the administration’s restrictions on mail-in voting would create an obstacle to future prosecutions involving election fraud.

Blanche said the Justice Department would comply with the ruling while continuing to pursue what he described as election-integrity efforts and investigations into unlawful voting.

The next question, from the Daily Caller, asked whether the administration would seek to deport Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar if an investigation found she had committed immigration or naturalization fraud. White House border czar Tom Homan had announced an investigation involving Omar.

Blanche also discussed an FBI search of election records in Fulton County, Georgia. He said the warrant had been authorized by a judge who found probable cause but declined to discuss details of the ongoing investigation, saying officials were reviewing hundreds of thousands of older records.

A practice Trump has repeatedly criticized

The practice of giving officials a list of reporters to call on is not unique to the Trump administration. The White House Correspondents’ Association says the White House press secretary chooses which reporters to call during briefings, making some form of preselection routine.

Trump, however, has repeatedly used Biden’s use of such lists to allege that his predecessor knew questions in advance.

“Biden calls on a specific reporter, gets a question, then reads the answer off a card. In other words, he knows the question, then reads the answer. What is going on here?” Trump wrote in November 2023.

Trump made a similar claim in July 2020, writing that Biden had read answers from a teleprompter and therefore “was given the questions.” The Associated Press subsequently found that Biden had used a teleprompter for prepared remarks before the question-and-answer session, while his campaign had provided him with a list of news organizations to call.

Biden openly acknowledged using such lists during his presidency. After the August 2021 attack at the Kabul airport, he told reporters, “They gave me a list here. The first person I was instructed to call on was Kelly O’Donnell from NBC.”

After his June 2021 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden similarly said, “They gave me a list of the people I will call on.”

Those remarks established that Biden’s staff helped determine which reporters he would call, but they did not establish that reporters had supplied their questions in advance. The White House Correspondents’ Association has said that staff can anticipate likely questions based on reporters’ assignments and prepare Biden accordingly, while denying that this meant reporters were providing questions beforehand.

Other Trump officials have used the same method

Blanche is not the only Trump administration official to use a prepared list of reporters.

When Vice President J.D. Vance held the White House’s first briefing in 42 days on September 3, he used a printed seating chart with reporters’ names to identify whom he would call on.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also appeared to use a prepared list during an August news conference. At one point, he called a reporter whose name was on the list but who did not appear to be in the room, then waited several seconds before moving to another question.

The appearances came as senior administration officials rotated through press duties following Leavitt’s departure while the White House sought a permanent press secretary.