The images of Donald Trump with raised fists after an attempted assassination were captured by veteran AP photographer Evan Vucci. However, after the publication decided to not recognize his warning to call the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America, the Donald Trump administration banned AP from covering various White House events.
Following this, AP has challenged this ban on the grounds of First Amendment free speech and Fifth Amendment due process. Talking to U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden on Thursday, Vucci mentioned that a ban like this was “hurting us big time.” He also mentioned that because of the restricted access, they are “really struggling to keep up” with major publications who are getting to cover the happenings of The White House first hand.
As he stood in the witness stand, Vucci helped McFadden understand how important it was for a person to be present on the ground for the kind of work he does. As reported by Politico, “Vucci walked McFadden through the daily routine of his craft, emphasizing that the wire service’s work covering the president is measured in seconds. Sending an image around the world later than a competitor — even just moments later — is seen as a crushing defeat.”
Politico further reported, “U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, is weighing the AP’s argument that Trump transgressed the Constitution by targeting a single news organization for exclusion from the limited pool of reporters allowed into the Oval Office, as well as some events in the East Room and other staples of White House coverage.”
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To further emphasize the gravity of the situation, Vucci said, “It kills us, sir. We’re getting destroyed. Being in the room is vitally important.” He then mentioned that before getting banned, on a typical day, he carried “three portable internet devices — one each on Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile networks — to ensure his photos are never delayed.”
However, now that the publication is banned, they have to wait for other publications to bring out the major happenings at The White House and only after that can they cover it. This has severely impacted AP’s coverage of news as they could not capture Trump’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or with French President Emmanuel Macron. Talking about his anguish at not being able to cover these events Vucci added, “It’s been a rough stretch for a photographer to sit around not doing anything.”
As Politico reported, “Vucci also described the AP’s vaunted history as a core part of the White House press pool. Vucci himself has been a White House press pass holder for 21 years and noted that he captured a similarly famous image of an Iraqi journalist hurling a shoe at President George W. Bush in 2008.”
In the course of the hearing, Vucci was asked questions about the quality of their work and how important it was for them to cover the White House happenings live. AP’s chief White House correspondent, Zeke Miller was also present in the hearing and confirmed that the ban had prevented them from having “the same level of completeness.”
It now remains to be seen whether the Trump administration reconsiders their ban on AP as the publication still has their “traditional seat in the middle of the front row of the Brady press briefing room” as confirmed by Miller in hearing.
