Eugene Daniels had no plans to become the face of the White House press corps at the dawn of a new administration that opposes news media.
But due to provisions in the by-laws of the White House Correspondents Association, a group of 800 journalists reporting on the president, he was next in line after the association's 2024-25 president-elected CNN star Kaitlan Collins had to step aside for a move to New York.
Daniels, 36, co-author of Politico's Playbook Newsletter, has emerged as a key figure for press access and freedom in the escalating battle between the Trump White House and news media. And he balances his career with his role at the Association, an unpaid volunteer work, and this month he is moving to a new on-air job at MSNBC.
“We're all competitors, we're fierce competitors, and the White House beats are tough, but at the same time, when it's time to stand together, people actually do,” Daniels said of the Correspondents Association in an interview. “It's a shame this is our place.”
The Trump administration has kept the denial of reporters a secret, but recent weeks of action have shocked many news outlets.
President Trump first directed his communications team to ban Associated Press from spaces like the oval office and Air Force, a rotating group of reporters traveling with the president. It was retaliation for the continued use of the “Gulf of Mexico” by the Associated Press after Trump's executive order to change the geographical name to the US Gulf. (Dozens of media outlets, including CNN, The New York Times and Fox News, have protested the decision, and the Associated Press filed a First Amendment lawsuit.)
On February 25th, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the administration began deciding which reporters to join the publication pool and could close the president, a role the White House Correspondents Association had been serving for decades.
This movement created a fresh wave of backlash. Jacqui Heinrich, senior White House correspondent at Fox News, said in X:
In a statement at the time, Daniels said the move was “tears at the independence of the US free press.” He told members via email that the White House Correspondents Association “will not support attempts by this administration or others in taking over coverage of the White House independent press.”
“All previous administrations, including the Trump administration in Term 1, understood that those who are covering should make those decisions, not those who are covered,” Daniels said in an interview.
Daniels began his career in Colorado Springs on local television and joined Politico in 2018 as a video reporter. He rose to rank and became a White House correspondent, covering the Biden administration with a focus on Vice President Kamala Harris. He has co-written influential playbook newsletters for the past four years.
This month he will be relocating to MSNBC since the announcement in November that the first correspondent will soon be spun into a new public company by parent company Comcast. Comcast separates most of its cable networks, including MSNBC, CNBC and USA Network, from film studios and theme parks.
Comcast also maintains the NBC broadcast network. This means that MSNBC will no longer have access to NBC News' news collection work. MSNBC's newly appointed president, Rebeckachtler aims to build reporting muscle for the cable channel amid wider reforms in the lineup, including creating the Washington Bureau and hiring domestic and international correspondents.
Daniels, who has been a political analyst to MSNBC since 2021, will be a senior correspondent and co-host for “Weekend,” a panel show Saturday and Sunday mornings, along with Jonathan Cape Hart and other unnamed anchors. His new role was announced on MSNBC's “Morning Joe” on Monday.
“It really doesn't matter who's in the oval office for me,” Daniels said while he moved to an outlet that leaned more freely. “My job is to find information.”
Joy Reid's evening news show “The Reidout” was cancelled when some of the MSNBC lineup changed. Her show will be replaced by a program led by current hosts of “Weekend” Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez. MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin will be conducting an evening edition of “The Weekend.”
Daniels, who came out as a gay man at the age of 27 and posted about his life on social media, has become an increasingly online subject of criticism as his profile grew. He said he removed the X social platform as “self-care” from his phone so that he could focus on his work. “For me, it's separate from the work I do and everyone else feels different. That's fine,” he said.
For now, he is focusing on his fight with the White House, coordinating access to cover the president and responses between members of the White House correspondents association. It is made up of journalists from a wide range of news outlets, including CNN, The Times, and Fox News.
Daniels wouldn't comment on the internal discussions at the association about the best way to move forward, but the broad stance among his members said those who covered the White House should coordinate the logistics of the press “without worrying about what they wrote about the day, or whether it would be a problem for them.”
“We are making sure that Americans can trust that the pool reports and information that came out are not publicly available. That's because they're not only coming from the government,” Daniels said.
Daniels told members of the association last week that this year's annual White House correspondent dinner would go as planned. Trump boycotted dinner throughout his first semester. It has not yet been seen whether he will be present this year.
