Filling in as White House briefer in the Rose Garden on September 15, 2026, with the press secretary job vacant, Attorney General Todd Blanche called first on Caroline Downey of National Review. Moments later he told the room, “They give you a list, guys. Everybody calm down.”
The Washington Post reported that White House staff preselect which reporters to call on at press briefings, “a common practice that President Donald Trump made an issue of,” and that Blanche appeared to use the list for other right-leaning outlets, including the Daily Caller and the New York Post, while also taking other questions spontaneously. No outlet reported that questions were set in advance.
What makes it notable is Trump's own history on the point. In November 2023 he posted about President Biden: “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?” In July 2020 he wrote that Biden “was given the questions, just like Crooked Hillary.” The Post also reported that Vice President JD Vance used a printed seating chart at a September 3 briefing and that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent read names at an August event, including a reporter who was not present.