Since arriving in Washington, a highlight of the holiday season has been the annual White House Christmas party for the press. It is everything one would expect: the US Marine Band belting out festive hits; immaculate decorations; a luxurious buffet, and potent eggnog.
At some point in the evening, you join a queue snaking past the White House bathrooms to shake hands and pose for a photo with the president and first lady. It is all very Disneyfied, but I couldn’t help but admire Joe Biden’s stamina last December, standing there for hours offering a warm smile and handshake for every journalist in attendance.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has called the media “the enemy of the people”. We are “scum” who are “some of the worst human beings you’ll ever meet”, spouting endless “fake news”. We shouldn’t really be surprised that the annual White House Christmas press party has been cancelled this year.
This means that sadly, I won’t be able to ogle at Melania Trump’s Christmas decor, which includes a Lego portrait of Trump alongside a similar brick build of George Washington.
But it’s not just sour grapes, or the fear of missing out. Underlying it all is a very real fear that we are entering 2026 with a president who aims to do everything in his power to control the media and intimidate the press.
From suing the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and the BBC to slinging personal insults at individual reporters, Trump does not hide his disdain.
A few weeks ago, he snapped “quiet, Piggy” at a female White House reporter from Bloomberg when she asked about the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A New York Times reporter who wrote about Trump’s health was deemed “ugly on the inside and out”.
As well as the schoolyard taunts, the White House is giving increased access to a fawning pack of “journalists” from conservative and MAGA-affiliated outlets. Some of their questions would put North Korean state media to shame… to give a recent example: “Will you guys consider releasing the president’s fitness plan? He looks healthier than ever before!”
At least the White House still has (at the time of writing) reporters from established and reputable media organisations sitting in the briefing room every day and holding the White House to account.
Over at Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon, all major media outlets have packed their bags and left, after refusing to sign an agreement promising they would not release any information the Defense Department had not authorised.
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Last week, the department spokesman, Sean Parnell, unveiled the Pentagon’s new press corps, to replace “the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport”.
They include far right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who has said that the September 11 attacks – one of which struck the Pentagon – were an “inside job”. Also with new credentials is Tim Pool, a right wing podcaster who was duped into receiving money from a Kremlin fund that aimed to plant pro-Russia propaganda in US social media feeds.
Then there is Matt Gaetz, Trump’s one-time pick for attorney general who had to step aside because of persistent allegations – which he denies – that he paid a 17-year-old for sex. He is now a host for a Maga media outlet called the One America News Network.
Another outlet with accreditation is The Gateway Pundit, which has spent much of the past few years pushing election fraud conspiracies and campaigning for the release of people jailed for offences including assaulting police officers at the January 6 riots at the US Capitol in 2021.
Summing it up nicely was Enrique Tarrio, the figurehead of the far right Proud Boys organisation, who this time last year was serving a 22-year sentence for sedition linked to the riots. “It’s so refreshing that I see so many familiar faces in this picture,” he wrote on X alongside a photo of the new press corps. I can’t help but feel as if we live in some alternative reality, like the Upside Down dimension in Stranger Things: in the space of a year, the moral landscape has been flipped, and it’s utterly disorientating.
But I’m not going to head into the Christmas season with too much humbug. US publications like the New York Times and ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom, continue to produce excellent, well-funded investigative reporting into the impact of the Trump administration.
The original Pentagon press corps may have left the building, but continue to work their sources from afar and dig down into the discontent at the Pentagon under Hegseth.
So while it may not feel like the happiest time of the year for many, I’m quite content to skip supping eggnog under a badly rendered Lego portrait of Trump and raise a glass instead to all the reporters who seem more determined than ever to get the truth out there.
Charlotte McDonald-Gibson is a journalist and author of Cast Away: Stories of Survival From Europe’s Refugee Crisis
