Why Sean Spicer Banned Me From the White House

The Tara Palmeri Show

Tara Palmeri recounts her experience being denied a White House press credential by Sean Spicer during the Trump administration. She argues

Key takeaways

• Sean Spicer blocked Palmeri's White House badge access by refusing to grant it, unlike her Politico colleagues.
• Palmeri broke significant stories while uncredentialed, including Trump's plan to withdraw from NAFTA.

Main topics

• White House press corps access
• Sean Spicer vs. Tara Palmerist

Notable quotes

The White House briefing is a huge waste of time.

Conclusion

While the briefing room holds symbolic value for democracy, true inves

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) The White House press corps has a dirty little secret. The White House briefing is a huge waste of time. And I know they'll never admit it. You will see them, especially TV journalists, in that James Brady briefing room, raising their hand, asking questions, as they should, asking powerful people to answer them, speaking for us, and that's important. But the truth is, is that very little news gathering actually happens in there. It's kind of like journalism theater, but you don't get any scoops. You don't really find out what's happening behind closed doors. You don't find out what power is really doing. You rarely get answers that are the truth. It's always spin. And whatever comes out of it is very rarely going to lead the newspapers. I'm going to be A1 in the New York Times, and it's very rarely. ever going to lead a news program. But nonetheless, it's the drama. You know, it's the clashing. And it's what the TV journalists do with the White House press secretary. I know a lot about this. I was in there. I was a White House correspondent for ABC News. But I want to tell you about my time before I became a White House correspondent for ABC News. I was a print reporter for Politico. I was a White House correspondent for Politico. I was a part of a team, I think about like six White House correspondents. And that's kind of normal in the print world because everybody is required to cover all sorts of different things. And I had moved all the way from Brussels to be a White House correspondent covering the first Trump administration. And part of the reason why they wanted me to do this was I had known President Trump since I was 22 years old and I was a young reporter for the New York Post. I used to write for Page Six and President Trump loved Page Six because as we all know, he loves the press. He loved the New York Post. And I was a young reporter. I had met him before. I had called him before. And I was really great at getting scoops. I'd shown that from covering the European Union and they brought me back to cover the White House. Well, when I showed up there, as you all know about me, I don't, I don't take. I don't take directions from anyone in power. I am there to challenge them. I don't play the Washington game. And I became a real pain in the ass because also I can break stories. I knew how to get information. And so to someone like Sean Spicer, who was the first White House press secretary at the time, I was a problem. I was breaking stories and I wasn't. running them by him. Well, I was for response, but I wasn't reporting it out the way that he wanted. I wasn't playing into his plan. And because of that, he went on the record and called me an idiot with no real sources. He made it known that he did not like me. He did not want me around. And worst of all, not something that you would see on TV, he blocked my access from the White House. And I'll explain how he did it. It wasn't like with Jim Acosta where they said, we're taking your White House badge away and you can't come in. Instead, I was never granted the White House badge. All my colleagues at Politico all had White House badges, except me. I was the only one on the White House team. I'm talking about all my colleagues on the White House team. So he blocked my access and we kept applying. We sent multiple applications in for me to get into the White House. And then I would ask for day passes just to get in and I would be blocked. Once in a while I would get in. But if I did by accident, that staffer would get in a lot of trouble. Speaker 1 (3:44) Sean Spicer hates that I tell this story so much that he actually sent me a legal letter last year in April of 2025 trying to dispute it. Anthony Scaramucci, who was the communications director for 11 days, though, he backed me up and he said that it's not true that Sean Spicer did, in fact, try to block me from having access to the White House. Now, I know this isn't like a huge story that was out there, but this is my experience and it's happening subtly to a lot of reporters, I'm sure, in little ways where they're, you know. not given access to various things. Speaker 2 (4:15) Ooh, sorry Speaker 1 (4:18) guys. As you can hear, I was under the weather for the past few weeks and that's why you hadn't seen me. I was also working on a really exciting project on Virginia Dufresne, Epstein's, a survivor of Epstein and a good friend of mine. But as you can hear, my voice is still a little off, but I'm going to get through this with you. So I wasn't allowed inside and I had to spend my days chasing tips. working sources on the outside. I mean, there was a gate around the White House, but I was on the outside meeting with all of the people who knew the stories from the inside. And I had more time to report. I wasn't in there just wasting my time, raising my hand and telling everybody what story I was chasing. Instead, I was out there working sources, getting the real story that the officials didn't want you to tell. And I broke a lot of them. In fact, I broke that they were trying to withdraw from NAFTA. And that caused the markets to go into tailspin. I broke that 10 White House staffers had lost their jobs because they couldn't pass their security background checks. And I wrote about Trump's other gatekeeper in New York City, Rona Graff, who was connecting him to his friends. And this was someone that the chief of staff at the time, Reince Priebus, had to deal with. So I became a bigger pain in the ass. And if you appreciate this kind of relentless journalism, the kind of relentless journalism that doesn't care when it's turned away, the kind of relentless journalism that keeps going to the places, that finds the sources, go to terrorpalmery.com. You can find it on a QR code on the screen. Do you see it over there? Go there with your phone, join the Red Letter newsletter, become a paid subscriber. It's how you can keep this independent journalism going, this really fiercely independent journalism, or become a member of this channel. As you know, members of this channel. They get first preference when it comes to asking questions. So ask questions here now and I'll get to them at the end of the show. I'm going to get into more about what's going on right now. What's the status