Four times in the past week, President Trump has interrupted a press pool Q&A to ask, "Who are you with?"
On one occasion it was because he loved a Breitbart correspondent's puffy queries. The other three times, he bristled at more serious questions from more serious outlets.
The inquiry takes on a different meaning now that the White House, and not the independent White House Correspondents' Association, is deciding who is in the press pool on any given day. Trump has the ability to cut off news outlets that cross him. That's why some White House correspondents have been paying attention to Trump taking roll call.
On condition of anonymity, several correspondents described it as a worrisome development because it might cause people to think twice before asking certain questions. One likened it to the president "taking names for his naughty or nice list." (The matter also came up at the association's town hall meeting last night.)
The Factba.se database shows that Trump asked "who are you with" every so often during his first term, but is doing it much more often this time around. In early February, he asked for S.V. Dáte's affiliation when the HuffPost reporter asked him, "the Vice President suggested that if the Supreme Court rules in a way that you don't like, they can just enforce it by themselves. Do you agree with that?" HuffPost was booted from its pool assignment later in the month.
Over the weekend when Trump gaggled on Air Force One, Washington Post reporter Michael Birnbaum asked him, "Is Putin disrespecting you by attacking Ukraine when you're trying to make peace there?" Trump seemed confused by the question. He asked "who are you with," and when Birnbaum named the Post, Trump said "you've lost a lot of credibility" and skipped the question.
And on Wednesday, when Voice of America correspondent Patsy Widakuswara asked Irish prime minister Micheál Martin "what about the president's plan to expel Palestinians out of Gaza? Are you discussing that with him?" Trump jumped in and said "nobody's expelling any Palestinians. I don't know -- who are you with?"
"I'm with Voice of America, sir," she said.
"No wonder," Trump said, waving his hand to the ground dismissively and repeating "Voice of America," the government-funded broadcaster.
This week happens to be Widakuswara's last as VOA's White House bureau chief. She was recently (and involuntarily) reassigned to a new role, stoking speculation inside the news outlet that she was sidelined to avoid Trump's retribution.