‘Who are you with?’: Trump’s latest way to pick at the media

During a media scrum at the Kennedy Center on Monday, an NBC reporter asked President Donald Trump whether he used an autopen to sign documents, something Trump had criticized former president Joe Biden for doing.

Trump said yes, then contradicted himself, and when the reporter attempted to ask a follow-up question, he shut her down with what has recently become his go-to refrain: “Who are you with?”

When the reporter replied that she worked for NBC News, Trump waved her off and ignored the question. “I don’t want to talk to NBC anymore. I think you’re so discredited,” he said.

The president has employed the same strategy in recent weeks to dismiss questions from reporters at other news organizations, including the Washington Post, HuffPost and Voice of America.

Trump’s long-held antagonism toward an array of media outlets ramped up after his November reelection: He has sued over coverage he doesn’t like; seized control of the White House press pool and stocked it with friendly news outlets; banned the Associated Press from White House events because it continues to use “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America”; and, in a recent speech at the Department of Justice, accused news outlets of “illegal” reporting.

“Who are you with?” is a relatively minor way to troll the media, but its recent prevalence has drawn notice.

On March 12, former White House correspondent for the now-gutted Voice of America network Patsy Widakuswara asked visiting Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin whether he and Trump would discuss “the president’s plans to expel Palestinian families” from Gaza.

“Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians,” Trump said, and asked Widakuswara, “Who are you with?”

“Voice of America, sir,” she answered.

“No wonder,” Trump said, and moved on.

On Air Force One on March 10, Post reporter Michael Birnbaum asked Trump whether he felt that Russian President Vladimir Putin had disrespected him by invading Ukraine.

“Who are you with?” Trump asked. When Birnbaum responded, Trump said, “Uh, you’ve lost a lot of credibility” and skipped to other reporters.

NBC was again the target of the barb on March 7, when reporter Gabe Gutierrez asked about an alleged disagreement between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. DOGE Service head Elon Musk. Trump denied there was a clash, called Gutierrez a “troublemaker” and then asked what news outlet he was with.

When Gutierrez told him, Trump said, “Ugh, no wonder. That’s enough.”

And on Feb. 10, HuffPost White House reporter S.V. Date asked Trump about a statement from Vice President JD Vance that suggested the Trump administration could sidestep Supreme Court rulings that infringed on the executive branch’s power.

“I don’t know even what you’re talking about,” Trump responded. “Neither do you. Who are you with?”

When Date replied that he was with HuffPost, Trump said, “Oh, no wonder. … Are they still around? I haven’t read them in years. I thought they died.”

In Trump’s first term, aggressive questioning during news conferences used to be “an easy way to become a star,” said one White House correspondent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid about the relationship between the media and administration. Now, the correspondent said, it’s become a liability: “I think there’s a community consensus that people are trying to be a little more polite than in the first term because of the threat of consequences.”

When asked about the president’s pattern of asking where a reporter works, assistant press secretary Liz Huston replied via email: “President Trump is the most accessible and transparent President in history.”

In some cases, Trump asks reporters where they are from because he approves of their questions.

On Feb. 18, Axios reporter Marc Caputo asked Trump about his decisions to ban the Associated Press from White House events, and whether Trump was concerned about the “encroaching liberalism” of language in the AP’s influential stylebook, which cautions against using the term “illegal immigrants,” and supports phrases such as “gender-affirming care.”

Trump took the opportunity to blast the Associated Press for its “ridiculous” and “obsolete” language and for being “very, very wrong on the election, on Trump, and the treatment of Trump” and then thanked the reporter for the question, asking, “Who are you with?”

When Caputo answered, Trump said, “It’s a very good question. Thank you.”

And sometimes he asks the question out of apparent curiosity to know who he is dealing with.

“A lot of the time when he asks, ‘Who are you with?’ it is because he does not recognize you,” said another White House correspondent, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized by their employer to comment publicly. “I know sometimes that’s had some sinister overtones … but sometimes he genuinely does not recognize you and wants to know who you’re with.”

While there were more contentious spats between Trump and reporters during his first term, some see the current shift as incremental. White House correspondents point out that reporters still ask the president sharp, direct questions, and chalk up the decrease in fiery exchanges to reporters realizing how to best elicit substantive answers from him.

“With Trump, you get more with honey than you do with vinegar,” the reporter said.

What reporters actually get from Trump has, of course, long been a subject of debate.

“He says one thing one day, the exact opposite the next – what difference does it make?” said a third White House reporter, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t cleared by their employer to comment. “If the goal is just to generate content, he’s a content machine. But what is he really telling you? And that answer, I don’t know.”