Eugene Daniels, the "Kamala Harris expert" and "Beyoncé encyclopedia" who recently quit his job at Politico to join MSNBC as a weekend cohost and on-air personality, is under fire from fellow journalists who are increasingly aggrieved by his floundering leadership as president of the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA), a role he intends to keep despite his new role at the virulently partisan network.
Former CNN reporter Oliver Darcy reports that Daniels got an earful from WHCA members during a virtual meeting on Monday. The left-leaning organization is still reeling from President Donald Trump's decision to revoke its power to determine which media outlets can participate in the White House press pool. The Trump administration argued that ending the group's "monopoly" on access to White House events would allow less established media outlets to obtain "a seat at this highly coveted table." The move came several days after Trump partially banned the Associated Press from White House events in response to the outlet's refusal to acknowledge his renaming of the former Gulf of Mexico, now the Gulf of America.
Daniels, who is "well-liked in Washington" for his bold fashion sense, regular attendance at cocktail parties, and close relationships with powerful Democrats, faced "a lot of pointed questions" from members who were "frustrated" by his failure to respond more aggressively to what they view as a dangerous assault on their professional nobility. Daniels has released a handful of strongly worded statements complaining that Trump's actions threatened "the independence of a free press in the United States," but thus far, the WHCA has failed to mount a unified response that might increase the group's leverage.
The first question Daniels received during the meeting from Christian Datoc of the Washington Examiner was about whether he intended to serve out his full term as WHCA president in light of his move from Politico correspondent to MSNBC personality. Daniels said he would continue covering the White House for MSNBC and vowed to retain his role as president. Other members accused Daniels of surrendering to Trump without a fight. "It does seem like y'all were caught with your pants down," said Andrew Feinberg, a White House reporter for the Independent. April Ryan, White House correspondent for something called Black Press USA, blasted Daniels for giving a "blowoff" response to her questions about the WHCA's tepid response.
"Tensions escalated," according to Darcy, prompting the group's executive director, former McClatchy reporter Steve Thomma, to defend Daniels by explaining that the WHCA board was doing a lot of hard work behind the scenes. But he also acknowledged there really isn't much they can do absent some sort of performative boycott that some members would be reluctant to endorse. Thus far, for example, media outlets have continued to take part in White House pool coverage under the new regime. Daniels's critics weren't swayed by this argument, insisting feckless leadership was to blame for the group's lack of unity.
Daniels, who has covered Kamala Harris since 2021, sent Darcy a statement on Monday that channeled the former vice president's remarkable ability to generate evasive nonsense masquerading as a coherent strategy. He insisted the WHCA was "calibrating our approach" by "hearing from the people we serve." He remained laser-focused on doing what needs to be done when it comes to "navigating how best to respond ... as we chart our strategy going forward" and vowed to "continue these conversations" at next week's board meeting.
Daniels published his final "scoop" at Politico last week about how Harris was seriously considering taking the steps she needs to take in terms of thinking about running for governor of California in 2026. His duties at MSNBC include cohosting a new weekend show with Jackie Alemany, a banking scion married to a former Biden climate adviser, and Jonathan Capehart, the longtime partisan activist who has urged Democrats to more forcefully acknowledge that "racism and misogyny played a role" in Harris's defeat in 2024. Daniels has commended himself for his "tough" coverage of the Harris campaign, including the time he asked the failed candidate if she thought Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance were guilty of "irredeemable racism."
