The Associated Press, which helps to lead a group of news outlets that pool resources to cover the White House every day, has criticized the Trump administration after it was allegedly barred from the Oval Office for the president’s executive order signing with Elon Musk and the Diplomatic Reception Room for Mark Fogel’s return from Russia on Tuesday because of the directive.

“It is a privilege to cover this White House,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday. “Nobody has the right to go into the Oval Office and ask the president of the United States questions. That’s an invitation that is given.”

Leavitt reiterated that the White House reserves “the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office.”

She added that she was “very upfront” during her first briefing that if the administration feels “that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable.”

“It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America,” the press secretary said. “The Secretary of Interior has made that the official designation in the geographical identification name server and Apple has recognized that, Google has recognized that, pretty much every other outlet in this room has recognized that body of water as the Gulf of America, and it’s very important to this administration that we get that right, not just for people here at home, but also for the rest of the world.”

Earlier in the briefing, in response to a question about what the White House was doing to protect free speech at home and abroad, Leavitt described the issue as “an important part of President Trump’s agenda.”

“President Trump has led by example on this front, as the leader of the free world, the president of the United States, with his show of access and transparency on a daily basis,” she said. “The president takes questions from all of you almost every single day and really reveals what he’s thinking and feeling.”

Leavitt also cited executive actions, in addition to her own decision to open up the White House press briefings to more and different types of news outlets.

Both the Associated Press and the White House Correspondents Association have pushed back on the White House’s decision.

“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” Associated Press executive editor Julie Pace wrote in a statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, similarly underscored that “in the relationship between the press and the Office of the President, coverage and standards are entirely in the purview of individual organizations.”

“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions,” Daniels wrote in his own statement. “The move by the administration to bar a reporter from The Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable.”

Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on the first day of his second term before declaring last Sunday the first-ever Gulf of America Day as he flew over the body of water en route to the Super Bowl.

“I took this action in part because, as stated in that Order, ‘[t]he area formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America,’” Trump wrote in a proclamation. “As my administration restores American pride in the history of American greatness, it is fitting and appropriate for our great nation to come together and commemorate this momentous occasion and the renaming of the Gulf of America.”