President Donald Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to a New York Times (NYT) reporter that it is administration policy for officials to not respond to any reporters who have pronouns in their email.
According to the NYT, Trump administration officials have repeatedly ignored their reporters’ requests for comment because they have pronouns in their email signatures. Alongside Leavitt, Katie Miller, a senior adviser at the Department of Government Efficiency, declined to answer another NYT reporter’s email after they reportedly included their pronouns in their signature.
“As a matter of policy, I don’t respond to people who use pronouns in their signatures as it shows they ignore scientific realities and therefore ignore facts,” Miller responded, according to the NYT. “This applies to all reporters who have pronouns in their signature,” Miller continued in a separate email.
“Any reporter who chooses to put their preferred pronouns in their bio clearly does not care about biological reality or truth and therefore cannot be trusted to write an honest story,” Leavitt said in a separate comment to NYT after telling a reporter that they “do not respond” to inquiries with pronouns in the signature “[a]s a matter of policy.”
“As a matter of policy, we do not respond to reporters with pronouns in their bios,” she wrote, according to the outlet.
It is official White House policy to IGNORE reporters’ emails with pronouns in the signature👏
“I don’t respond to people who use pronouns in their signatures as it shows they ignore scientific realities and therefore ignore facts.” – @PressSec Karoline Leavitt
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) April 9, 2025
A similar situation, according to the NYT, also happened to Matt Berg, a correspondent at Crooked Media, when he included his pronouns in his email signature.
Berg wanted to test the theory that the White House doesn’t respond to reporters who include emails in their signature, so when reaching out for comment, he signed off with “(he/him)” by his name, the NYT reported. Miller, who the email was directed at, responded by reiterating the practice towards reporters with pronouns in their signatures, the outlet reported.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during the daily briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 26, 2025.
Berg told the NYT that he couldn’t believe the response.
“I find it baffling that they care more about pronouns than giving journalists accurate information, but here we are,” Berg told the NYT.
The NYT also weighed in on its own reporting, calling the administration’s policy “baffling.”
“Evading tough questions certainly runs counter to transparent engagement with free and independent press reporting,” a Times spokesperson said in a statement. “But refusing to answer a straightforward request to explain the administration’s policies because of the formatting of an email signature is both a concerning and baffling choice, especially from the highest press office in the U.S. government.”
