White House: Alex Jones Does Not Have A Press Pass

InfoWars founder Alex Jones claimed Wednesday that he had been offered a White House press pass. But a White House spokesperson denied to TPM on Thursday that Jones is currently credentialed for any type of press access.

“Alex Jones is not credentialed for any type of press pass to the White House,” White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters told TPM in an email.

In a video published Wednesday by Jones and surfaced by Media Matters, Jones says the White House press corps “aren’t real journalists,” and argues that “you should see Breitbart and Drudge, and also just reporters that are known to tell the truth from mainstream, promoted and put up at the front of those briefings to bring up real questions.”

He then claims to have been offered “credentials” from the White House.

“I know I get White House credentials, we’ve already been offered them, we’re going to get them, but I’ve just got to spend the money to send somebody there. I want to make sure it’s even worth it,” he says, before launching into a fundraising appeal.

Newtown Action, a group formed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, wrote on Twitter that granting Jones White House access would be a “brutal slap in Newotwn’s face.”

Dear .@realDonaldTrump, Inviting Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to your WH press briefings is a brutal slap in Newtown’s face.

— Newtown Action (@NewtownAction) January 26, 2017

Jones claimed on his show that the Sandy Hook shooting, in which 20 students and six staff members were gunned down, was a staged hoax. ”Sandy Hook is a synthetic, completely fake, with actors, in my view, manufactured,” he said.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that he would “offer up more access to a group of journalists from around the country” by creating what he called “Skype seats” in the White House briefing room for journalists who could not afford to travel to Washington, D.C.

President Donald Trump was interviewed by Jones, a purveyor of wild conspiracy theories, on his show in December of 2015. “Your reputation is amazing,” Trump told Jones in the interview. “I will not let you down.”

A week after Election Day, Jones claimed that Trump had personally called him to thank him for his coverage, and that Trump had promised to appear on InfoWars in “the next few weeks.”

This article has been updated.