A White House press aide is reportedly standing her ground after a prominent liberal journalist mocked her online, branding her a “blonde Trump flunkie” for doing her job of managing reporters around President Donald Trump.
White House Press Assistant Ellie Acra clapped back on social media, joking that she is, in fact, a press wrangler actually wrangling the press.
The dust-up traces back to a video clip shared by journalist Aaron Rupar, showing Acra telling reporters that their time asking questions of the president was up as he prepared to board his flight home from Ireland. In the clip, captured by C-SPAN, Acra can be heard politely but firmly telling the press corps it was time to wrap up, repeatedly thanking them while informing them they were finished.
Rupar, however, accused her of being far more aggressive than the footage showed, claiming in his post that she was “literally shoving” photographers away from the president. Notably, the clip only showed Acra from the head up, leaving it unclear whether his characterization was accurate.
Acra wasn’t left to fend for herself. Several reporters from conservative outlets and other administration officials rushed to her defense before she even responded. One reporter for a conservative outlet blasted Rupar’s post as ignorant and sexist, while a Fox News reporter noted plainly that wrangling the press is literally Acra’s job.
BREAKING: I am a press wrangler actually wrangling! https://t.co/cMGzvYdtir
— Ellie Acra (@ellieacra) September 15, 2026
Rupar, a self-described lifelong liberal, has built a massive following on social media for clipping videos of Trump and other political figures, reportedly spending as much as 80 hours a week monitoring the president’s every move, according to a profile published earlier this year. He has been openly critical of Trump, at one point referring to the president as a “demented old man.”
This isn’t the first time Rupar has drawn fire from the White House. Administration officials previously slammed him over what they described as an unsettling fixation on one of Trump’s aides.
The episode is just the latest example of the ongoing tension between the Trump White House and members of the press it views as hostile, with administration staffers and allied media figures increasingly pushing back in real time against what they see as unfair or misleading characterizations of their work.
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