OANN’s Chanel Rion: WH Press Sec Stephanie Grisham Invited Me Back to Briefing Room

Chanel Rion, OANN’s White House correspondent, said Thursday that White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham invited her to attend the day’s White House coronavirus task force briefing after she was barred by White House Correspondents’ Association for allegedly breaching social distancing guidelines.

(Watch from 1:13)

A partial transcript is as follows: 

JENNIFER FRANCO: You say Stephanie Grisham approved your appearance in the briefing room. Has the White House issued any sort of statement regarding that incident?

CHANEL RION: I spoke with Stephanie Grisham. I met with her and we discussed the situation, and she invited me again to attend briefing today as her guest, standing in the back, and I will be in the press room today if there are no physical complications with that. She has stated explicitly that she had invited me in both instances, both yesterday and the day before when we were not on rotation, to stand at the back of the room.

So she reiterated, but there’s no official statement coming out of the White House yet. However, there are some rumblings happening between these various organizations as they discuss what exactly are the rules in that room and who controls it.