Donald Trump has suggested he may move the journalists who cover the White House to a “less unpleasant place.” For more than 50 years, they have worked in a press room inside the building itself.
“I may move the Fake News to a less unpleasant place,” the president wrote Saturday on the Truth Social platform. He also denied that the idea was to rebuild the swimming pool that once occupied the space where the press room is now. “The old pool will never come back,” he assured readers.
The New York Times first reported the idea on Oct. 20. According to the paper, Trump ordered then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt back in August to move the reporters out. The plan was not carried out, and Leavitt soon left. The White House currently has no press secretary.
The James Brady Press Briefing Room was built in 1970 under President Richard Nixon, on the site of an indoor pool dating from the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its namesake, Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, was seriously wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on the president.
Trump’s relations with the media are strained. In September, he tried to bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists from the White House, but on Oct. 13 a federal court ordered their access restored. The administration is appealing the decision.
KN
