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Trump says he may move White House reporters to 'a less obnoxious location'
The president called reports that he wants to rip out the briefing room for Roosevelt's old swimming pool 'Fake News', then said the press corps could be moved anyway.
Key points
- Trump said he may move White House reporters to a less obnoxious location, without saying where.
- The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room sits on top of a 1933 indoor pool built for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- Former press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was 'flirting' with the idea.
President Donald Trump has said he may move the reporters who cover the White House “to a less obnoxious location”, days after reports that he wanted to remove the press briefing room and restore the swimming pool that lies beneath it.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump dismissed those reports as “Fake News”. “I NEVER even thought to do such a stupid thing!” he wrote. In the same post he raised the idea of relocating the press corps, without saying where it might go.
The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room was built in the 1970s under Richard Nixon on a floor laid over an indoor pool installed in 1933 for Franklin D. Roosevelt. The pool is still there. A report this week said Trump had pitched moving journalists out of the room to Karoline Leavitt while she was press secretary, a post she left on 27 August.
Leavitt, appearing on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, said Trump was “flirting” with the idea. “He just, maybe, wants to restore it to all of its glory,” she said. “I don’t know if he’ll do it.”
Trump has already reshaped the White House grounds, demolishing the East Wing to build a ballroom, laying pavers over the Rose Garden lawn and adding a helipad on the South Lawn.
The idea comes less than two weeks before the 3 November midterms. Last month Trump barred CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House, an order a federal judge said was likely unconstitutional; the administration is contesting that ruling.