Thread: Trump suggests he might drop daily press briefings

Trump suggests he might drop daily press briefings

By David Baude
NEW YORK
May 13, 2017, 6:59 AM ET

President Donald Trump threatened to shut down daily press briefings Friday as he sought to defend his White House from criticism of its shifting explanations and misstatements about the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Trump's statements, through a tweet and later television interview, threaten a Washington institution that is the most high-profile forum for journalists to question the government about policy and the news of the day.

In the Trump era, it has become a cable TV hit and cultural touchstone. Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was back behind the podium Friday after Sarah Huckabee Sanders subbed for him for two days, has been the subject of memorable lampoons by comic Melissa McCarthy on "Saturday Night Live."

Spicer was back to answering questions Friday about Comey's firing. The White House first said this week that Trump made the move because of a negative memo about Comey from the Justice Department, only to have the president later say he made the decision before seeing the memo. Conflicting stories were the topic of much media discussion.

That led Trump to tweet Friday morning, "As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy."

He added, "Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future 'press briefings' and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???"

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Jeannine Pirro set to air Saturday, Trump suggested eliminating the daily briefings and instead having one every two weeks — conducted by him.

"First of all, you have a level of hostility that's incredible and it's very unfair," he said. He said Spicer is a nice man "but he gets beat up." Trump would not directly answer questions about whether Spicer, who was out two days because of Naval Reserve duty, would remain in his job.

Like many administrations, the relationship between Trump and the press has been tense. Starting with Spicer's claim that the media inaccurately portrayed the size of Trump's inauguration audience, there have been questions about whether the administration is knowingly providing inaccurate information.

There was some talk as Trump took office that his administration would do things differently and cut back on press access. But Spicer and his team have kept up regular briefings. The president, a devoted viewer of coverage about himself, has given several interviews, most recently to NBC News' Lester Holt on Thursday, although he has favored Fox News' friendlier venue.

White House briefings and news conferences provide both "substantive and symbolic opportunities" for journalists to question government officials, said Jeff Mason, White House correspondent for Reuters and president of the White House Correspondents Association.

"That exercise, conducted in full view of our republic's citizens, is clearly in line with the spirit of the First Amendment," Mason said. "Doing away with the briefings would reduce accountability, transparency and the opportunity for Americans to see that, in the U.S. system, no political figure is above being questioned."

Spicer said Trump's "robust schedule" means that "sometimes we don't get an opportunity to get in to see him and get his full thinking. We work very hard to get you the most accurate and up-to-date information every day."

In the Fox interview, Trump seemed to herald his own work ethic.

"Here's the thing, the difference between me and another president," Trump said. "Another president, I won't use names, but another president doesn't doing what I'm doing. They really don't. I'm not saying that in a bragging way."

"I know," Pirro said.

"I'm not saying it any way," Trump said. "Another president, Jeannine, will sit in the Oval Office and do practically nothing all day."

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/...fings-47386783

That led Trump to tweet Friday morning, "As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy."

He added, "Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future 'press briefings' and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???"

In an interview with Fox News Channel's Jeannine Pirro set to air Saturday, Trump suggested eliminating the daily briefings and instead having one every two weeks — conducted by him.

I totally support this suggestion. I like the daily press briefings because I look forward to the announcements of all the things being done, so I think these announcements should continue in some way, some venue, but not to a bunch of really stupid hateful opposition workers posing as reporters. They never ask a question about anything important. It's all about trying to attack the President which isn't the purpose of the press briefings from the White House. The purpose of White House Press Briefings is to brief, inform, report, not have hateful biased political discourse. The hateful biased political discourse should come from politicians outside of the White House, not from reporters in the White House.

Also, it's very hard to speak on behalf of a busy hardworking person, because only they know the totality of what they're doing and why they're doing it, some can be disclosed, other parts of it need to be confidential, that's just business, and this aspect of strategy in getting things done is no different in running the government effectively than running a business.

Trump on Russia allegations: 'There is no collusion'

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN
Updated 10:39 PM ET, Sat May 13, 2017

Story highlights

"There is no collusion," Trump said. "We had nothing to do with Russia"
Trump called the Democrats "hypocrites" for their outrage at Comey's dismissal
The President also suggested he might cancel White House press briefings
Trump also denied reports that he asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to him

(CNN)President Donald Trump denied allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives in an interview Saturday night on Fox News, adding that he wants "to get to the bottom" of the questions about Russian influence in the election.

"Everybody's convinced: They say there is no collusion," Trump said. "There is no collusion. We had nothing to do with Russia."

But the President said it is "very important" to him that the question of Russian meddling in the election is resolved.

"I want to get to the bottom if Russia or anybody is trying to tamper or play with our election," Trump told Fox News' Jeanine Pirro.

Pressed by Pirro about launching an independent commission to investigate the issue, Trump suggested the current investigations taking place in Congress will suffice.

"Let them do it," Trump said. "If it takes longer, it takes longer, but let them do the job right."

In the wide-ranging interview, the President also defended the timing of his firing of FBI Director James Comey earlier this week, saying, "There's really no right time to do it."

"Let's say I did it on January 20, the opening, right? Then that would have been the big story as opposed to the inauguration," Trump said. "I was thinking about it then."

Trump added that he thought the Democrats were "hypocrites" for their outrage at Comey's dismissal, saying they themselves were upset with Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.

Trump also denied reports that he asked Comey to pledge his loyalty to him at a private dinner shortly after Trump was sworn in.

Pressed by Pirro on whether he asked Comey for his loyalty, Trump responded: "No, I didn't, but I don't think it would be a bad question to ask. I think loyalty to the country, loyalty to the US, is important. You know, it depends on how you define loyalty, No. 1; No. 2, I don't know how it got out there because I didn't ask that question."

Trump also discussed his dissatisfaction with the media and suggested for a second time that he might cancel the daily White House press briefings in favor of biweekly press conferences where he would answer questions himself.

"We don't have press conferences," Trump said. "We just don't have them. Unless I have them every two weeks and do it myself, we don't have them."
"You have a level of hostility that's incredible, and it's very unfair," he added, referring to the media.

Trump also tweeted Friday morning that "maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future 'press briefings' and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy," a remark he made after contradicting his press aides and other surrogates on his reasons for ousting Comey.

At Friday afternoon's White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer did not rule out the possibility of their cancellation.

The interview on Fox comes after a week of intense scrutiny of Trump following his unexpected dismissal of Comey. Prior to delivering a commencement address at Liberty University on Saturday morning, the President remained largely out of the public eye.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/13/politi...judge-jeanine/

Has anyone in the Republican Party stopped to ask themselves why an elected President with the full authority to terminate Jim Comey as FBI Director is under such "scrutiny" instead of the political hack he fired?

Why isn't Jim Comey under "scrutiny" instead of the President?

Why are there "Comey Loyalists" in the FBI? Aren't FBI agents supposed to be loyal to our country and duly elected President instead of an Obama political hack who gave Hillary Clinton a free ride on Benghazi, obstruction of justice with deletion of 33,000 emails after a Congressional subpoena was issued, mishandling of classified information and blow-your-mind pay to play scandals through the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State and then personally acquitted her, set her free as a bird during the 2016 Presidential Election?!

I mean I truly don't know what's going on these days, but the DC Swamp is upside down and draining itself. Americans will all soon figure this out. And thank goodness we have a President who is courageous enough and tough enough to take the heat on such issues and do the right things until we do.

It is like a fog they like to create so they can sneak around and avoid the important things that should and are being investigated so it stays out of the media and they fill it with Trump and his administration instead. Like Podesta and The Clinton Foundation and the unmasking etc.

At first I was really excited about the press releases. Never before have I actually listened to a press release from a president.

But they have become completely nondescript, explaining nothing. And of course the press isn't going to ask anything Trump would like to explain.

If Trump quits holding them, I don't see where we will be missing anything.

The problem with the press briefings is they speed through all the important stuff so fast you can't absorb it and then open up to questions which have nothing to do with the briefings. It's always questions about irrelevant stuff from Inauguration crowd size to a tweet to some fake news report from the NYT or Washington Post. So I agree, nothing is lost by stopping them. It's unfortunate because there is so much being done by this administration that people should and would like to know about, but for now it's just not getting through via the press briefings. Just fodder for SNL and high ratings for afternoon TV. Why make them money at the expense of our "democracy"?