Editors Note: Top officials from incoming Trump administration said Sunday that they’re exploring more spacious options for media with access to the White House, which would move the overcrowded journalist briefing room to a different part of the White House complex. In response, the media sent a message to Trump: If you dare change things, we will “fight” you every step of the way.KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. JOIN US Stay Informed: GODS LITTLE ARMY aka GLA... www.GLA.news
Horn News – President-elect Donald Trump is already changing the way things are done in Washington, D.C. — and the media is not happy about it.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence cast the idea as a response to increased interest in the new administration, saying they’re “giving some consideration to finding a larger venue on the 18 acres in the White House complex to accommodate the extraordinary interest.”
More than 250 journalists packed Trump Tower last week for the celebrity businessman’s first full-fledged news conference since July, billed as a forum to discuss his separation from his business but which quickly turned into a wide-ranging free-for-all about U.S. intelligence, Russian hacking and, eventually, some of Trump’s policy plans after he takes office on Jan. 20.
The president-elect’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, echoed Pence’s remarks Sunday, saying the news conference demonstrated the need for more space since the briefing room accommodates only about 50 people.
“If we have more people involved instead of less people involved, wouldn’t that be a good thing?” Priebus said on ABC’s “This Week.” He mentioned the idea of moving press conferences to the Executive Office Building next door to the White House. They’re currently held in the White House’s West Wing, which houses offices for White House staff.
Following a two-hour meeting with incoming Trump press secretary Sean Spicer on the matter, White House Correspondents’ Association President Jeff Mason said he made clear “the WHCA would view it as unacceptable if the incoming administration sought to move White House reporters out of the press work space behind the press briefing room.” Access in the West Wing to senior administration officials, including the press secretary, is something his organization demands.
“The briefing room is open now to all reporters who request access,” Mason said. “The WHCA will fight to keep the briefing room and West Wing access to senior administration officials open.”
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Pence said the move is intended to reflect the Trump administration’s “commitment to transparency, to free and independent press.”
Theodore Roosevelt first created a little area on the White House premises to accommodate journalists so they wouldn’t have to wait out in the cold monitoring presidential activity.
Over the years, presidential briefings have relocated a number of times to accommodate interest. They have been held in the president’s White House office, the larger Indian Treaty Room in the Executive Office Building and the State Department auditorium, where there was space for the more than 200 reporters covering President John F. Kennedy.
President Richard Nixon created the media briefing room and reporters’ offices by covering over the White House’s indoor swimming pool.
