In late August, the US President Donald Trump suggested to then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt that he evict journalists from the James S. Brady Briefing Room. In return, he would like to rebuild an indoor pool in its place.
This is reported by The New York Times, citing people familiar with the discussions.
Trump has told aides he would like to restore the pool, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt built in 1933 to treat polio-affected legs. Richard Nixon later closed the pool to make room for the media.
The US president has previously talked about evicting journalists, back during his first term. But now more and more people around him are backing the proposal. Some close to Trump believe that the media could be moved to the Eisenhower Administration Building, which is across from the White House.
Trump repeatedly asked Leavitt to evict reporters from the White House over several months, according to three people familiar with the discussions. One of the people who pushed him to rebuild the pool was Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Pulte has no official role in the White House, but he created a “Styrofoam” model of the briefing room as a renovated, ground-level swimming pool, which he showed to Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.
- Trump has had conflicts with the media before. One of the most recent was when he banned journalists from three major American media outlets — CNN, MS NOW, and Politico — from working in the White House.
- At the time, he said he was tired of negative coverage of his administration and accused the media of intentionally writing negative and fake news.
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