In another break from typical White House protocol, President Donald Trump has ordered his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to cease her regular press briefings. In a tweet, the Commander in Chief contested the media covers her unfairly, spurring him to instruct her “not to bother” with the briefings. He added that most organizations “will never cover” his administration fairly.
While Sanders does still interact with the press, her last time conducting a press briefing occurred over a month ago on Dec. 18, making this the longest period without one during Trump’s presidency.
White House Correspondents’ Association President Olivier Knox is displeased with the lapse in press briefings, believing it to set “a terrible precedent” for the White House. “Being able to question the press secretary or other senior government officials publicly helps the news media tell Americans what their most powerful representatives are doing in their name,” Knox said in a statement. “While other avenues exist to obtain information, the robust, public back-and-forth we’ve come to expect in the James A. Brady briefing room helps highlight that no one in a healthy republic is above being questioned.”
SLIDESHOW: DONALD TRUMP’S 30 CRAZIEST TWEETS
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Hogan Gidley, a spokesperson for the White House, noted, “It’s not that they’ve ever stopped, it’s just that sometimes we need to come to the podium to communicate things and sometimes we don’t,” Gidley claimed during an interview with Fox News. “A lot of the times when we don’t come to the podium it’s because the president has addressed the American people himself,” adding how Sanders would host a briefing once she “finds a reason to.”
“It’s kind of ridiculous, you can’t win for losing half the time,” Gidley continued. “But the fact is, when the president isn’t going up we have a conversation about the message we deliver, and Sarah Sanders will absolutely be back at the podium talking to the press and delivering the message to the American people.”
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