FBI/JAMES COMEY/SEAN SPICER: “White House press briefings are a running conversation — for now, anyway. President Trump is mulling drastic changes that could include reducing the frequency of briefings to once a week and requiring reporters to submit written questions, according to the New York Times.
Trump previously floated the possibility of scrapping the briefings altogether and providing written answers to all questions. His latest idea is actually less extreme, by comparison.
In either scenario, however, the likely result is the same: an end to back-and-forth exchanges between journalists and the president’s spokesmen, which can be contentious, repetitive — and valuable.
I’ll give you an example:
Six times in a single Q&A session last week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer refused to say when the president might reveal the existence (or nonexistence) of recorded conversations between him and former FBI director James B. Comey.”
-Callum Borchers, “What we lose if Trump curtails press briefings more than he already has,” The Washington Post online, June 21, 2017 11:17am