The upset to the existing order caused by the presidential election has been acutely felt by no one, perhaps, so much as it has by the national press. At Donald Trump’s press conference on Wednesday, reporters found themselves not only subject to a scolding (“Fake news!” “Disgraceful!”) but also awakened to the strong suggestion that, at least in tactical terms, the showdown had been won by the president-elect.
The media’s sense of dislocation may soon become literal.
According to three senior officials on the transition team, a plan to evict the press corps from the White House is under serious consideration by the incoming Trump Administration. If the plan goes through, one of the officials said, the media will be removed from the cozy confines of the White House press room, where it has worked for several decades. Members of the press will be relocated to the White House Conference Center—near Lafayette Square—or to a space in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House.
“There has been no decision,” Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary, said about the plan today. But Spicer acknowledged that “there has been some discussion about how to do it.”
Read the full story at Esquire.
