THE DAILY BS: HOW MUCH CAN YOU HANDLE?
SPARE ME THE BS (I’ve got things to do).
- Trump repeatedly discussed moving White House reporters out and restoring the indoor swimming pool beneath the briefing room, according to new reporting.
- He reportedly pitched the idea to then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt, suggesting it could become her lasting legacy.
- The swimming-pool idea surfaced publicly in September, but the new report reveals how seriously Trump discussed it behind closed doors.
LAY IT ON ME (I’ve got time).
Donald Trump may have finally discovered the perfect solution to his ongoing problems with the White House press corps.
Replace them with a swimming pool.
According to new reporting from New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the president repeatedly considered kicking reporters out of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room and restoring the indoor pool originally installed for Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Now there’s a renovation proposal with considerably more personality than new carpeting.
Trump reportedly discussed the idea several times with then-White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, including during an August Oval Office meeting.
He even suggested that removing the media and restoring the swimming pool could become her “last legacy.”
One imagines that most press secretaries hope to be remembered for major policy announcements or deft crisis management. Converting the briefing room into an aquatic facility would certainly produce a more memorable résumé entry.
The history behind the proposal is real.
Franklin Roosevelt had an indoor swimming pool installed in the White House in 1933, partly to accommodate the exercise he needed because of his paralysis.
President Richard Nixon’s administration covered the pool in 1970 to create space for White House journalists and their televised briefings.
Trump, who has spent years exchanging verbal fireworks with reporters, apparently sees an opportunity to reverse that arrangement.
Instead of another afternoon of questions about polls, executive orders and foreign policy, the room could once again feature actual water.
The president already teased the concept publicly in September, sharing images contrasting the existing briefing room with a proposed pool. The briefing-room image carried the label “Fake News, Before.”
The swimming-pool version was labeled “FDR Pool After.”
Subtle as a cannonball.
The Times’ new reporting adds that Trump discussed the idea privately on multiple occasions before Leavitt left her position in August.
But the president has not announced an approved construction project, and the pool proposal remains an idea rather than a completed decision.
Even some conservatives have questioned whether removing reporters from the White House would be wise.
Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer called the idea a “bad idea,” arguing that keeping journalists close to the administration also benefits the president.
Fleischer did, however, float one alternative: Make the news organizations pay rent.
That should go over wonderfully at the next correspondents’ association meeting.
Whether Trump actually brings back Roosevelt’s pool remains to be seen.
But for a president who has made a career out of keeping the press off balance, there is something undeniably fitting about contemplating a briefing room where everyone has to tread water.
GO JUMP IN A LAKE!