Unhappy with coverage over the firing of FBI director James Comey, President Donald Trump tweeted that he could not guarantee his press secretaries’ accuracy so it might be best to switch to written responses. The White House Correspondents Association released this statement, Shutting down the briefings “would reduce accountability, transparency, and the opportunity for Americans to see that, in the U.S. system, no political figure is above being questioned.” (USA TODAY, May 12, 2017, by David Jackson)
Trump was upset about the discrepancies between his statements and those of his representatives. He later said he could perhaps schedule the briefings every two weeks and do the briefings himself, but that he would make that decision over the next few weeks. (ABC News, May 14, 2017, by Adam Kelsey)
In an interview with Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro, Trump gave details about his plan for the daily briefings, “We do it through a piece of paper with a perfectly accurate, beautiful answer. I’ll give you an example .. They’re asked 100 questions, or 50 questions, or 20 questions — if they get one out of 50, just a little bit off, 5 percent, 10 percent, 20 percent, it’s — the next day, it’s a front page story in every newspaper.” (CBS News, May 13, 2017, by Caroline Linton)
Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times, May 12, 2017, writes that given the poor credibility of information provided in the daily briefings, it might not be a bad idea to suspend them. It was particularly difficult to get accurate information after Comey’s firing. And the root problem is that Trump himself does not even ask his press secretaries to be accurate.