“Maybe I’ll move the fake news to a less annoying place” – Trump wants to relocate the press

US President Donald Trump is considering relocating the White House press corps. In a social media post on Saturday, he rejected a newspaper report that he wanted to do away with the current press room and restore a historic swimming pool in its place.

He never thought of doing “something so stupid.” However, he could arrange for the journalists accredited in the White House to be moved to another location. “Perhaps I’ll move the fake news to a less annoying place,” the president wrote.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Trump had urged his then-spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in August to move press conferences away from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. According to the report, he would rather have the therapy pool there, which was installed during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and replaced by the press room under Richard Nixon.

Trump regularly accuses the US media of unfair reporting. Last month, he briefly barred journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico (which, like WELT, is owned by Axel Springer) from access to the White House grounds and brought similar restrictions into play for other media outlets. After a federal judge issued an interim order that ruled the exclusion was likely unconstitutional, reporters were given back their access. However, the US government continues to take legal action against this decision.