News / Politics

Trump says he might cancel all ‘press briefings’

Friday, 12 May 2017 10:42 PM [ Last Update: Saturday, 13 May 2017 5:59 AM ]

US President Donald Trump leaves an event in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, May 12, 2017. (Photos by AFP)

US President Donald Trump has threatened to cancel all future White House press conferences in a bid to prevent inaccurate statements.

“As a very active president with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” he tweeted on Friday.

“Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future press briefings and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy,” he continued.

He stood by the statement in an interview with Fox News, which would be aired on Saturday, saying that he might take on the job himself and hold pressers every two weeks.

“We don’t have press conferences, we just don’t have them, unless I have them every two weeks and I do them myself,” Trump said. “I think it’s a good idea.”

Currently, the White House holds daily news briefings conducted by the White House press secretary or deputy press secretary.

The president said the daily sessions with reporters were “very unfair” because of the hostility displayed by the media against White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Ever since taking the job, Spicer has been engaged in a bitter fight with reporters on what Trump has famously branded as “fake news.”

Trump’s threat to scrap pressers came amid a surge in speculation following Trump’s surprise dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey.

While the media have been raising various questions on Trump’s decision, the Republican president and his team have failed to give clear answers.

Spicer said Tuesday that the bureau chief was fired following “the recommendation of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general.”

Trump said Thursday that he fired Comey regardless of the recommendation.

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Comey was overseeing two important investigations that shaped Trump’s last year victory against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Before the election, Comey led a controversial probe into Clinton’s use of a personal server to exchange government emails while she was secretary of state.

After the election, he began investigating Trump’s alleged ties to Russia as well as a series of cyber attacks against Clinton’s campaign, which Democrats claimed were conducted by Russian hackers.

US Vice President Mike Pence said the firing had nothing to do with the FBI’s Russia probe, but Trump dismissed the claim in his NBC News interview on Thursday.

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