The White House’s daily on-camera briefing with reporters is worth rethinking and has become “more of a show,” said former press secretary Sean Spicer.
The briefing, which he led during his tenure in the Trump administration, has become too much of a “show” for TV reporters and less about information for the public, Spicer said Sunday in an interview on C-SPAN.
“I think that the press office should be available, as they are, to give the press responses and updates as to what’s going on at the White House, but I think the daily briefing is sort of worth re-examining,” he said. “The Department of Defense and others don’t always have a daily briefing of an on-camera sense. And I think a morning gaggle and, you know, selected days where you do an on-camera one is worth it. But the briefing has become more of a show than an outlet of information for the media.”
Under President Trump, the briefings have become part of regularly scheduled programming on cable news. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox typically run the full briefings, which are often marked by moments of tense exchanges between reporters and Sarah Sanders, who took over for Spicer when he left the White House last year.
“And I think we should provide the media on a daily basis answers to the questions that they have, updates to the issues that are ongoing,” Spicer said. “But I think that the time and effort that it takes to get that briefing going and what you get in return is not worth it.”
