Fox’s Ari Fleischer Calls Out Trump for Reportedly Floating ‘Evicting’ Press From White House: ‘Bad Idea’

 

Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer blasted President Donald Trump for wanting to boot the press from the White House as a “bad idea” following a report suggesting Trump has floated the idea multiple times.

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported, citing three people familiar with the situation, on Tuesday that the president has floated the idea of kicking the press out of the White House entirely and turning the press briefing room into a swimming pool.

“Bad idea. Like them or hate them, they come with winning the presidency,” Fleischer wrote on X in response to the report.

The Republican pundit warned that the “juice isn’t worth the squeeze” as he recommended moving the press and charging them “rent.”

Fleischer wrote:

It’s also in the WH interest to have them physically close by. It’s easier on everyone, including the USSS, if they’re cleared through the gates and available to cover POTUS and the Press Sec. I can see putting them in the Eisenhower Building, but why go through all the pain of moving them? The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Wherever they are, they should pay rent, which they don’t do now. What other profit making corporations are allowed to have offices in government space for free? It’s the taxpayers’ building. Not the media’s.

According to the report, Trump wants to restore the indoor pool that was previously installed for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. That pool was eventually covered up in 1970 under President Richard Nixon.

Trump has posted to social media images of the press briefing room as a pool.

The president also previously booted reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, accusing the outlets of pushing “fake news” about him. The reporters’ credentials were later restored after a federal judge put a temporary restraining order on the ban.

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Zachary Leeman covered pop culture and politics at outlets such as Breitbart, LifeZette, BizPac Review, HollywoodinToto, and others. He is the author of the novel Nigh. He joined Mediaite in 2022.