President Trump needled the White House press by floating a return of the Brady briefing room to its original life as an indoor pool amid his media-access fight.
On Sunday, the president posted before-and-after images on Truth Social showing the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room transformed into a gold-adorned swimming pool, the New York Post reported.
The jab landed against the backdrop of Trump’s push to keep reporters from CNN, MS Now, and Politico off White House grounds, and a federal judge’s order restoring that access while litigation continues.
Trump has shown no interest in sprucing up the briefing room for the people who work there. Last year, when asked about renovating it, he was blunt.
He said, “I don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t want you to be comfortable,” he added. “No, I don’t want to make life comfortable.”
The space started as a working pool. In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt had the indoor pool built as he battled polio.
Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson used it often. Richard Nixon later had flooring put over the pool so the White House could run a modern briefing room.
That room was eventually renamed for James Brady, the press secretary severely wounded in John Hinckley Jr.’s assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. The original pool structure still sits under the floor today.
Gerald Ford later built a separate outdoor swimming pool at the White House. Trump’s post floated returning the indoor space to its first purpose, complete with gold flourishes in the mock-up images.
The Sunday taunt did not arrive in a vacuum. Trump has pushed to bar CNN, MS Now, and Politico reporters from White House grounds.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the White House to restore access for those three outlets for at least the next two weeks while the case plays out.
Earlier last week, five major TV news outlets in the White House pool, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and NBC, at least temporarily stopped taking part. That freeze led to snarls capturing video of the president.
The administration has also moved to take control of selecting the presidential press pool, a role the White House Correspondents’ Association managed since 1914. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has defended the shift. WHCA president Eugene Daniels objected, saying that in a free country leaders must not choose their own press corps, Fox News noted.
Trump has poured attention into other White House upgrades in his second term. He has remodeled the Palm Room, the colonnade, and the North Portico.
He has touted a $400 million ballroom project and unveiled a new granite helipad on the South Lawn. He has also eyed District projects such as restoring fountains, covering statues near the Lincoln Memorial in 23-karat gold, and renovating the Reflecting Pool.
The press briefing room has not made that list. Trump has said he does not want the reporters who use it to get more comfort on his watch.
The Sunday images made the point without a long speech. Flooring over an old pool. A gold mock-up. A reminder that the room’s current layout is not sacred architecture, it is a Nixon-era choice layered over FDR’s original design.
A president who refuses to renovate the briefing room for the press’s comfort is not hiding the ball. He is stating the terms of the relationship in plain sight.
