▲ White House Briefing Room
U.S. President Donald Trump dismissed media reports on the 24th (local time) claiming that he plans to demolish the White House press room and restore an indoor swimming pool in its place as "fake news."
Writing on his social media platform Truth Social that day, President Trump stated, "There are fake news reports circulating that I am going to get rid of the White House press room and restore the old swimming pool directly beneath it."
He added, "While we might move the fake news to a less intrusive location, the old pool will never be restored," emphasizing, "I have never even thought about doing such a foolish thing."
This is interpreted as a remark denying the reports about restoring a swimming pool in place of the press room while leaving open the possibility of relocating the workspace for the White House press corps.
Previously, The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 20th that President Trump had been considering a plan to evict the White House press corps from the briefing room and restore the swimming pool.
According to the NYT, sources reported that President Trump instructed then-White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt in late August to clear the press corps out of the briefing room.
President Trump reportedly told her that this would be her "final legacy."
However, the actual relocation of the press corps outside the White House did not take place before Leavitt stepped down from her position as press secretary on August 27.
President Trump also reportedly expressed a desire to aides to restore the indoor swimming pool that former President Franklin D. Roosevelt had installed in 1933 to treat the aftereffects of polio.
The pool was covered over in 1970 during the Richard Nixon administration and converted into a space for the press.
Last month on the 27th, President Trump posted an image on Truth Social comparing the current briefing room with a rendering of the space transformed into a golden swimming pool.
The NYT reported that President Trump has been considering relocating the press room since his first term, and that the number of aides supporting the move has recently been growing.
The Eisenhower Executive Office Building within the White House complex has been mentioned as a potential new location for the press room.
The NYT pointed out that because operating close to the center of executive power is a longstanding tradition recognizing the importance of press freedom in a democracy, relocating the press corps carries profound symbolic significance and would be a decision difficult for a successor president to reverse.
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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