“The question really should be, why do you need a protective pool when everybody has cellphones?” said Marlin Fitzwater, who was the press secretary under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. “When you have a president who can operate a tweet and reach 28 million people from the driveway of any building in America, you don’t really need 14 people sitting there and watching him all night long.” (Mr. Trump’s Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, has about 18 million followers.)…
Still, many said some kind of seating reform was appropriate.
Mr. McCurry and Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under George W. Bush, said they had discussed a setup that would allow a revolving group of journalists into the briefing room rather than reserving seats only for the existing White House press corps. Foreign journalists could attend on Wednesdays, for example, while alternative online media outlets such as Breitbart News and Think Progress could rotate in on Thursdays.
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