The James S Brady Press Briefing Room, in the West Wing of the White House, is probably the most recognisable media auditorium on the planet. It’s a star in its own right − and if its walls could talk!
In a previous incarnation, it was the White House swimming pool in the era of Kennedy and Johnson. But apart from that famous lectern – the prop in countless television shows and films – the Brady room is comically lacking in glamour, as well as electrical sockets, coat-hangers, coffee and, on this lunchtime Wednesday, sufficient seating and basic standing room.
It was designed to accommodate a more rarefied and select world of White House reporters, with leisurely deadlines and almost no prying lenses. The old place is too small.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House Press secretary, acknowledged as much when she scanned the crowded room at lunchtime on Wednesday and noted that they are going to have to expand it. Leavitt has one of the true high wire acts within the Trump administration, serving as the president’s voice in the weekly briefings and keeping pace with his off-the-cuff social media posts and blitz of executive orders, while all the time remaining on message.
On Wednesday, her updates ran the gamut on everything from Trump’s intercession in the Ukraine-Russia war to his executive order to get rid of paper straws (he loathes the way they “dissolve” in one’s mouth as one is slurping), to offering further happy updates on impending prisoner releases.
All of this Leavitt delivered with cheery gusto but before she opened the floor to questions, she offered this rebuke to the gathered media.
“Now, before I take questions I would like to address an extremely dishonest narrative that we’ve seen emerging over the past few days. Many outlets in this room have been fearmongering the American people into believing there is a constitutional crisis taking place here at the White House.
“I’ve been hearing those words a lot lately, But in fact the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump’s basic executive authority.
“We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law and they have issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits.”
It was a remarkable mini-lecture, presented in the tone of an all-state debate champion intent on beating the clock and overwhelming the opposition. And it contained echoes of Leavitt’s opening day performance, when she warned the established White House correspondents that “Americans’ trust in mass media has fallen to a record low”, adding, for good measure (and not inaccurately) that “millions of Americans, especially young people, have turned from traditional television outlets and newspapers”.
That assertion chimed perfectly with Donald Trump’s decade-long battle with the legacy media, of which he remains a ravenous consumer. One of the improvisations Leavitt has introduced is a front-row seat in the Brady room for “new media” outlets, reserved for podcasters and others.
Leavitt is just 27, the youngest White House press secretary ever and she is taking up the role when the ubiquity of media has transformed the press secretary into a persona. Her trajectory as one of the brighter lights of the ultraconservative young Republicans includes a run for Congress, in 2022, when she won the party primary in her native New Hampshire but lost the election to Chris Pappas.
She and her husband, property developer Nicholas Riccio (59), have one child, born last July. After her first press briefing in the White House, the New York Times headline review decreed it to be “a steely, unflinching debut”.
Already, Trump has expressed his delight in her performances. But Leavitt will know the unique demands of the role: she was a staffer during Trump’s first term, which burned through some four White House press secretaries – Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham and Kayleigh McEnany – over its lifespan. And the pace of activity set by the administration over the first three weeks has been relentless.
Leavitt’s conduct on the podium is a demonstration of impeccable politeness and professional friendliness that can quickly turn glacial. But less than a month into her role, there are signs, evident on Wednesday, of future battles between the leading voices of the mainstream US media, which Trump has cast as the enemy, and his official message bearer.
One point of contention concerned the removal, on Tuesday, from the Oval Office of an Associated Press journalist for referring to the Gulf of Mexico as just that, in the face of the Trump administration’s insistence that it is now named the Gulf of America.
“First of all, let me just set the record straight,” Leavitt said.
“It is a privilege to cover this White House. It is a privilege to be the White House press secretary. And nobody has the right to go into the Oval Office and ask the president of the United States questions, that is an invitation that is given. And there are hundreds of outlets on this campus, many of you in this room who don’t have that privilege of being part of that pool every single day and getting to ask the president questions.
“We reserve the right to decide who gets to go into the Oval Office. And you all have credentials to be here, including the Associated Press who is in this briefing room today.”
Asked then whether the decision was tantamount to a precedent-setting retaliation for not using the preferred language and terms of the Trump administration, she responded: “I was very up front in my briefing on day one that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable. And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. And I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that. But that is what it is.
“The secretary of theinterior has made that the official designation and geographical identification name server. Apple has recognised that. Google has recognised that. Pretty much every outlet in this room has recognised that body of water as the Gulf of America and it is very important to this administration that we get that right, not just for people here at home but also for the rest of the world.”
To the liberal voters of the US, this will sound worryingly close to an infringement of the first amendment right to free speech. To Republicans, it will sound like a delightful smackdown of the corrupt mainstream media.
Leavitt has a flair for performance – producing receipts, for instance, on Wednesday to back up the evidence of “fraud and waste” unearthed by Elon Musk’s Doge team. She even teased that Musk himself might make an appearance in the James Brady press room one of these icy Washington days.
Either way, storm clouds are appearing over the gossipy quarter of the West Wing. Leavitt may be right about needing to expand. They’re gonna need a bigger boat.
