White House press briefings fade amid Kavanaugh crisis

Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has become more likely to take her case to television hosts than the White House press corps.

The James S. Brady Briefing Room looked like an airport luggage storage room. The famous podium in front of the blue White House seal was surrounded by bags and camera equipment, the front row of seats filled by technicians working crossword puzzles.

Over the past two months, this scene has become the norm. Sanders has relied more on television interviews to push the White House’s message — this week she has spoken with anchors like NBC’s Savannah Guthrie and the hosts of “Fox & Friends” — while bypassing the briefing room. “He was incredibly powerful and very clear and he’s been unequivocal from day one that this did not take place by him,” she told Stephanopoulos Friday morning of Kavanaugh’s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony.

Sanders’s last press briefing took place on Sept. 10 ...

Before that, she hadn’t answered questions from the briefing room podium since August 22, according to CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller, who keeps a log of press briefings. In between, she appeared on the Trump-friendly morning program “Fox & Friends” to respond to questions about journalist Bob Woodward’s book about the Trump White House, “Fear.” The slow fade out of the daily briefing has coincided with a particularly fraught period for the Trump White House.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/28/white-house-press-briefings-kavanaugh-852144