President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is reportedly considering plans to evict the White House press corps from accessing the White House.
According to a report from Esquire, which cited three sources with the transition team, Trump administration officials are "seriously considering" plans to evict the press corps from being able to access the White House, arguing that it would allow the press increased access to Trump.
"There has been no decision," incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told Esquire, adding that "there has been some discussion about how to do it."
More from Esquire:
If the plan goes through, one of the officials said, the media will be removed from the cozy confines of the White House press room, where it has worked for several decades. Members of the press will be relocated to the White House Conference Center—near Lafayette Square—or to a space in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House.
Spicer, in his comments to Esquire, suggested that one of the reasons the administration is looking to evict the press from the White House is because they want to offer more members of the press the ability to cover Trump and the White House.
Currently, there are only 49 seats in the White House James Brady Press Briefing Room, not enough to honor the hundreds, and sometimes, thousands of requests from journalists to cover Trump, Spicer said.
However, a different, unnamed source told Esquire that the administration might have a different motive. According to the source, the administration is considering the move because of how the media covered Trump during the campaign and after his election victory.
Trump has repeatedly lambasted the media for their coverage of him, regularly taking to Twitter to blast a news agency or a reporter by name. Most recently, Trump scolded CNN's Jim Acosta during his press conference last week.
Still, no concrete plans regarding press access to Trump and whether or not it will be in the White House or another location have been put into action.
Chris Enloe
Staff Writer
