Trump’s press strategy: A few questions, then a quick escape

President Donald Trump is everywhere, and nowhere.

He’s opened up a one-way conversation with the public via his Twitter feed, letting the world in on his thoughts and opinions in an unprecedented way. He’s made a habit of answering questions, apparently off the cuff, during brief pool sprays in the Oval Office or on his way in or out of town on his frequent trips.

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But his break with tradition in deciding to leave Washington for the holiday break without giving a formal year-end news conference was a move from the playbook that he’s used throughout his first year in office: Keep exchanges with the media short and avoid situations where he could be pinned down with in-depth questions and follow-ups.

Trump has done just a single solo press event since taking office — an impromptu 80-minute appearance last February in the East Room days after firing his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. President Barack Obama held 11 in his first year, according to figures kept by Martha Joynt Kumar, a retired political science professor from Towson University who tracks presidential appearances as director of the White House Transition Project.

But Trump has engaged reporters in 115 short QA sessions during his first year in office, usually for a few minutes at a time, a dramatic increase compared with Obama’s 46 short availabilities.

While Trump’s offhand sessions can lead to breaking news — for instance, on Dec. 17, when he declared that he did not intend to fire special counsel Robert Mueller — they also put the president in a position of control over the media.

Trump’s approach hews closer to the one set out by President George W. Bush, who did four solo news conferences and 144 short QA’s in his first year.

“The informality of it helps the president, and the fact that it’s typically three, four, five questions at a time helps the president,” said former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. “It’s easier for the president to walk away when he wants to.”

Away from the strictures of the White House briefing room or the East Room, reporters typically are forced to shout out questions over one another — and often, the whir of Marine One — allowing Trump to pick and choose what he wants to answer. And if the president doesn’t like the questions, he has a literal escape vehicle right there.

Trump held 20 joint news conferences in 2017, by Kumar’s count, mostly bilateral affairs with foreign leaders in which each would take just two questions. Obama held 16 joint news conferences and Bush 15 in their first years, respectively.

Trump last took extended questions in October, when he abruptly canceled the daily briefing and invited the assembled press corps to the Rose Garden, where he spoke with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by his side.

“Short QA’s are valuable because they get the president’s initial impressions of something that’s breaking,” Kumar said. “Solo press conferences are important because they represent a time when reporters can delve into events and issues in a deeper way.”

She said Trump’s preference for brief encounters with the press is “a reflection of the way that he thinks, what his priorities are. Just get out there what’s on the top of his head at the moment. Don’t delve deeply into any kinds of complexities.”

The White House did not respond to request for comment.

The president’s penchant for seemingly spontaneous interactions with the press extends to his habit of doing unplanned, extended one-on-one interviews with White House reporters, including one with POLITICO last April and several with the New York Times, most recently on Thursday at his Florida golf club. By grabbing reporters on the fly — typically without time for preparation — Trump is able to do even these lengthier interviews on his own terms.

Mark Knoller, a longtime CBS News White House correspondent said Trump’s approach has pros and cons. The gaggles as Trump comes and goes from the White House are “very helpful” and “make a lot of news,” Knoller said.

“I prefer those to the formal news conferences, frankly,” he continued. “It’s rapid fire, it’s sort of like a lightning round and you’re able to get reaction on news of the day.”

With so little time, though, the most pressing questions tend to get asked first, making it difficult to break out of the daily narrative that, often enough, Trump himself has created with a statement on Twitter or elsewhere.

“If you’re looking to ask a long thoughtful question or something of depth, it’s hard to ask over the din of the Marine One engines. It doesn’t lend itself to that kind of thing,” Knoller said.

Bloomberg senior White House correspondent Margaret Talev said the noise of the helicopter is often so loud that reporters must afterward check their quotes with audio recorded from the boom mics — not exactly a situation that leads to easy follow-ups.

A formal news conference, she said, “is just a different format and it allows for different nuance or depth.”

Since the 1970s, presidents have traditionally used end-of-year news conferences to tout the achievements of the past 12 months and set a narrative going forward, but Trump was reportedly encouraged by staff to skip it for fear of stepping on the news of his recently signed tax law.

Talev, who serves as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said her group had been encouraging the administration to hold an end-of-year presser for several weeks, but to no avail.

“We’re disappointed that it didn’t happen before he left for Mar-a-Lago. It would be great if they decided in the closing days to do it,” she said. “I think it’s disappointing because both what the public can get out of a long-form news conference, and what he can get out of a long-form news conference, is a much deeper and more substantive understanding of individual issues of concern.”

“There’s a reason why presidents historically have done it,” she said. “There’s a value to it.”

Instead, last week, the White House held an off-camera briefing on background “regarding the accomplishments from the president’s first year in office,” according to the wording of an email sent to reporters.

According to the count kept by Knoller, who also tracks presidential appearances, Obama did year-end news conference in five of his eight years. The other three years featured less all-encompassing December events on specific topics, sometimes with Obama accompanied by another speaker. Bush did them in seven of eight years.

Fleischer said there were multiple reasons Bush observed the December ritual. “One, he was more of a traditional-style president and he would honor those traditions, so it was in keeping with his nature. Two, it helped sum up a year,” he said. “It’s a way to go on offense. But you know, Bush didn’t have Twitter. Bush didn’t have the tools that Trump has to go on offense and to go around the press.”

Fleischer said he approves of how Trump has relied on brief sessions to manage the news media, and that he dislikes formal news conferences — he believes there’s too much preening and showmanship by reporters. But he would like to see Trump answer more in-depth questions outside the immediate news cycle. One way to do that, he said, would be to do more television interviews.

While Obama and Bush faced a range of TV interviewers, Trump has stuck almost exclusively to Fox News and Fox Business Network, appearing on those channels 19 times, compared with twice on NBC or MSNBC, once each on CBS News and ABC News, and zero times on CNN.

Evening out that count could benefit Trump, Fleischer said.

“I do worry that, for Trump’s sake and for the Republicans’ sake in the midterms, Donald Trump’s appeal remains largely limited to his base,” he said. “He must grow that, and the way to grow it is talk to other media outlets, talk to people who he otherwise won’t reach.”