Screen capture via the White House YouTube page.
White House press secretary Kylie McCannaney gives a usually contentious press briefing Thursday – she and Fox News reporter John Roberts, for example, got into on why President Trump had not indicted white supremacists during Tuesday’s debate. Incorrectly claimed that Amy Connie Barrett was a Rhodes Scholar (Barrett went to Rhodes College in Tennessee). She blamed “the media” for: 1) The Times did not cover Trump she has Fanatics denounce the whites; 2) Boycott her while making a big deal over Trump’s boycott of Joe Biden; 3) Talking about the Proud Boyz.
As usual, McNani and other White House staffers were revealed during the briefing. (Trump White House employees “generally do not wear masks out of the president’s contempt for them,” The New York Times Reports.) The Brady Briefing room is a small space, and while most reporters were masked – despite not having Jenn Pelligrino from OANN – and spread out as much as they could, it is the kind of environment that the WHO has been concerned about this summer in terms of transmission.
The Washingtonian contacted several news organizations to inquire about the safety of their reporters. a Washington Post The spokesperson says the News Foundation is “working to identify Post reporters who may have been in contact with White House officials recently, to ensure our colleagues are tested quickly and fully supported.” Speaking on Fox News on Friday, Roberts said that anyone who does billiards duty for Trump is undergoing testing, and that the president has been careful to distance himself from reporters.
The White House Correspondents Association does not yet have a statement about the safety of its members in the briefing room in light of the president’s diagnosis. Last Tuesday, its board of directors sent a memo to members advising them how to keep themselves and their colleagues safe as Election Day approaches, and many White House reporters should travel more. It advised journalists traveling on Air Force One to “recognize” the District of Columbia’s requirement for self-monitoring after traveling to high-risk areas.
The organization says it “has repeatedly and strongly advocated for our members to take precautionary measures when traveling on a mission with the president” and has heard from members who have expressed “concerns about individual events or travel on a larger scale and have tried to work with the White House and campaign to address as many of them as possible.” But she wrote, “Realistically, it would be stupid to assume that the situation will improve dramatically over the next six weeks.”
