By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Gone are the crowded arenas, the pulsing playlists, the off-the-cuff 90-minute campaign speeches. Now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, he is favoring a new style of communication with the American public – almost-daily appearances direct from the Oval Office.
In the nearly four weeks since he returned to the presidency, Trump has leveraged the grandeur of the historic West Wing office with media gatherings that are recorded and played out on news channels.
“He’s using this to highlight and accentuate his authority as president,” said presidential historian Thomas Alan Schwartz of Vanderbilt University. “There’s nothing more authoritative than the president using the Oval Office.”
The reliance on Trump to serve as his own messenger has been an explicit part of the White House communications strategy. “The president is the best spokesperson that this White House has, and I can assure you that you’ll be hearing from both him and me as much as possible,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at her first press briefing on January 28.
Surrounded by presidential portraits including Ronald Reagan, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and with deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and other advisers hovering nearby, Trump has discussed everything from Ukraine and Gaza to his distaste for paper straws during free-wheeling exchanges with the press.
Trump usually holds court seated behind the historic Resolute Desk, made from the timbers of a British Arctic exploration ship of the same name and a gift from Queen Victoria that has been used by multiple presidents. Trump has brought back the red button for ordering Diet Cokes from a valet that featured in his first term.
The frequency of the sessions are a departure from his predecessor, Joe Biden, who invited criticism for his limited engagements with reporters and largely stuck to speeches delivered from a teleprompter in the Roosevelt Room, East Room and other public areas.
Of Trump’s 34 sessions with reporters since he took office, 16 were conducted in the Oval Office, according to presidential scholar Martha Joynt Kumar.
That’s considerably more than Biden, who held 22 short question-and-answer sessions with reporters at the same point in his presidency, including nine from the Oval Office, Kumar said. And it’s nearly three times as many as the beginning of Trump’s first term, when he held just five press meetings in the Oval.
Asked to comment on the frequent Oval Office appearances, Leavitt said: “President Trump is happy to open up the Oval Office nearly every day to journalists who are granted the privilege of asking him questions for the whole world to see.”
Meanwhile, she has sharply reduced the calendar of briefings for reporters, holding four in that time.
Trump’s use of the office in his second term is unprecedented, said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “This is the biggest podcast of them all: Oval Office live.”
SPECTACLE AND STRENGTH
The access remains on Trump’s terms. In an extraordinary move last week, he barred Associated Press reporters from the Oval after the news agency continued to use the term Gulf of Mexico following Trump’s executive order changing the name to Gulf of America.
The White House Correspondents’ Association and others including Reuters have objected to access restrictions made on the basis of editorial decisions.
A former reality television showman known for his love of stagecraft, Trump sees the Oval Office sessions as free media, said a source familiar with his views.
He tends to weave from subject to subject and sometimes offers unscripted comments.
On Thursday, Trump announced from behind his desk that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and that they were planning a summit on ending the Ukraine war, possibly in Saudi Arabia, to the alarm of European leaders.
The week before, he suggested permanently displacing 1.7 million Palestinians from Gaza, saying people there had no alternative but to leave the enclave devastated by Israel’s military assault.
Many of Trump’s Oval Office events are marked as “closed press” on the daily schedule, meaning reporters are not to be brought in.
But minutes before each event, aides will check to see if Trump wants to open it up to journalists. He usually agrees, prompting a scramble by reporters.
Trump brought the press pool into the Oval Office with little notice last Tuesday to record him urging Jordan’s King Abdullah to drop his opposition to accepting Palestinian refugees from Gaza. The king reiterated his country’s “steadfast position” against the plan.
Like a TV impresario, Trump likes a cliffhanger finish to set up the next episode and draw viewers in. On Wednesday, he teased a forthcoming announcement on tariffs.
“I may do it today, and if I do it today, I could almost do it right now. Would you like to be shocked?” Trump said.
(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Suzanne Goldenberg)
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