Former White House Press Secretaries, Gov’t Officials Sign Open Letter Calling For Return of Press Briefings
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A group of thirteen former White House press secretaries and government officials penned an open letter calling for the return of frequent White House press briefings, Friday.
“All of us have experienced the challenges of a regular press briefing whether at the White House, the State Department or the Pentagon. We all had days where the last place we wanted to be was behind one of those podiums. But day after day, we persisted,” declared the thirteen officials in a letter published on CNN.com. “We believed that regular briefings were good for the American people, important for the administrations we served, and critical for the governing of our great country.”
“Using the powerful podiums of the State Department, Pentagon and White House is a powerful tool for keeping our allies informed and letting our enemies know we are united in our determination to defeat them both on the battlefield and in the world of public diplomacy,” they continued, adding, “Credible men and women, standing in front of those iconic backgrounds at the White House, State Department and Pentagon, are essential to the work the United States must do in the world.”
“We respectfully urge the resumption of regular press briefings across our government, especially in the places where Americans want the truth, our allies in the world want information, and where all of us, hopefully, want to see American values reflected,” the open letter concluded.
The letter was signed by former White House Press Secretaries Jay Carney, Robert Gibbs, Joe Lockhart, Scott McClellan, Michael McCurry, Dee Dee Myers, and Jake Siewert, along with former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher, former State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns, former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke, former Assistant Secretary of State and Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs George Little, and former White House Communications Director Jen Psaki.
The White House press briefing has become a rare occasion under the Trump administration, with President Donald Trump favoring to make important statements over Twitter.
On Wednesday, the Poynter Institute noted that it had been over 300 days since the last formal White House press briefing, while authors Stephen King and Don Winslow offered this week to donate $200,000 to charity if the White House held a press conference.
