Incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that President-elect Trump may not hold regular press conferences.
Instead, he may replace them with live chats on Facebook and Twitter, Spicer told Hewitt.
“Do you expect him to keep up a regular and as energetic a series of press conferences as previous presidents?” Hewitt asked Thursday. “Do you expect him to be more or less engaged than previous presidents with that setting, that formal East Room setting sort of thing?”
“That’s a good question,” responded Spicer, “because I think the thing that you’ve seen with Donald Trump is that he doesn’t look to the past and say ‘I’ve got to conform to these precedents.’ He figures out what’s the best way.”
“And so maybe we do a series of press conferences, but maybe we do some town hall, you know, Facebook town halls. Maybe we go out and solicit input from Twitter. I don’t– the answer is we’re looking at a lot of things,” he continued.
Trump would not completely get rid of traditional press conferences, Spicer said, noting they are “part of the fabric of our country.” But bringing Trump’s millions of followers on social media into the fold would allow the president elect to “have a conversation with the American people, and not just limit it through the filter of the mainstream media.”