and how they tied anthony scaramucci to russian collusion. three people resigned. you would think at that point, let s rethink this whole strategy. it s not a good idea. what they should start to do is say, we ll work with you, we want to get more on camera briefings, how to make this happen? guess what, if they stop publishing the fake news article that they have to retract, maybe they would get more access. the melissa: this is a dominant strategy for them that s working. they re getting press, there getting ratings. you have to look at it through the lens of the fact that it s a business.
white house. kristen, what have you got? here is what we have. we know press secretary sean spicer is going to brief today at 1:30. this is going to be one of those off camera briefings. undoubtedly, though, this is going to dominate that briefing. then the president is going to hold a joint statement with the prime minister of india. that s going to take place later today, 5:00 p.m. the white house saying there won t be any questions. however, you can bet we ll be shouting questions to president trump. he may just bite, hallie, because as we ve been talking about, the white house will likely say this is a partial victory, because part of the travel ban is now allowed to move forward. having said that, this is a fight that they have had really since the first days, since the president took office this travel ban has been held up in courts, the first version of it and then the second version of it, with justices and lawyers going back to that key question, is this, in fact, a ban on m
i ll talk with top health care reporters about what s being missed. first, the trump administration rolling back press access inch by inch by inch. declining to answer questions and dodging interviewers. this month we ve seen a sharp increase in off camera briefings, with the white house forbidding live video and audio, leaving cnn to send in a sketch artist on friday afternoon. what is this about? is it a sign of insecurity at the white house? a way of admitting they don t have answers? or is this trump s latest attempt to please his base by ticking off the press? either way, it s about a lot more than briefings. it s about whether the public knows what the government is doing in its name. take the stepped up fight against isis for example. on saturday alone, the defense department reported 37 more coalition strikes in syria and iraq. who died? how can we know if the strikes are making the world any safer?
more closed off than i think the public would like it to be. lynn, what is the upside for the white house? what do they gain by adding restrictions and holding fewer briefings and fewer on camera briefings. what they gain i am interested on brian s take on this. what they gain is it s damage control. they don t have the wild card question. they don t have sean spicer saying something that could be la lamb pond by saturday nigpoone live there s no reveal that trump did something nobody knew about. cnn carries that parth live on television and on the air as well as the q&a. it s a great chance for the white house to get its message out, but increasingly we re
reporter, the need is to get information and facts, not necessarily they have to be shown asking your question. having said that, the matter of the briefing being on television means that all of america can see it in realtime, not just the reporters. that can only be good even if you think there s not a lot of content in the briefing, let people decide that and see that for themselves. isn t the bigger problem, lynn, that all the answers that we don t get during these briefings? abc made a list of 26 different questions that sean spicer s been asked where he said i don t know but i ll get back to you and but hasn t gotten back to anybody. a list of more than two dozen the white house isn t addressing, big ones whether the president believes in man-made climate change. on that we would have an hour special of press secretaries who