Former Bush press secretary: WH briefing should be less of a ‘red hot TV show’

Former George W. Bush administration press secretary Ari Fleischer renewed his call Tuesday for taking the White House press briefing off of live television, arguing that the press conference should be “serious” as opposed to “a red hot TV show.”

Fleischer’s remarks come as the Trump White House increasingly moves press briefings off-camera. The last on-camera press briefing was held on June 29.

“I’m for toning down Washington, D.C. Too much fighting, not enough getting done for the country,” Fleischer told “Fox & Friends.” 

“And part of that is why I’m supporting taking the briefing off of live TV,” Fleischer explained. “The briefing should be more of a serious briefing than a red hot TV show.”

{mosads}Fleischer has argued for months that the Trump administration should not conduct the press briefings live. The former Bush press secretary in a January op-ed urged President Trump to change the style of the press briefing from a live event.

“The briefing today has become an occasion for too much posturing on both sides of the camera,” Fleischer wrote at the time, along with Mike McCurry, a former press secretary for President Bill Clinton.

Fleischer reiterated that putting an embargo on the briefing would help moderate the tone of the briefing.

“But I just think tone it all down. Take the briefing off of all TV,” he said on Fox News. “Let it be embargoed so it’s a piece of news that you use in the evening news. You use snippets later.”

Fleischer’s comments come one day after White House press secretary Sean Spicer held an off-camera briefing, his first press briefing in almost three weeks. White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has conducted many of the briefings in Spicer’s absence.

Before the White House began taking most of the briefings off-camera, the on-camera, frequently combative briefings earned high ratings for daytime TV.