The plan

On Tuesday, 20 October 2026, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump has weighed removing reporters from the White House and replacing the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room with an indoor swimming pool. Citing three anonymous sources, the paper said Trump has raised the idea several times and described it as his 'last legacy' in a private meeting. The briefing room has been the daily workplace for reporters covering the White House since it opened in 1970. Replacing it without an alternative would, in practice, push the press out of the presidential complex.

Ties to Karoline Leavitt

The New York Times says Trump first put the proposal to his press secretary Karoline Leavitt in August, during one of her last meetings with him in the Oval Office, in front of several senior advisers. Leavitt formally resigned from the post on 27 August. The idea never advanced while she held the job, according to the paper. Later, in late September, Trump posted a Truth Social collage that set the current press room, labeled 'Fake News', against a pool with gilded door frames and ceiling ornaments, labeled 'FDR Pool'.

Pool history

Franklin D. Roosevelt had the indoor pool built in 1933 as part of therapy for his legs, which were affected by polio. Richard Nixon later covered it to make room for the press, and the briefing room opened in 1970. Trump has told aides he would prefer to bring back the covered pool. Accredited correspondents currently work in a small office suite connected to the briefing room.

Wider clashes with the press

The plan follows a wider fight over access. Trump has sought to block CNN, MS NOW and Politico from entering the White House, accusing them of spreading 'fake news', and a judge has halted that measure for now. On the day of the report, he told one reporter to be quiet and called him sick. Several people close to the president support moving the press to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street, the paper said, and some of them see that as a possible next escalation in a series of measures against the media. The Eisenhower building is a few minutes' walk from the White House.

What remains open

The reporting describes the plan as a proposal that has not been carried out. The New York Times notes that such a move would be hard for future presidents to reverse. Spiegel adds that the Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump had raised the idea repeatedly in conversations with confidants. Trump also pushed the idea during his first term, from 2017 to 2021, and the New York Times says a growing number of people around him now back it.