President Trump's New Record: The Longest Time Without a Formal Press Conference in Half a CenturySCOTT BIXBY
02.15.18 9:37 PM ET
https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-trumps-new-record-the-longest-time-without-a-formal-press-conference-in-half-a-centuryA little more than three weeks after his inauguration, Donald Trump gave his first-ever press conference as president.
Over the course of 77 dizzying minutes, Trump told journalists hastily corralled into the East Room that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was “fake news,†asked an African-American reporter whether she was friends with the Congressional Black Congress, and declared that members of the media who printed leaks from within his own White House should be “ashamed of themselves.â€
One year later, that circus-like exchange remains Trump’s first, last, and only formal press conference—the longest period of time without a solo press conference held by an American president in at least half a century.
According to records stretching back to the Coolidge administration and compiled by the American Presidency Project, Trump has gone longer without conducting a formal solo press conference than any president since at least Lyndon Johnson. By the end of his first year in office, President Barack Obama had held 11 solo press conferences; President George W. Bush had held five.
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