President Trump eliminates the middleman in his war against journalists

One component of the traditional relationship between the media and the president is that, when the president isn’t available to answer questions, his press secretary will do so. But over the past three months, the White House has held only nine “daily” news briefings and one additional, less formal press gaggle. Since July 1, the White House has spent about 4½ hours in news briefings and gaggles, including three briefings in which someone besides Sarah Huckabee Sanders occupied most of the time. There was no single month during 2016 in which President Barack Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, spent less than nine hours briefing the media.  Press secretaries often play a role in the natural tension between an elected president and a demanding media. Sanders’s role is to shield President Donald Trump from questions and to criticize them so that Trump can keep his hands clean. But Trump doesn’t care about that insulation. He rejects it. He wants the press to feel, directly from him, his anger and dismissiveness.