--- title: President Trump Threatens to Cancel Press Briefings description: President Trump defended his spokespersons' conflicting accounts of James Comey's firing, threatening to cancel all future press briefings. canonical: https://time.com/4776968/donald-trump-white-house-press-comey/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-12T12:38:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:53:37.548Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Threatens to Cancel White House Press Briefings og:description: President Trump defended his spokespersons' conflicting accounts of James Comey's firing, threatening to cancel all future press briefings. og:url: https://time.com/4776968/donald-trump-white-house-press-comey/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt659f348907b67271/6988ccfb86f68e61966e4a74/donald-trump-comey-poll-most-americans-disapprove.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: donald trump comey poll most americans disapprove og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Threatens to Cancel White House Press Briefings twitter:description: President Trump defended his spokespersons' conflicting accounts of James Comey's firing, threatening to cancel all future press briefings. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt659f348907b67271/6988ccfb86f68e61966e4a74/donald-trump-comey-poll-most-americans-disapprove.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Threatens to Cancel White House Press Briefings > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson May 12, 2017 12:38 PM UTC  President Donald Trump meets with Dr. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisory under President Richard Nixon, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday, May 10, 2017. President Donald Trump meets with Dr. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and National Security Advisory under President Richard Nixon, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on Wednesday, May 10, 2017.The Washington Post—The Washington Post/Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson May 12, 2017 12:38 PM UTC [President Trump](http://time.com/donald-trump-after-hours/) took to Twitter Friday morning to defend his spokespersons’ conflicting accounts of [James Comey’s firing](http://time.com/4775430/the-comey-misfire/) — blaming the “fake media” for the confusion and then threatening to cancel all future press briefings. “As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” the president tweeted. “Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future “press briefings” and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???” > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863000553265270786) > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863002719400976384) His reaction comes after several days of press secretary Sean Spicer, deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Vice President Mike Pence and Trump himself all offering [different accounts](http://time.com/4776388/james-comey-fired-trump-interview/) of both the reasoning and process of Trump firing the FBI director earlier this week. Trump also slammed the “fake media” Friday morning and once again denied any collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia, amid speculation that he fired Comey for reasons related to the FBI’s investigation into the matter. “Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election,” he tweeted. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/862998775731818496) > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/862999243560288256) Trump also went on the attack against Comey, appearing to contradict [recent reports ](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/11/us/politics/trump-comey-firing.html)that Trump had asked the FBI head to pledge his loyalty during a private dinner in January. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4776968/donald-trump-white-house-press-comey/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4776968/donald-trump-white-house-press-comey/"},"headline":"President Trump Threatens to Cancel White House Press Briefings","datePublished":"2017-05-12T12:38:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:53:37.548Z","description":"After conflicting accounts of James Comey's firing","url":"https://time.com/4776968/donald-trump-white-house-press-comey/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt659f348907b67271/6988ccfb86f68e61966e4a74/donald-trump-comey-poll-most-americans-disapprove.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt659f348907b67271/6988ccfb86f68e61966e4a74/donald-trump-comey-poll-most-americans-disapprove.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"donald trump comey poll most americans disapprove","caption":"donald trump comey poll most americans disapprove","creditText":"The Washington Post—The Washington Post/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4776968/donald-trump-white-house-press-comey/","name":"President Trump Threatens to Cancel White House Press Briefings"}}]}] ```