“What’s going on today?” a White House handyman asked Thursday morning, working on the broken briefing room door.
“Nothing,” a reporter replied.
“So you’re just sitting here, waiting around for something to happen?”
“That’s the game,” the reporter said. “We wait.”
Some days I’m scheduled to be at the White House and nothing is supposed to happen. The president’s calendar is packed with policy meetings and proclamation signings, but every line is marked “closed press.” He’s working; we just don’t get to watch.
For the last few months, this has been the rhythm of my beat. I get slotted into the pool (the small rotating group of reporters who shadow the president up close) and then the day just sits there. Slow, quiet days are rare around the Trump White House. But they happen, and lately they keep finding me.
You learn to fill the hours. Reporters work the phones, chasing sources. Some pace the driveway. Others bang out a story or a social post. A few, bold and convinced nothing is going to break, slip off campus for a coffee, betting the news won’t happen the second they leave.
Thursday was looking like another one of those days. The only open-press event on the schedule was a 7 p.m. reception with Team USA athletes. A pleasant event, but not the kind of thing designed for the president to take questions. And questions are what I’m really after.
I prepped a list the moment I scanned my badge through the White House gate, then promptly forgot about it. I had reporting to do, social posts to write, videos to film.
Around 3, the president had “signing time” on his schedule. It was closed press but an aide had told me earlier there was a 50-50 chance it might open. Good enough odds for me. So I staked out a spot by the doors we use as a gathering point when it’s time to head to a presidential event. I was getting ready for something I had no guarantee would happen. But if it did, I wanted to be first in line, with the best seat in the room.
Three o’clock came and went. No call from the press office. The last I’d heard, the president’s aides had nothing. The event was still closed.
I picked at the story I was filing. 3:15, nothing. 3:30, still nothing. I gave myself a deadline: at 3:45, I’d give up my spot. That’s when the TV cameras were set to “pre-set” for the evening reception, and once they committed to that, the signing wasn’t going to open.
At 3:39, the intercom crackled to life.