Is it really the right of the media to dictate to the president whom he will allow in his press conferences? That's tetchier. And then there is the added issue of whether it would be a service to their readers, and the country at large, for, say, the Washington Post to take itself out of the room -- meaning they don't have the ability to ask important questions the president is obliged to answer? I think that would be a mistake.
Gene WeingartenThe odd thing is that Trump's hand movements don't seem to coordinate with the topic at hand. Most pols manage to make their hand movements correspond with the message, so a slash will accompany emphasis, etc. Trump's got about three moves, the most notable of which is his "okay" gesture, making a circle with his thumb and forefinger. Anyway, Trump has only a few gestures, including that one, and to my eye he uses them seemingly indiscriminately. I've seen him use the "okay/f.u." sign to be pedantic.
Gene WeingartenWe want to believe that the world is understandable and controllable and unthreatening, that if we follow the rules, we'll be okay. So, when this kind of thing happens to other people, we need to put them in a different category from us. We don't want to resemble them, and the fact that we might is too terrifying to deal with. So, they have to be monsters.
Gene Weingarten