President Donald Trump has taken another swipe at the White House press corps, this time imagining the room where reporters question his administration being replaced by a swimming pool.
Trump shared an altered image on Truth Social showing the current White House press briefing room beside a lavish pool labelled 'FDR Pool, After'. The briefing room is marked 'Fake News, Before', turning the image into a pointed message about the journalists who work there.
There is a remarkable twist behind the image, however. The FDR swimming pool Trump depicted is not simply a piece of forgotten White House history.
The original pool is still underneath the press room.
President Trump has posted before and after pictures of the White House press briefing room and the FDR pool.
— Julia Manchester (@JuliaManch) September 27, 2026
The old swimming pool was originally built during former President Franklin Roosevelt’s administration in 1933 before it was converted into the WH Briefing Room in 1970 pic.twitter.com/fJLq089llA
The Pool Beneath the Press Room
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had the indoor pool built in 1933 in the West Terrace between the White House and West Wing.
The pool opened on 2 June 1933, after a fundraising campaign led by the New York Daily News. Roosevelt, who had contracted poliomyelitis, regularly used swimming for exercise and had also used therapy pools at his Hyde Park home and at a rehabilitation centre in Warm Springs, Georgia.
The pool eventually acquired a very different purpose.
In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon's administration covered it with flooring and created a new press room above it to accommodate the growing White House press corps and the expanding demands of television news. Nixon welcomed reporters into the new facility in April that year.
The extraordinary part is what happened to the pool itself.
It was covered, not removed.
The White House Historical Association says the original pool remains beneath the floor of the press centre, meaning the reporters who have spent decades questioning presidents have been working above a piece of Roosevelt-era history.
From FDR's Pool To 'Fake News'
The room is now known as the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, one of the most recognisable spaces in the White House.
It is where press secretaries face reporters, major announcements are made, and television audiences watch the daily political battle between the administration and the White House press corps.
Trump's graphic turns that history on its head.
The room created during Nixon's presidency is labelled 'Fake News, Before', while Roosevelt's old pool is presented as the 'After'. The contrast is particularly pointed as the image appeared during Trump's wider confrontation with several major news organisations.
Trump had barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, accusing the outlets of publishing 'FAKE NEWS'. The organisations challenged the move in federal court.
Judge Orders Media Access Restored
US District Judge Timothy J. Kelly subsequently ordered the White House to restore CNN, MS NOW and Politico's access while their legal challenge proceeded.
The temporary order came after the outlets argued that the administration had violated their constitutional rights by excluding them over their coverage. The White House ban also prompted other television networks in the presidential press pool to suspend pooled coverage of Trump events.
Trump's pool image arrived against that backdrop, giving the 'Fake News' label an especially pointed setting.
Still, the post itself does not announce a construction project or confirm that the briefing room is being demolished. It shows what Trump's imagined 'before and after' would look like.
A Presidential Pool With a Second Life
The White House pool story had already taken another turn before Trump's post.
President Gerald R. Ford, an avid swimmer, installed an outdoor pool on the South Grounds in 1975. The new pool became the White House's swimming facility, while the original FDR pool remained covered beneath the press room.
That leaves Trump's striking image with an almost perfect historical loop.
Roosevelt built the indoor pool. Nixon covered it to create a press room. Ford built another pool outdoors. More than five decades later, Trump has shared an image showing Roosevelt's pool restored to the very space where the press corps now works.
For now, the historic pool remains beneath the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.
And that may be the strangest detail of Trump's latest broadside: the swimming pool he depicted replacing the press room never actually disappeared.
