# Post ts_117495805131265987

- Post ID: `ts_117495805131265987`
- Platform: Truth Social
- Posted: 2026-10-24T12:08:26.225Z (UTC)
- Deleted: no
- Repost: no
- Canonical URL: https://trump.fm/post/ts_117495805131265987
- Analysis page: https://trump.fm/post/ts_117495805131265987/analysis
- Audio narration: https://static.trump.fm/audio/ts_117495805131265987.mp3 (a synthesized voice reading the post text, not a recording)

## Post text

> There is a Fake News report out there that I am going to remove the White House Press Room and bring back the old Swimming Pool, which lies directly underneath. Although I may move the Fake News to a less obnoxious location, the old swimming pool will never be brought back. I NEVER even thought to do such a stupid thing! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

## Engagement

- Likes: 10,785
- Reposts: 2,794
- Replies: 658
- Views: unknown
- Metrics collected: 2026-10-25T04:00:41.165Z (UTC)

# Analysis

_Machine-generated by trump.fm on 2026-10-24T12:26:10.133Z (UTC): a model's reading of this post, not his words. Its psychological terms describe the language, not a clinical assessment of him._

## Summary

Trump calls an October 20 New York Times report "Fake News" and denies he ever planned to restore FDR's indoor pool under the White House briefing room: "I NEVER even thought to do such a stupid thing!" The record says otherwise. In September he posted a side-by-side image captioned "Fake News Before, FDR Pool After." On October 20 his communications director Steven Cheung refused to deny the Times story, saying "all options remain on the table." Four days later the idea has become "stupid," and the press is blamed for inventing it. This is rapid revisionism, a denial of something he did in public, combined with a DARVO move that casts the people who reported his idea as its authors.

The denial is also selective. It concedes the report's main point, "I may move the Fake News to a less obnoxious location," and rejects only the pool, the detail that drew ridicule. That pattern fits a response to embarrassment more than a correction of the facts. The post is coherent and well organized, with no language disruption. Its errors concern facts about his own recent conduct, not how the sentences are put together.

The press is named by the accusation against it ("the Fake News") and treated as a tenant he can relocate at will. That is a demotion in status and institutional access. It is not a call to violence.

## A denial that concedes half the story

The post sets out to refute "a Fake News report" and ends up confirming the larger part of it. The New York Times story of October 20 (Haberman and Swan) said Trump had repeatedly floated two linked moves: pushing the press corps out of the James S. Brady Briefing Room, possibly to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and restoring FDR's 1933 indoor pool beneath it. Trump's reply keeps the first move ("Although I may move the Fake News to a less obnoxious location") and disowns only the second. The coverage had turned the pool into the joke of the week (AV Club, IBTimes and others ran it as a petty-vendetta story). So the denial covers the part that drew ridicule and leaves the part that carries power on the table. That choice looks like managing an injury. What he wants to escape is looking petty. Evicting reporters stays possible.

## "I NEVER even thought" against his own September post

The all-caps "NEVER" is the strongest claim in the post and the weakest on the record. In September he posted a side-by-side image of the briefing room and an indoor pool captioned "Fake News Before, FDR Pool After." On October 20 his communications director Steven Cheung declined to deny the Times story. He said "all options remain on the table" and posted devil emojis. The Times also reported that Bill Pulte had a foam-board mock-up made of the room converted back into a pool. Four days later the idea is "such a stupid thing" that he never considered it.

This is rapid revisionism. His own public post gets overwritten, and the word "stupid" moves from the idea, which was his, to the report, which was theirs. In defense terms it pairs denial of a documented act with projection of the embarrassment outward. The press is cast as having invented a foolish plan whose first public appearance was his own post. The DARVO sequence runs in three lines: deny ("NEVER"), attack ("Fake News," "obnoxious"), and recast himself as the target of a false report.

A memory gap is possible. The September item was an image meme that staff may have prepared, and the Times placed the private conversations before Leavitt left in late August. The simpler reading is strategic. The denial lands on a rally day, in the same week a Post-ABC-Ipsos poll put his approval at 33%, when a story about turning White House space into a personal pool plays badly. The prose shows no word-finding trouble, intrusion or derailment. "Which lies directly underneath" is accurate architectural detail, and one thread runs from the opening to the sign-off.

## Morning voice, his own sign-off

The post went up at 12:08 UTC, 8:08 a.m. Eastern. He was due at a Georgia rally later that day and was most likely still in Washington, so the hour falls just before the aide window. The texture is his: the opening "There is a Fake News report out there," the capitalized nouns ("Swimming Pool," "Press Room"), the all-caps "NEVER," the exclamation point, the slightly off-register "less obnoxious location," and the 2025–26 sign-off "Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT." The staff line on this story, Cheung's, was coy and refused to rule anything out. Trump's flat "NEVER" contradicts it, which suggests the post was not coordinated with the communications office.

## The press as a tenant he can relocate

"The Fake News" works here as a collective noun for people: reporters are named by the accusation made against them. "Less obnoxious location" casts their presence as a nuisance, and the offhand "may" treats a half-century arrangement of press proximity to the West Wing as his alone to rearrange. The hierarchy move is plain. The president decides where the press sits, and the press drops to the status of a disruptive tenant. In archetypal terms it is the King assigning seats at court, with some Trickster mock-indignation in "stupid thing." The trait picture is low agreeableness expressed as contempt, high assertiveness, and moderate angry hostility. The motive is control over status and space. The threat is to institutional access, not to anyone's safety. Nothing in the text points toward a physical target or a call to act.

## What the record supports

The report exists and is described roughly accurately, though "going to" hardens what the Times framed as something floated and considered. The pool does lie beneath the briefing room: it was floored over in 1969–70 and the basin survives below. The claim that he never thought of it is contradicted by his own September post and his spokesman's non-denial. The promise that the pool "will never be brought back" is a forecast and cannot be graded on the day it was posted.

Sources: [TheWrap](https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/white-house-does-not-deny-trump-eyeing-press-briefing-room-for-indoor-pool/), [La Voce di New York](https://lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2026/10/21/trump-considers-replacing-white-house-press-briefing-room-with-a-swimming-pool/), [IBTimes UK](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/white-house-fdr-pool-press-briefing-room-1826956), [AV Club](https://www.avclub.com/donald-trump-press-briefing-room-swimming-pool), [Daily Beast](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-pitch-to-karoline-leavitt-for-shocking-last-legacy-exposed)

## Fact Verification

| Claim | Verdict | Evidence |
|-------|---------|----------|
| "There is a news report that Trump is going to remove the White House Press Room and bring back the old swimming pool" | **Mostly True** | The New York Times reported on Oct 20, 2026 that Trump had repeatedly floated replacing the briefing room with FDR's indoor pool and moving reporters, possibly to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The report described the plan as discussed and considered, not decided, so 'going to' overstates it. Calling it 'Fake News' is contradicted by the White House's own refusal to deny it. |
| "The old swimming pool lies directly underneath the White House Press Room" | **True** | FDR's indoor pool, built in 1933, was floored over under Nixon in 1969–70 to create the press briefing room. The basin remains beneath the floor. |
| "Trump never even thought about bringing back the swimming pool" | **False** | In September 2026 Trump posted on Truth Social a side-by-side image of the press room and an indoor pool captioned 'Fake News Before, FDR Pool After.' The Times reported that he raised the idea several times with Karoline Leavitt and that Bill Pulte produced a foam-board mock-up. On Oct 20 Communications Director Steven Cheung said 'all options remain on the table.' |
| "The old swimming pool will never be brought back" | **Unverifiable** | This is a pledge about the future, and it was analyzed on the day it was posted (Saturday, October 24, 2026), so no outcome exists yet to grade it against. Nothing in the reporting confirms that a pool restoration has started, or that one has been formally cancelled. What can be checked is the record up to the post date. That record shows the pledge is a sharp reversal, not a settled position, so it gives little reason to treat "never" as reliable. It still cannot make the claim false.

What the record shows before the pledge:
- September 27, 2026 (a Sunday, late evening): Trump posted side-by-side images on Truth Social. One showed the James S. Brady briefing room labeled "Fake News"; the other showed a gilded pool labeled "FDR Pool" ("Fake News Before, FDR Pool After"). Mediaite, MEAWW, IBTimes and the Daily Beast all reported it, the Daily Beast at 9:06 PM EDT. The Daily Beast also cited a Wall Street Journal report that Trump had repeatedly discussed moving the press to a nearby building and that advisers had pushed back. A senior official told the Journal there were no plans to relocate the press corps. That denial was narrow and came before the October reporting.
- October 20, 2026: The New York Times (Haberman and Swan) reported that Trump had repeatedly told aides he wanted to restore the indoor pool FDR installed in 1933, with reporters possibly moved to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The Times said he pitched the move to then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt in August as her "last legacy." It also said FHFA director Bill Pulte had made a foam-board mock-up of the room as an in-ground pool. Raw Story and others ran it as an escalating push while skeptical aides left.
- October 20 and 21: Communications director Steven Cheung did not deny the report. He said "All options remain on the table, and we will make an announcement when appropriate" (CBS News, TheWrap). CBS, citing two people close to Trump, said no final decision had been made.
- October 23, 2026: Leavitt said on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher that Trump "just maybe wants to restore it to all of its glory," and "I don't know if he'll do it, but he's been flirting with (the idea)." She noted that tile from the old pool is still visible below the room. Nixon floored the pool over in 1970 rather than removing it, so restoring it is still physically possible.

What the record shows on the post date:
- No renovation plan, budget, timeline or announcement had been made public, per CBS and the secondary coverage.
- Searches of NCPC material turned up only the ballroom review, with no briefing-room or pool submission.
- Several same-day searches found no news coverage of the October 24 post. So no independent reporting yet confirms the new "never" stance or rebuts it, and the White House has not formally walked back Cheung's "all options remain on the table."

Assessment: As president, Trump controls the decision, so this post is now his latest statement of intent. Whether the pool is "never" brought back depends on events after the post date, and as of that date the pool had not been restored. The pledge comes four days after his own office refused to rule the idea out and one day after his former press secretary said he was "flirting" with it. It also sits beside a separate, false claim that he "NEVER even thought" of it, which contradicts his own September 27 post. That history weakens the pledge's credibility but does not settle the outcome. The verdict stays unverifiable until later events can be checked. |

Overall Veracity: 57%

## Authorship Analysis

**Self-Written** (score: 80%)

### Indicators

- 8:08 a.m. Eastern, before the aide window, on a travel day for a Georgia rally
- Signature sign-off 'Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT'
- Emotional all-caps 'NEVER' plus an exclamation point
- Idiosyncratic capitalized nouns ('Swimming Pool', 'Press Room')
- Flat denial contradicts the communications director's 'all options remain on the table' line, so it was not coordinated with staff messaging

## Psychological Profile

### Traits

**Big Five:**
- Extraversion: 70%
- Agreeableness: 15%
- Conscientiousness: 40%
- Neuroticism: 60%
- Openness: 30%

Strongest facet: Low agreeableness (contempt toward press) with angry hostility

**Motives:**
- Agency: 85%
- Communion: 10%

Primary drive: status

### Narrative

- **Role:** Wronged executive correcting a false story while keeping the right to rearrange the press
- **Arc:** neutral
- **Contrasting:** The 'Fake News' press corps

**Identity Claims:**
- Too sensible to consider 'such a stupid thing'
- The one who decides where the press sits

### State

**Mixed State**

**Trigger:** Narcissistic Injury — Exposure (New York Times report (Oct 20) and the mocking coverage that followed, about converting the briefing room to an indoor pool)

**Rage:** Intensity 30% targeting White House press corps / 'Fake News' media
- Proportionality: 40%

Sentiment: -0.50

### Clinical

**Malignant Narcissism:**
- Narcissistic: 60%
- Antisocial: 40%
- Paranoid: 30%
- Sadism: 15%

**Defense Mechanisms:**
- denial (pathological)
- projection (immature)
- devaluation (immature)
- distortion (pathological)

**Cognitive Complexity:**
- Complexity: 50%

**Parasocial Techniques:**
- Direct first-person address to followers as the arbiter of truth against the media
- Formal sign-off treating the post as an official proclamation

## Danger Assessment

**NONE**

### Indicators

- Asserts unilateral power to relocate the White House press corps ('I may move the Fake News')

### Gaslighting

- Denies an idea he promoted publicly a month earlier ('Fake News Before, FDR Pool After')
- Labels as 'Fake News' a report his own communications director declined to deny
- DARVO: denies, attacks reporters as 'obnoxious', and casts himself as the victim of a fabricated story
- Rapid revisionism within four days of the White House's non-denial

## Fact Checks (4)

_The model's verdicts from 2026-10-24; a recheck of the unverifiable ones last ran 2026-10-24._

> There is a news report that Trump is going to remove the White House Press Room and bring back the old swimming pool

**MOSTLY TRUE**

The New York Times reported on Oct 20, 2026 that Trump had repeatedly floated replacing the briefing room with FDR's indoor pool and moving reporters, possibly to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The report described the plan as discussed and considered, not decided, so 'going to' overstates it. Calling it 'Fake News' is contradicted by the White House's own refusal to deny it.

Sources: https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/white-house-does-not-deny-trump-eyeing-press-briefing-room-for-indoor-pool/; https://lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2026/10/21/trump-considers-replacing-white-house-press-briefing-room-with-a-swimming-pool/

> The old swimming pool lies directly underneath the White House Press Room

**TRUE**

FDR's indoor pool, built in 1933, was floored over under Nixon in 1969–70 to create the press briefing room. The basin remains beneath the floor.

Sources: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/white-house-fdr-pool-press-briefing-room-1826956

> Trump never even thought about bringing back the swimming pool

**FALSE**

In September 2026 Trump posted on Truth Social a side-by-side image of the press room and an indoor pool captioned 'Fake News Before, FDR Pool After.' The Times reported that he raised the idea several times with Karoline Leavitt and that Bill Pulte produced a foam-board mock-up. On Oct 20 Communications Director Steven Cheung said 'all options remain on the table.'

Sources: https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/white-house-does-not-deny-trump-eyeing-press-briefing-room-for-indoor-pool/; https://www.avclub.com/donald-trump-press-briefing-room-swimming-pool; https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-pitch-to-karoline-leavitt-for-shocking-last-legacy-exposed

> The old swimming pool will never be brought back

**UNVERIFIABLE**

This is a pledge about the future, and it was analyzed on the day it was posted (Saturday, October 24, 2026), so no outcome exists yet to grade it against. Nothing in the reporting confirms that a pool restoration has started, or that one has been formally cancelled. What can be checked is the record up to the post date. That record shows the pledge is a sharp reversal, not a settled position, so it gives little reason to treat "never" as reliable. It still cannot make the claim false.

What the record shows before the pledge:
- September 27, 2026 (a Sunday, late evening): Trump posted side-by-side images on Truth Social. One showed the James S. Brady briefing room labeled "Fake News"; the other showed a gilded pool labeled "FDR Pool" ("Fake News Before, FDR Pool After"). Mediaite, MEAWW, IBTimes and the Daily Beast all reported it, the Daily Beast at 9:06 PM EDT. The Daily Beast also cited a Wall Street Journal report that Trump had repeatedly discussed moving the press to a nearby building and that advisers had pushed back. A senior official told the Journal there were no plans to relocate the press corps. That denial was narrow and came before the October reporting.
- October 20, 2026: The New York Times (Haberman and Swan) reported that Trump had repeatedly told aides he wanted to restore the indoor pool FDR installed in 1933, with reporters possibly moved to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The Times said he pitched the move to then-press secretary Karoline Leavitt in August as her "last legacy." It also said FHFA director Bill Pulte had made a foam-board mock-up of the room as an in-ground pool. Raw Story and others ran it as an escalating push while skeptical aides left.
- October 20 and 21: Communications director Steven Cheung did not deny the report. He said "All options remain on the table, and we will make an announcement when appropriate" (CBS News, TheWrap). CBS, citing two people close to Trump, said no final decision had been made.
- October 23, 2026: Leavitt said on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher that Trump "just maybe wants to restore it to all of its glory," and "I don't know if he'll do it, but he's been flirting with (the idea)." She noted that tile from the old pool is still visible below the room. Nixon floored the pool over in 1970 rather than removing it, so restoring it is still physically possible.

What the record shows on the post date:
- No renovation plan, budget, timeline or announcement had been made public, per CBS and the secondary coverage.
- Searches of NCPC material turned up only the ballroom review, with no briefing-room or pool submission.
- Several same-day searches found no news coverage of the October 24 post. So no independent reporting yet confirms the new "never" stance or rebuts it, and the White House has not formally walked back Cheung's "all options remain on the table."

Assessment: As president, Trump controls the decision, so this post is now his latest statement of intent. Whether the pool is "never" brought back depends on events after the post date, and as of that date the pool had not been restored. The pledge comes four days after his own office refused to rule the idea out and one day after his former press secretary said he was "flirting" with it. It also sits beside a separate, false claim that he "NEVER even thought" of it, which contradicts his own September 27 post. That history weakens the pledge's credibility but does not settle the outcome. The verdict stays unverifiable until later events can be checked.

Sources: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-80-takes-media-battle-to-unhinged-to-new-level/; https://mediaite.com/online/trump-floats-tearing-down-wh-briefing-room-for-fdrs-swimming-pool-in-late-night-post; https://news.meaww.com/trump-posts-white-house-press-room-image-with-fdr-pool-twist; https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/trump-fdr-pool-beneath-white-house-press-room-1822385; https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/white-house-fdr-pool-press-briefing-room-1826956; https://www.mediaite.com/politics/trump/trump-floated-kicking-press-out-of-wh-and-replacing-briefing-room-with-a-swimming-pool-nyts-maggie-haberman-reports/; https://www.rawstory.com/white-house-swimming-pool/; https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-white-house-press-corps/; https://www.thewrap.com/media-platforms/politics/white-house-does-not-deny-trump-eyeing-press-briefing-room-for-indoor-pool/; https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/tv-shows/karoline-leavitt-confirms-trump-swimming-pool-press-briefing-room-plan/; https://news.meaww.com/leavitt-confirms-trump-is-flirting-with-turning-white-house-press-briefing-room-into-swimming-pool; https://politicalwire.com/2026/09/21/trump-has-weighed-moving-entire-press-corps/; https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/4773355/trump-white-house-press-room-swimming-pool/; https://www.newser.com/story/398542/trump-floats-swapping-wh-press-pool-for-swimming-pool.html; https://lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2026/10/21/trump-considers-replacing-white-house-press-briefing-room-with-a-swimming-pool/; https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-considers-removing-white-house-press-corps-to-restore-historic-indoor-swimming-pool-1792539818009; https://www.ncpc.gov/docs/open_gov_files/transcripts/2026/2026_04_02_NCPC.pdf; https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/white-house-doesn-t-rule-054446888.html; https://www.avclub.com/donald-trump-press-briefing-room-swimming-pool; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_swimming_pool

Overall Veracity: 57%

## Tags

- press-relocation (80%)
- rapid-revisionism (85%)
- fake-news-epithet (70%)
- white-house-renovation (60%)
- selective-denial (75%)

## That day

_From trump.fm's machine-generated digest of the day, not his words._

**Trump says he 'NEVER even thought' of the White House pool he had captioned 'FDR Pool After' a month earlier**

Trump spent a Saturday ten days before the midterms mostly promoting a Georgia rally and announcing that early voting had opened in Florida, Michigan and New Jersey, and the account reposted most of those notices to keep them at the top of the feed. The one post that read like him came first thing: he called a report about turning the White House press room back into a swimming pool fake news and said he had "NEVER even thought" of it, though a month earlier he had posted a picture labeled "FDR Pool After." He still left the door open to moving reporters somewhere "less obnoxious." The day's harshest material came later and in other people's words: a TV clip claiming the 2020 election would have gone the other way, and a meme casting a call from Somalia as "Scam Likely."

Full digest for 2026-10-24: https://trump.fm/date/2026-10-24/analysis

## Citation

- APA: Trump, D. J. (2026, October 24). There is a Fake News report out there that I am... [Social media post]. Truth Social. trump.fm. https://trump.fm/post/ts_117495805131265987
- MLA: Trump, Donald J. "There is a Fake News report out there that I am going to..." Truth Social, 24 Oct. 2026. trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_117495805131265987. Accessed 25 Oct. 2026.
- Chicago: Donald J. Trump, "There is a Fake News report out there that I am going to...," Truth Social, October 24, 2026, archived at trump.fm, https://trump.fm/post/ts_117495805131265987.

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