The State Department abruptly stops doing press briefings — again

The State Department has abruptly stopped holding on-camera press briefings, The Wall Street Journal reports. It took the department an entire six weeks to get the briefings up and running after Trump's inauguration, and the briefings only lasted for three weeks. Officials said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will resume the briefings when he hires a permanent spokesperson. As a result, briefings aren't expected to resume for at least another two weeks.

Tillerson has faced criticism for his inaccessibility; earlier this month, he traveled to Asia with just one reporter from a conservative-friendly outlet in tow. Daily press briefings have long been a fixture for U.S. secretaries of state, dating back to when John Foster Dulles held the role in the 1950s. But when Tillerson's State Department briefly resumed the briefings, they occurred just twice a week with alternating phone briefings.

In the period before the spokesperson is put in place, the State Department will "hold background briefings, in which unnamed officials will brief intermittently on specific topics," The Wall Street Journal writes. Fox News' Heather Nauert is expected to fill the role as the permanent spokesperson, but she has not yet been officially named and her security clearance has not yet been approved.

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