Mike McCurry

[Commentary] Relations between the White House press corps and the president are almost always adversarial, but in President-Elect Donald Trump, we have something new. Based on the campaign and the transition, the press is highly adversarial to Trump and he is happy to return the favor. As two former White House spokesmen for two very different presidents, we sat in the same West Wing office that is equidistant from the Oval Office and the briefing room where the White House press corps gathers daily.

Despite the rancor that exists today between the media and Trump, we believe there are ways to make their relationship beneficial to the public they both serve. So, what to do differently?

[Mike McCurry and Ari Fleischer are former presidential press secretaries. McCurry served as press secretary to Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1998, and is now a Distinguished Professor of Public Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. Fleischer was press secretary for George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. ]