This is Bill Press and Friends on the district productive network.

Well, we got a chance to meet with the still the president of the United States, Barack Obama yesterday, at the White House.

The news conference was his final news conference, 215 yesterday afternoon.

I was there, along with about 100 other reporters, crammed into the Brady briefing room.

The good news is nobody fainted yesterday. I was on duty. I was ready. I was ready.

You were there, man. And everybody was, Bill, Bill, you up to this again today? I said,

yep, come on. Anybody faints around me? I'll take care of them. Now I know where the

doctor's office is in the White House so I could take him right there.

At any rate, the president was in good form yesterday, very thoughtful, very reflective,

a style unlike we will ever see in the White House again, not for at least four years.

And he started out with very nicely, by the way, by thanking us White House reporters

for the job that we do with a little dig, I think, at the incoming Trump administration.

Here he is. Having you in this building has made this place work better. It keeps us honest. It makes us

work harder. Yes, having you in this building is the key phrase because we know that the Trump

administration is thinking, considering, talking about kicking us out of the building and moving the White House press corps over to the old executive office building, which would be a colossal mistake.

And we will fight that very vigorously if they try to do it.

So I thought the president was saying, no, it's important to have you right here because you're right here, we're right here.

That's how we can communicate both.

It helps both sides.

First question the president got from Jeff Mason, who's the president of the White House Correspondents Association and works for Reuters at the White House.

Was about Chelsea Manning asking the president, doesn't your pardon, not pardoned, but

commuting her sentence, send the message that it's okay to reveal state secrets?

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