His final bow at the lectern was filled with a mix of nostalgia, mutual appreciation with the press corps and the obligatory “surprise” goodbye appearance from President Obama, who also bid a personal farewell to previous press secretaries Robert Gibbs and Jay Carney. Though Earnest fielded an array of political and policy questions on the news of the day, the briefing lacked the testy sparring with reporters of his debut.

What made Earnest's final act unique, however, was how long it went. The press secretary broke the two-hour mark, perhaps the only time that's happened during Obama's eight years in office and a solid hour longer than briefings typically lasted earlier in the president's tenure.

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Some of the extra time was consumed with Obama's remarks and Earnest's personal reflections on his tenure, and his heartfelt thank you to staff members and his wife and son. White House aides crowded into the standing-room-only briefing room and applauded several times as Obama praised Earnest for always trying “to make sure that he could share with you as much of our thinking and our policy and our vision as possible, and tried to be as responsive as possible, and that's how he trained the rest of his team to be.”

But some of Earnest's performance appeared to be aimed as an outgoing message to his successor, Sean Spicer, the former Republican National Committee spokesman who has been tapped as press secretary for President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. Trump aides have alarmed the White House press corps by suggesting that the journalists and the daily briefing could be relocated out of the West Wing to the Old Executive Office Building across the street. The aides also have suggested that the daily briefing could become a less-frequent occurrence.

“I think there are some people who might say that 'wow . . . it's just symbolic that you have the White House press corps in the White House,' " Earnest said. “And I would say it's a really important symbol. It's more than just symbolism, but even taking that argument at face value, there is something symbolically important about all of you gathering here every single day to hold people in power accountable, to demand answers, to demand transparency, to demand facts.”

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He added, “Your ability to do that is going to be affected if you don't have regular access to the White House, if you're not able to do your job from the White House, and if there's not a natural, readily available venue for you to hold senior officials accountable.”

Asked if the Obama administration had ever considered moving the press corps out of the briefing room, Earnest said no.

Obama has been fiercely criticized by the press corps for his administration's crackdown on government whistleblowers, its slow response to Freedom of Information Act requests and the president's penchant for often going around the White House press corps to give interviews to “soft media” outlets.

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But Earnest said he vouched for the White House press corps in his private meeting with Spicer several weeks ago, suggesting that the incoming spokesman work closely with the White House Correspondents' Association.

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“There were certainly situations where we might be tempted to do something that we didn't think was that big of a deal that you all would view with deep suspicion as an effort to make your job harder,” Earnest said. “And so, what I encouraged Sean to do is to engage.”

Still, Earnest and the press corps couldn't resist a preemptive dig at Spicer.

“It will take some getting used to to seeing somebody else standing up here doing it,” Earnest said of his job, to which a reporter interjected, “Or not.”