CNN’s senior media correspondent complained Monday about the possibility that President-Elect Donald Trump might open up news conferences to more reporters.

Incoming press secretary Sean Spicer has said the administration might move briefings out of the press room in the West Wing to a larger venue in order to accommodate more journalists from more outlets. But Brian Stelter, who also hosts the cable network’s “Reliable Sources” program, suggested to anchor Carol Costello on “CNN Newsroom” that reporters with daily access to news conferences should remain an exclusive club.

“Forty-nine seats, room for some more people in the back, steps from the Oval Office. There’s something special about that, and the access and the symbolism it all represents.”

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“There’s nothing like the briefing room in the West Wing,” he said. “Forty-nine seats, room for some more people in the back, steps from the Oval Office. There’s something special about that, and the access and the symbolism it all represents.”

How can expanding access to reporters beyond the media Establishment be a bad thing? Stelter worried that more reporters would be a vehicle for Trump to “stack the deck” with friendlier reporters and freeze out journalists who ask tough questions.

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“No. 2, if the Trump administration’s gonna try to bring in more friendly voices to these briefings, try to stack the room with really clearly pro-Trump journalists, as opposed to objective journalists like people here at CNN — then that could be troubling,” he said.

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Beyond the fact that some might take issue with Stetler’s characterization of CNN as objective, the fear that Trump or his spokesmen would take questions only from conservative media runs against the president-elect’s past practice. As a candidate, he went on news shows on every network. He regularly grants interviews with The New York Times and has spoken with other publications that have hardly been supportive.

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“This is the exact kind of media elitism the American people just rejected in the recent election,” said LifeZette editor-in-chief Laura Ingraham, “they’re worried Trump will end the exclusivity of their elite club.”

At his news conference last week, featuring far more reporters than could have fit into the West Wing briefing room, Trump took questions from smaller outlets but also called on reporters from mainstream news organizations.

Spicer flatly rejected one rumor, that the new administration would evict reporters from their work space in the White House. Still, Stelter said moving the location of the news conferences could be a sign of more to come.

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“Could there be a slippery slope here where Trump and Spicer try to take away more access over time?” he said.

Stelter also criticized the reaction of Trump and Spicer to the latest “Saturday Night Live” skit lampooning the president-elect. Trump tweeted about it, and Spicer told “The TODAY Show” on NBC Monday that the show has become unfunny. To Stelter, responding to satire skewering Trump equals stifling dissent.

“A lot of people hear this, Carol, and worry about Trump and his aides not respecting dissent, not being able to handle criticism,” he said. “The silver lining, though, of his tweets — he’s about to hit 20 million followers — is that we always know what the president-elect is thinking.”