shared future for all nations. today, we're going to hear from an esteemed group of journalists who will offer an inside look at how top white house reporters have been covering the biden administration amid the changing information and new media landscape. we'll look ahead to biden's 100th day in office as president and beyond. this program is part of the meridian global journalism initiative, which builds on our 20 years of working to cross international journalists reporting capacity while strengthening shared values of democracy, press freedom and combatting disinformation in the u.s. and across the world. we're honored to be joined by a great audience today and hope you'll all contribute your great questions and thoughts using the q&a module. the event is open press and i hope we're joined at least by c-span and others. leading us in the conversation today is ryan lizza, who is politico's chief washington correspondent and playbook coauthor. he covers campaigns, congress and the white house. since arriving in washington in 1998, ryan has written about national politics, policy and elections for "esquire," "new york magazine," "the washington post," "the new yorker", "the new york times" and "the atlantic." ryan, we are so pleased having you here to facilitate the discussion. i'll turn it over to you now. >> thank you, lee. and thank you to meridian for hosting this event. we have three white house reporters, three of the best in the business, to break down what we've learned so far in the -- in the biden era and to look ahead to the hundred-day mark, about the state of the biden administration. because we know there's a lot of international viewers here, we'll try and break down some of the foreign policy questions that perhaps haven't been getting as much attention the last few weeks, as we've all been focused on the pandemic and the covid relief bill. and let me introduce our three excellent panelists. john harwood, white house correspondent for cnn.bennett, correspondent for nbc news and song min kim, the white house reporter for "the washington post." three people, if you don't follow their work, you should be following them every day on twitter and on tv and in "the washington post." and i just want to kick it off with a -- final word, make sure you have some questions prepared, at about the 2:30 mark, we will go for about a half hour and answer audience questions. hello, everyone, how is everyone doing? >> doing well, how are you? >> very, very well. let's just start with a big broad question, all of you covered trump and this is like -- at least for me, has been like whiplash, going from the trump era to the biden era and in a lot of different ways. each of you just give us your big broad thoughts about personally what it has been like covering trump world and cover ing biden world these last few months and why don't we start with song? >> so, obviously you're right, it has been quite the whiplash going from covering trump, where he could send out a tweet at 6:15 in the morning and completely change the course of your day. i think that rather than waking up to trump's tweets and retweets i now wake up to ron klain's tweets and retweets, who is a prolific user of social media, as well. but -- >> we're going to talk about that after. is klain the new trump? >> i'm sure he'd love that. but it is -- it's just, going from such an unorthodox, unpredictable presidency where things were never done, almost never done through the proper channels, rolled out kind of like what we expect in a normal way, in a normal washington way and biden has really, at least for the most part, returned to that. i just -- i'm kind of warming up the muscles that i used, you know, mostly covering congress, but what the obama white house was up to when president obama was still in office. and a lot of it is a return to that, with what biden is doing, in terms of, you know, properly notifying congressional allies of big plans or what not. and so, it's kind of a return to that, obviously there are still several reporting challenges that we're facing. he is, you know, for example, we are all pressing on the white house for president biden to hold a news conference as soon as possible. he is far behind his predecessors in terms of when -- of not holding a solo news conference yet, but there's certainly a big difference between covering trump and covering biden at this point. >> jeff? >> yeah, i would say just in the last four months, i've covered more pure policy in the last four months than i did in the entire four years of the trump administration. part of that is a function of the platform that i work for, mostly cable news and so, if you set aside the russia investigation and both impeachments, what you're left with during the trump administration for the most part was the scandal or controversy du jour and figuring out who the president was mad at on a given day and reporting on that. and his twitter feed was a 24/7 entry point into his brain. and now, what you have in joe biden, setting aside his politics, you have someone who is a traditionalist, you have someone who spent, what, a half century, almost, in the senate, he understands the rhythms of official washington. he understands what incentivizes senators during the campaign. this was especially true during the transition. if there was an issue that didn't work for him politically, it didn't benefit him politically, he wouldn't talk about it. and his staff wouldn't talk about it publicly. during the transition, when the trump administration's obstruction meant that 15% of the transition time was lost to the biden administration, then president-elect biden really didn't speak about it unless he thought that that obstruction either imperiled national security or made it tougher for him to deal with the pandemic once he got into the white house. and so, we have really seen that sort of discipline from him continue in the white house and from his top staffers and of course, yes, it makes it more difficult and frustrating to cover this white house, given the fact that they do sort of employ the message discipline that we didn't see under trump. but i would say that the muscle memory or covering the trump administration for four years is still with those of us who were there and who are presently at the white house covering it day in and day out. >> john? >> ah, before i pick up on jeff's excellent disciplined point, i just have to confess that a personal bias, under trump, i worried about getting coronavirus, under biden, i got my first moderna shot four weeks ago, i get my second on thursday, so -- look, i think the difference is donald trump was the outlier. donald trump was a president like we haven't seen before. he was not somebody who knew government. he employed a lot of people that didn't know much about government. they didn't have much regard for government. they weren't particularly professional in their dealings with the issues that came in front of them, in part because they had a boss who would just pop off in outrageous ways all the time. monday you have a president who is steeped in government, with a staff with experience going back to two previous democratic administrations, all the way up to present day. they're very serious about getting things done on policy, as jeff indicated, and you have a situation where, you know, under the trump white house, you couldn't really get informed answers from staffers on a lot of occasions because the only relevant information was coming out of the phone and the thumbs of the president, and they didn't know what that was going to be. it may have been something reflecting a late-night phone call he got from a friend or some private late-night meeting or conversation that he had and so it wasn't -- it wasn't an orderly situation. that's been replaced by a high level of order and organization and very strong message discipline, so, you know, you mentioned the idea of having a news conference. they have avoided occasions where joe biden would get sucked into controversies that might detract from the core focus he wants to advance right now, which is the american rescue plan and attacking the coronavirus. and so, that can be frustrating, if you're looking for him to react to the problems of governor cuomo in new york or various other political things that bubble up own a given day. however, from the standpoint of the biden white house, it's been pretty effective so far and so it's fair to say that we went from a chaotic white house that, on most things, didn't -- had a propensity for not getting things done, to one that has a propensity for getting things done and being fairly technical about it along the way. >> you know, just following up on that, it sort of leads into this next question i have for each of you, which is, you know, biden has just had an enormous legislative success. anyone who covered the last few administrations, you know, knows that presidents usually get the first year to get big stuff done and things kind of get difficult pretty fast after that. but the -- you think of the twists and turns that the aca took in 2009 and the high drama over that legislative agenda and compared with this stimulus bill, this thing basically just went up there, was written, had a few minor, as rahm emanuel said, nips and tucks based on a couple of democratic senators probably just for home state reasons, needing to show that they changed it, and passed basically as is,$2 trillion, you know, massive new cash payment programs. what do each of you attribute to the incredible glide path that this giant stimulus package had, compared with previous big ticket items in president's first years? and we can just go around with the same rotation. seung-min. >> i think it's not unfair to say -- there were plenty of issues involved in that race, including, that tipped the factors for democrats, including the former president's unwillingness to concede that he had lost georgia and really undermining kind of the integrity of the election systems with his baseless claims and lines about the voting system in georgia. but another huge issue is that they really ran on aid for voters amid the pandemic and particularly those stimulus checks. i mean, they said $2,000 checks on the campaign, it turned out to be 1,400 bucks, and that's kind of the most direct rebut that we've seen from an election victory to a policy outcome and so a lot of it is that, and if you kind of look back at the twists and turns of the -- of the limited kind of bipartisan negotiations there were of the coronavirus pandemic, it's not hard to kind of conclude that democrats being able to win both seats in georgia was a net benefit in terms of coronavirus relief. because if you think about it, senate republicans were only willing to offer up $600 billion of covid relief. the bill is $1.9 trillion, so, about $1.3 trillion of relief was just based on them being able to win those races, because obviously, if they had lost even just one, the scale and the scope of the relief package would be far smaller. and it's really interesting to see what i've been kind of -- what's been interesting to observe from my part, i wasn't covering congress directly during the obama campaign, but i did come on a couple of years after, and just kind of how the center of gravity in the democratic party had shifted so much to the left on, you know, on health care, on fiscal issues, because i'm trying to imagine, you know, joe lieberman and byron jordan supporting a nearly $2 billion package that joe manchin was able to get in 2021 and you've seen that shift in health care, too, when a public option kind of became the conservative position in the democratic party, when that was going too far for a 60-vote majority that harry reid had in 2009 and 2010. so, that's all -- that's how i kind of see this, just how biden was able to get this so easily and so quickly and just so kind of mostly intact was really georgia. you see him kind of going and thanking voters on, with his travels to atlanta on friday. >> jeff, go ahead. i want to just add one thing to it, if there's anything you have to add to those excellent points, but then also, just to look forward, can it be replicated or was there something very specific about covid relief -- >> yeah, i think the thing that made covid relief different was that everyone had skin in the game. during the aca debate, not everyone needed to be on the exchanges, most people get their insurance through their employer. but in the pandemic, everyone had spent the past year at home, dealing with their kids, you know, doing remote schooling at the kitchen table, lots of people lost loved ones. and so it was clear, just from a visceral perspective, why this $2 trillion package was needed, given just the scale and the severity of the need across the country. politically, i think it was also clear and the president made it clear that so much of his presidency hinged upon getting this package across the finish line. and the $1.9 trillion wuntd a number that existed in a vacvac. they looked at the need that existed, came up with a solution and priced it all out. and i think the administration deserves credit for messaging that out publicly, but then also bringing in the various wings of the party. it helped that bernie sanders is also the budget chairman. so, it allowed president biden to say that bernie sanders said this is the most progressive bill in u.s. history however he framed it. as we look forward, infrastructure, the white house is making a decision on whether or not they're going to put forward a more tailored infrastructure bill that could potentially get republican support or if they're going to go big again, do a sort of bigger infrastructure climate build back better that some democrats on the hill have up is ported. i don't know how -- it becomes harder to sell that when you've just spent $1.9 trillion on covid relief to then come back around and do another multibillion, potentially multitrillion dollar bill on infrastructure and jobs, but that right now i think is the lingering question. >> john, anything to add to that? and can they replicate this or was this just something very specific about a crisis and having these 50 votes and it's just not really translatable to the other parts of the biden agenda? >> i think it's really hard, but it's not impossible. just a couple things to add. first of all, everything is different about 2009 to 2021. first of all, a big covid relief bill of universal application that is sending $1,400 per person checks to the vast majority of american families is fundamentally different from reforming a very complicated health care system that a lot of people didn't know if they were going to come out ahead or behind on that, so, that's a difference. secondly, that health care debate followed on the stimulus debate in 2009, which itself was controversial, in part because it came on the heels of the wall street bailout, people, again, were -- who is getting this money and why are they getting this money and am i going to pay for it? much more difficult to sell. you can't underestimate having the first african-american president versus comfortable joe biden. that is a psychic difference that matters a lot politically. and finally, you have a fundamental shift in the level of confidence within the democratic party now than they had then. democrats have spent most of my adult life trying to figure out if they could possibly become the dominant party nationally and there was a fundamental assumption that republicans were sort of the home team in terms of presidential politics. biden kind of -- obama broke through but you still had, at that time, a significant number, many fewer than had existed before, but a significant number of moderate and conservative democrats from states like arkansas and let's see, we had ben nelson, people like that, who were not going to two as far as obama wanted to go and lots of democrats wondered whether they were sort of really the center of gravity of the country politically. that's changed now. democrats have gotten the most votes in 7 out of 8 presidential elections. they know they're the majority. and even though their numbers are smaller now, they have fewer of the ben nelsons in their caucus. they're more ideologically in the same caucus, manchin is an outlier. and there's something about having only 50 senators and the reconciliation process that allowed them to do it with only democratic senators that had a unity in the caucus that biden was able to take advantage of. now, the question is, as you guys were discussing previously, can he recreate that again? there's an acute sense among democrats that they have a very, very good chance of not having full control of government after the 2022 elections. and so there is a now or never quality to some of the things they want to do. and that is relevant even to the conservative senators, as well as the liberal ones. so, if you're joe manchin and you see the prospect of delivering a ton of money to west virginia for infrastructure, for broadband internet, that is a very tempting proposition and so the question is, how big do they go, what do they bundle together, because they're, you know, if you got to keep all 50 members together, there are many constituencies, so, do you include in this package infrastructure and climate, that's a given, but do you include making permanent some of these child tax credits and health care subsidies that were expanded in the covid relief bill. that's going to be more difficult to do. do you include -- some have even talked about including some part of the immigration legislation. i doubt that will happen. but everyone is looking at how many more shots do we have and what do those shots consist of and looming behind all of it, of course, is the voting rights debate, which is taking place against the backdrop of the lies that trump told about the election, this deadly insurrection, first ever violent transfer of power from one president to the next. republicans responding in the states by saying, we need to curb access to the ballot and then democrats having legislation on the table to say, no, we can stop that, we can put a floor under voting legislation and voting procedure. are they willing to unite to do that? that's a question that i think is going to be answered in slow motion over the next couple of months. >> well, just to add my two cents to this, and i agree with almost everything that's been said about this and at the end of the day, the one other issue i would raise and something that harwood got at, somehow biden has depot larized things a bit. at the end of the day, he had 50 votes and that's all that matters. people talk about lyndon johnson being the great vote wranglers, when johnson, after kennedy died, hate the votes, he could pass anything he wanted. when he lost all his democrats in the midterms, he couldn't pass anything. it really didn't have that much to do with johnson. he had the votes and biden has the votes, right? but aside from that, i think there's something about how the right reacted to this legislation and did not have a coherent message. conservative talk radio and television never really was interested, weirdly, in the details of this package. all sorts of attacks they could have had and sort of didn't. if you watch fox news own a nightly basis, biden just, as this thing was sailing through the house and senate, he really wasn't mentioned much and the details of the legislation were not mentioned. there's been no tea party-like backlash, the way there was in 2009. there are probably a number of reasons for that. the libertarian roots of the republican party which catches fire when a democrat is president, that just hasn't happened, that whole anti-government wave, i just don't see it forming yet. and then the flip side of that is, biden himself has been kind of, you know, absent, just picks his moments when he wants to speak and he's been a very, very difficult target for the opposition to make a fixture of hatred. so, i think that's all played to their benefit and this is my segue to foreign policy, this kind of figure of joe biden with domestic politics being a little under the radar, internationally, that may not be the way he wants to exercise leadership and -- what do you all see as the biggest breaks coming between the biden era and the trump era internationally and you can follow up or ignore my point about biden and leadership and being a prominent figure on the world stage and sort of in front of us all the time and whether that matters internationally. and just to mix it up, why don't we go back around, we'll start with harwood. >> a couple of things. first of all, on the depot larization, i think it is incredibly point, as a political matter, is that joe biden is a 78-year-old man with reference points in the catholic church, white guy, grew up in the 1950s, that has a -- that is received more comfortably by some of the voters the democrats need. it's not a -- it's not a rapid change. donald trump got elected in 2016 because he shifted about 10% of white working class voters from obama in 2012 to his column. biden won 1 out of 10 of those voters in 2020, despite the pandemic, despite all of the crazy behavior, by trump. he got 1 out of 10. can he build on that? that's a question. in terms of the break on foreign policy, i think we've already seen the significant one, which is the emphasis on management of alliances, drawing closer to, say, our allies in europe. trump was the first president ever to call into our mutual defense operations under nato. and we're going to see a commitment to multilateral action, which ties into his climate change priority pretty consistently. i think the question mark is going to be, how different does he want to be and how does he want to express that difference on china? he is not going to -- they've already indicated they're not going to immediately lift all of the tariffs that apply to china. they want to stand up to china both as an economic matter and as a military matter, but they're clearly going to try to do it in a more coherent and organized fashion with allies behind them than trump did and the question is, is that effective and seen as effective? >> seung-min, i'm going to kick it to you. what are the foreign policy issues that we should be looking at in the -- in the short-term as we kind of, you know, switch from some of this domestic policy to surely a lot more international issues that are on the radar now? >> so, a couple things. i actually wanted to go back, very briefly, on your point about republicans not having a message on the covid bill, because i think that was a really important point and maybe they will improve on that as president biden goes on his promotion tour over the next several weeks, but i had talked to some republicans about this and they wouldn't say this publicly, but privately, they say, frankly, if you kind of look at how quickly the covid relief bill passed through congress, a lot of the -- a lot of the key messengers, the smart, substantive senate republicans who could have made arguments against this package, the senate was distracted by the impeachment trial while this was moving through so quickly in the senate. i remember being distracted as a reporter. and that fact kind of just prevented republicans from kind of getting together, strategizing and also there is some concern whether house republicans, just because of how extreme they have gotten, you know a vast majority of them voted not to certify biden's results. there are obviously far-right dynamics in their conference. how effective can they be as messengers? i think that's what they've pointed out, why they have done such poor messaging and they're trying to improve on that. but on foreign policy, and this is related to john's point, i would be -- one thing to watch too is as -- i'm sorry, president biden goes and tries to try to rebuild these global alliances around the world, how countries react? because we've done some reporting and talked to some officials abroad where they obviously welcome the re-engagement by the united states, but they're also aware that even if president trump himself is not around, this idea of trumpism and america first and a lot of his ideals both domestically and foreign policy-wise, are still kind of being espoused in the republican party, and by a lot of republican officials who could be angling to run for president in 2024, should the former president not run again, so, you do see kind of, you know, we had a great story a couple weeks back where we talked to, you know, foreign officials on that matter, saying, obviously we're re-engaging with the united states again, but in the meanwhile, you know, europeans are building their own alliances and how to act without the united states. we know on a bunch of diplomatic and ghik issues. so, in addition to what president biden does, how foreign policy, how people abroad see -- how people abroad react to that and how they're preparing for, you know, a potential republican return to power in just as short as 3 1/2 years is going to be an interesting story for us to watch. also, briefly touching just the role of kamala harris in the administration's foreign policy, because she, at least on the surface, even with president, you know, then vice president biden's experience, kamala harris has been carving out her own foreign policy portfolio and she's had a half dozen calls by herself with world leaders, she's obviously a liberal, but she has a very bipartisan reputation on national security issues when she was a member of the senate intelligence committee and how she approaches foreign policy is going to be a story line that we're going to be watching for the next four years. >> that's really interesting. and jeff, just to follow up on ones of seung's points there, do you see the continued hold of trumpism on a large chunk of the american people as a potential break on what biden, who has long been a champion of sort of, you know, post world war ii international consensus, always described himself as an internationalist. is trumpism, will it continue to be a break on some of his plans or have the democrats even changed a bit and that might be okay with them because even at the end of the obama era, we were starting to see democrats talk a little bit about, well, maybe some of our european allies should be carries some of the costs and there was a lot of discussion about burden sharing. what are your views on that? >> yeah, it's an interesting question. the question that i have and once we get beyond president biden's focus on the domestic issues and he will at some point engage more in the foreign policy space is, is the trumpism dynamic stronger than joe biden's personal relationships with so many of these world leaders? you could make the argument that there's never been a president since george h.w. bush who had as many pre-existing relationships with world leaders walking in the door as president. there's also that dynamic that, you know, joe biden as candidate says one thing and then as president will say and do another, so, during the campaign, for instance, he talked about saudi arabia as a pariah, he promised to get tough on putin, called putin an autocrat, he promised to take a different approach on china than trump did. and he talked about, you know, optimistic -- taking an optimistic view of america's place in the world and using -- using that to sort of reshape, you know, global alliances and the whole thing. he has certainly used more of a scalpel than a sledge hammer as president, compared to the rhetoric that we heard from the campaign, so, i'm interested to see how all that plays out, potentially weeks or months from now. >> ryan, can i just add something? >> before you start, john, just remind everyone that's watching, please jump in with questions, you can do it with the q&a button and looks like you can even do it through the chat function, as well, so, please type your questions and go ahead, john. >> i just wanted to add two things to what my colleagues said. first of all, on geoff's scalpel rather than a sledge hammer, again, biden is trying to project very strong focus on the coronavirus pandemic. so, he doesn't have much incentive to use the sledge hammer at this moment. secondly, in terms of the point about vice president harris. remember, we have a 78-year-old president. don't know that he's not going to run for re-election, but there's certainly -- that's certainly a question hanging over his administration. will he -- will he decide in 2024 to go again? if he doesn't, you've got to assume that vice president harris would start out as the strong favorite to win the nomination and for her, establishing foreign policy credentials, therefore, is for important, because she is proximate to a presidential candidacy where she might be the nominee. so, she'sincentive to be involved, so she looks more presidential as 2024 approaches. >> and one of the things i've heard from people close to her, and this was certainly the case after biden named her as vice president, is the importance of normalizing the face of a woman of color as a world leader, you know, going around the globe and shaking hands with all of these folks, advancing just interests. and then to your previous question about sort of foreign policy issues, the thing i'm paying close attention to is immigration as a foreign policy issue. how is this administration going to handle the influx of migrants from the northern try angle? there is that comprehensive immigration bill that will likely go nowhere in the senate, that has in it money and legislation that would help deal with some of the push factors, the reasons why migrants are leaving honduras, guatemala, the violence, the devastation following natural disasters. i said, is there a desire to break that off, as a way of rushing resources to the region so you're not dealing with the crisis at the border, you're helping people stay in-country? and so far, the white house hasn't really engaged on it, because they just don't have -- that's a luxury that they don't have. they're not able to think that far yet, because they're just trying to deal with the unaccompanied children, now 4,000 kids now who are in border patrol protection, most of them, more than half of them, have been there longer than the three-day legal limit and these are facilities which you all know are not designed to house kids. >> yeah. well, i want to follow up on this question of biden and immigration and how it relates to the pandemic and there's a question from someone in the audience who cites some reporting from politico today about 5,000 foreign nurses who are eligible to be working in the u.s. but have been unable to secure visas. and the question here is, how is the administration responding to the immigration and health issues like this one case ill lum napts? and it just triggered a couple of thoughts. one is, the biden administration is not being very al truistic with american vaccine right now. fauci recently said, we'll probably be giving some to other countries who are way behind, but first, it is, frankly, america first. americans will be vaccinated first and then we will turn our attention to other people, to other people around the world. and i wonder what the reaction would have been if, under trump on making a statement like that. and then two, geoff, you brought up this very fraught situation that the biden administration has inherited on the border and i'm just curious what folks think about the way that the biden administration has been handling this? obviously republicans are certainly -- this is what they want to talk about, they don't want to talk about covid relief, they want to talk about immigration, mccarthy who was down on the border, i think yesterday, right? so, on those two big issues, one, i'm just wondering, is biden getting more of the benefit of the doubt than trump did? but then two, more on the policy, how do we -- how do you all see the administration grappling with these two foreign policy issues going forward? who wants to start? and like all questions, you can just answer your own question. >> i would say on not sharing the vaccine, sort of the america first approach to the vaccine, i think if there's one area where a joe biden benefits from a donald trump, it's that one. because i think, you know, because he said, i think it was -- i can't remember the venue, he was in the white house, he said, i want to make sure americans are taken care of first, and he can say that after four years of donald trump and people will get it. and they understand what he's talking about, and again, the stakes are such that right now, the demand in this country is outpacing the supply, so, i don't think he'll find many detractors, at least politically. to the other question about immigration -- >> no political downside saying, we have to take care of the health of americans before foreigners. >> the potential downside of that -- >> there's no political downside. >> you could say from a public health perspective, there certainly is, because then you invite variants to populate in europe and brazil and the next thing you know, this country isn't fully vaccinated and you introduce potentially new variants. on the immigration, i think there was a failure of imagination on the part of the biden administration to understand what would happen if they allowed unaccompanied migrant children to come into the country and to stay. because even though the biden administration said the border is closed, for unaccompanied kids now, that's not true. and certainly my grants who have been waiting in mexico for the last year or folks in the northern triangle, certainly human traffickers and smugglers and coyotes know that that's not the case and that's the message they're selling in central america and so the infrastructure that allowed president trump to rip families apart, separate kids from their parents, house kids for god knows how long at the border, all of that basically is still in place. the laws really have not changed, the process for border patrol picking up the kids and then the kids having to be moved from border patrol to hhs, that process is still the same. and so, when you have a surge in migrants and a scarcity of beds, what you have is the situation we have now, where the administration is now trying to set up a facility at the dallas convention center to house 3,000, you know, migrant teenage boys. so it -- i have a hard time getting my head around how you have so many obama administration veterans who could walk into this situation, know sort of the damage that stephen miller and donald trump had done to the asylum system and to the immigration system at large and not fully understand how this would have happened the way that it has. >> yeah. unless seung or john want to weigh in on that, i want to talk about one case study and what we've learned from it. and that is the way that the biden administration dealt with saudi arabia. what did we learn from that? biden during the campaign followed a long line of challengers who say very aggressive things about unpopular foreign governments that the incumbent was arguably cozying up to. i remember bill clinton, you know, talking about the butchers of beijing when he was running against george h.w. bush and then, of course, in office, was much more accommodating to china than his campaign rhetoric allowed. saudi arabia is often a, you know, sort of boogie man on the campaign trail, but president after president then finds they can't use the same rhetoric. we saw a version of this with how the biden administration grappled with the hashoggi case. am i wrong in describing that? who wants to start? >> okay, i'll start. i want to make one point before immigration just before i address that. immigration, economics is a unifying issue for democrats. immigration is a divisive issue for democrats. and that's one of the reasons why it's very tough for biden to handle this. remember, the nature of the opposition he faces against the republican party is at its core white americans, in particular, white christians, who think the country is changing in ways that leaves them behind. and the more you accentuate your accommodation to people coming into the country in various ways, whether they're refugees or crossing the border, making asylum claims, that is a tough subject for democrats. they're going to have to deal with it, but that's a difficult subject. in terms of saudi arabia, no, i don't think you're being unkartable. that also, a very hard issue. and one of the questions is, was the problem what they did in government or the problem what he said in the campaign? it's very inviting in the campaign, when you're a democratic administration and you see somebody like donald trump who is so transactional and focused on economic stuff and he's got his young son-in-law, you know, as the broker and he's friends with mbs, it's very tempting to say, this is corrupt, this is tolerating butchery. but it's another thing when you're the president and you're dealing with an ally that's significant, especiallies have vis a vis iran, to say, what exactly are you going to do? when you talk to the foreign policy veterans who have not right wing or left wing, he looked at the biden administration and said, that was a reasonable outcome. that mbs is somebody who we are likely to deal with for 50 years. identities a significant country. how exactly do you have relations and get things that you want if you have vented -- by acting in ways that you suggested you would in the campaign? and so, i think that was one where the biden foreign policy team swallowed hard and said, yeah, maybe we were more aggressive than we could follow through on in the campaign, but we're going to do what makes sense to us now and we'll absorb a little bit of heat from that. they have, but i would say that it's not been a massive amount of heat. >> seung, a couple of good questions here that are more about reporting on this white house that i want to get to that i think are interesting, because i know we have a lot of foreign journalists on here. and i'll ask both of them and you all can weigh in as you see fit. one is, access issues for conservative outlets. has there been any change? i mean, as long as i've been covering the white house, most white house press shops have had a completely open policy when it comes to reporters and the trump era, there were some really fringe wacko right journalists that they let into the briefings and frankly, you know, i -- i think they should be -- they shouldn't, you know, they should just not have any sorts of restrictions, it's always been like that, but someone was asking if that's changed at all and i think maybe some of the people who are watching this might not be familiar with some of the covid restrictions, so, seung, talk about that, but then the second question, i think is really interesting, as well, is, have these covid restrictions that really effected covering the biden campaign during the campaign, if any of you were out with biden, are they going to change things? are they -- is the biden administration going to use the restrictions that were put into place once things go back to normal that might make our lives a little more difficult? so, seung, why don't you start? and i know we all cover the white house, we have a lot of personal experiences with all of this, so, go ahead. >> sure. on the question about the conservative outlets, a lot of the difference between -- the primary difference between the trump white house and the biden white house is that the biden white house is not proactively inviting people i have a questit conservative outlets. the primary difference between the trump white house and the biden one is that the biden white house is not proactively inciting people to violate social distancing protocols like the trump white house did. i only speak for myself, but i don't have a problem with more ideological outlets in the news room, or in the briefing room. the problem was they were putting more people in their than there should have been at a time when we are all supposed to be keeping six feet from each other when we were covering a white house that was careless with social distancing, which is a huge problem with having people from oan in the back of the briefing room when they were clearly not supposed to be there. obviously, the biden white house is stringent lee restricting reporters and journalists who -- 80 people on campus a day. 40 people inside. that includes reporters and producers, all those people, 80 people a day. it is a limited number. i have only been to the white house once every seven or eight weeks because i have an internal rotation between my team. it is more related to covid than anything else. but i do think it is a concern. obviously, we will always want more access. hopefully, we will get to a point where all the briefing room seats will be safely occupied again. but hopefully, we all see hope that the white house, and there is no major sign that they will once the pandemic starts to lift, but clearly, once things start to turn around, once we are all vaccinated, there will be no kind of major reason to restrict access to the white house again, because it does matter how many people are there. we tried to be generous and we try to ask questions on behalf of people who can't be there and help each other out that way. we have tried to set up a similar system where we asked questions on behalf of people who can't be there who are working from home, but it is different when you are physically there, when you have your own stories and questions you want to pose to the committee. hopefully when this all subsides, that means that will be better. >> quickly, one for jeff and one for her late. jeff, are you concerned about covid restrictions that are reasonable during covid leading to harmful permanent changes in the way the white house allows us to cover them? >> in addition to the spacing and access issues, the white house is now making outlets pay for the costs of the covid tests. before i can cross the threshold of the security gate, i have to get a covid test that costs around 180 dollars. nbc pay is that for all the people. some outlets, which probably are smaller and freelancers certainly, would have to assume the cost on their own. in its own way, that is prohibitive. one of the things people didn't get a good enough sensitive, and this was the case in the transition, was the covid restrictions allow the biden team to really limit the reporters who were brought into those press conferences in that theater in wilmington. beyond that, they were able to select the folks who got to ask questions of then president-elect biden. by doing that, frankly, the white house communication team was doing their job. they were trying to protect their principal. they didn't know the questions we would ask, but they certainly knew who we were. all the reporters were known quantities. there was no chance they would call on some local reporter from some unnamed newspaper who would ask joe biden a potentially difficult or uncomfortable question. so that is something we should be very aware of with these covid restrictions. to your point, does the white house still sort of have the pre-existing approach? frankly, at some point soon, you will be able to fill the rose garden and have potentially dozens upon dozens of reporters ask questions and follow up some of the president. >> quickly, a question about which country will be host for the first state visit. i can't remember if it has been announced. >> the japanese? >> shinzo abe, yes. >> there is the answer to that. thank you all for doing this. a few takeaways from this conversation, one, we can get a lot done when things are less polarized. and the economic agenda is really popular. that is a good recipe for success. whether biden can replicate that going forward as a question mark, but if he does a beloved reconciliation it seems like he has a chance to be a big part to. after that, things get dicey because the issue gets more complicated. on foreign policy, still a lot of question marks, but expect some large changes, but maybe restrained by just the reality of the world and the way that donald trump has dealt with domestic politics and have a lot of americans look at that. as usual, the white house is paranoid about any sorts of restrictions postcrisis. thank you all for doing this and we will get some final words in a moment here. >> i had to unmute. thank you all so much. it is easy to see why these four journalists are at the top of their field. ryan, john, chaff, song, i personally love reading and watching each of you every day, from personal news consumption, and i think everyone on the call if not already will begin to do that, it's important to go to trusted news sources. you are at the top of the game. i just want to say to meghan and to julian juarez, they work really hard to bring important speakers and timely topics to our network of people that are part of our community. so thank you to the team for working so hard on this together and to our panelists, giving us an hour of your day. it's hard for you to do because you are so busy and we are grateful to you for doing it. thank you everybody for tuning in and have a good afternoon. >> earlier today, the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, doctor anthony fauci, and cdc director doctor richelle and ski, testified on other federal officials on the covid-19 response. we show the entire hearing that it 9 pm eastern. milder symptoms or none at all. given no scientific studies have shown virtually no reinfections if previously vaccinated, what do you -- what specific studies do you say to argue the public should be wearing masks well into 2022? >> i'm not sure i understand the connection of what you are saying about masks and reinfection. we are talking about people who have never been infected before. >> you are telling everyone to wear a mask whether they've had an infection or a vaccine. what i'm saying is they have immunity and everybody agrees they have immunity. what studies do you have the people have had the vaccine or had the infection and are spreading it. isn't it just theater? if you have a vaccine and you are wearing two masks, isn't that theater? >> here we go with the theater. let's get down to the facts. the studies you quote look at in vitro examination of immunity, which in their paper specifically say this does not necessarily contain the actual protection. it's in vitro. >> what study can you point to -- >> let me finish response to your question, if you please. the other thing is that when you talk about reinfection and you don't keep in the concept of variants, that's an entirely different ball game. that is a good reason for a mask. a south african study conducted by j and j found that people who are infected with one type and exposed to the variant in south africa, the 351, it was as if they had never been infected before. they had no protection. when we talk about reinfection, you need to make sure you are talking about wild type. i agree that you would likely have protection from wild tight for at least six months before you are infected. but we in this country have variants -- >> what's study shows significant reinfection, hospitalization, and death after other natural infection or the vaccine? it doesn't exist. there is no evidence that there is significant reinfection after vaccine. in fact, i don't think we have a hospitalization in the united states after two weeks after the second vaccination. >> you are not hearing what i'm saying about variants. we are talking about wild type versus variants. >> what proof is there that there are significant reinfection's with hospitalizations and deaths from the variants? non in our country, zero. >> because we don't have a prevalence of a variant yet. can i finish? we are having b one one seven become more dominant. >> this is based on conjecture. you want people to wear a mask for a couple of years. if you've been vaccinated and you parade around into masks, that's show. you cannot get it again. there is virtually zero chance we will get, it yet you tell people that have been vaccinated -- you are defying everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear masks after getting vaccinated. instead, you should say there is no signs to say that we will have a problem when a large number of people are vaccinated. you want to get rid of vaccine hesitancy? tell them they can take off the mask when they get the vaccine. tell them they will have a reward rather than the nanny state will be there for three more years and you need to wear a mask forever. people don't want to hear it. there is no science behind it. >> let me just state that masks are not theater. masks are protective. >> if we have immunity, they are theater. if you are wearing it to give comfort to others -- >> i totally disagree with you. >> doctor fauci, if you could respond so we can understand the difference between the virus itself and the variants and the reason for a mask. >> excuse me? >> if you can respond to the questions we can all understand the difference between the vaccine and controlling the wild type versus the variants that are out there and the reason for wearing a mask. i would appreciate it. >> first of all, when you have a variant, you have the immunity that you get with convalescent treatment and the same kind of thing if i vaccinate you against the wild type. you get a certain level of antibody that's specific for a particular viral strain. if there is a circulating variant, if you don't necessarily have it. you have some spillover a muted to be sure, but it's diminished by anywhere from two to eight fold in protection. the point i'm saying is there are variants in circulation. the point that senator paul was making is that if you look at wild type only, there is clear cut credence to what he is saying. we are living right now in a situation where we are having the dominance of b117, which was the original uk, a very troublesome variant in the uk, the 526. of 427 and a 429 in california. we have many others. we are not dealing with a static situation of the same virus. that's the only point i'm making. -- military, national, and public er

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