Transcripts For CNNW Reliable Sources 20170611

Humorist Andy Borowitz. He says the president defies satire. First, depending on what channel you were watching this week, its like you were hearing about a different hearing. Now, President Trump is telling a simple story over and over again. Hes saying james comey is a leaker, but comey has vindicated him. So at the end of the week, a defiant president briefly faced the press. Should i take one of the Killer Networks that treat me so badly as fake news . Should i do that . He did. He took questions from abcs john carl. Well get into that in a moment. Back to the hearing. Last thursday, 19. 5 Million People tuned in at home, on television, to watch the fired fbi director speak in public for the first time about his interactions with the president. So about 20 million via tv. We dont know how many streamed it on the web or watched at the office or at bars and things like that. Bottom line, a big audience for comeys testimony. Now, the president wants to turn the page and his backered on television and the web are saying this is all over, but many experts are saying its just beginning. Joining me now to break it down is an allstar panel. Jeff greenfield, Award Winning journalist and political analyst. Clara jeffery, and matt lewis, a senior columnist at the daily beast and cnn political commentator. Welcome to all of you. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you. Lets take a look, jeff, as a montage of the cable news channels this week. Our producers put together fox on one side, msnbc on the other. Lets analyze this, lets first watch it. A huge victory for donald trump today. And a massive defeat for the democrats, and of course, the propaganda media. Well, today was, really was, as it was predicted to be, the worst day of the trump presidency. Now, this is all passed, he can go back to doing what he promised he was going to do. No clouds. I think the president is in serious legal jeopardy. A month of shrieking hype, millions of words of ink, hundreds of hours of the shrillest tv produced added up to nothing. People have been saying today donald trump may be in danger of getting empeached. Thats not an overstatement. Who is right . You know, 19. 5 Million People watched this event. And i think 19. 4 million watched it the way they would watch an nba championship game. And i think if there were any minds that were changed about this, i would be surprised. What youre seeing there is a reflection of a broader polarization that is now so great that the idea that somebody might come and watch this hearing subject to, you know, possible change, is almost its almost impossible. And so i think, you know, what we saw here in the coverage of it is the reflection of a much broader notion, and we have heard this before. And you have talked about it before. The notion of coming into this and sort of agreeing on a common set of facts on what happened, at least in terms of the media we saw, is almost unthinkable. It sure is. Its a damn shame. Matt lewis, we heard one of trumps sons say in a sound bite, the clouds are gone. Hes implying the clouds have parted. This is all over, all behind his father now. I understand a son wanting the best for his father, but come on. Isnt it misleading . Isnt it damaging to hannitys viewers to have trumps son telling the viewers this is all over, this is passed now. We have always had apologists and spokespeople and spin meisters who would do that. They would say, oh, hes exonerated now, or oh, hes guilty now. The difference now is we have entire Cable Networks that present these really very different world views. Same event. We all watched the same hearing, and the interpretation is a stark contrast. So its not just surrogates who are spinning. Its entire networks who are doing it. Look, i would say this. I think anybody who watched the testimony, you know, i think its fair to say there are a couple different storylines we should be talking about. I think we should obviously be talking about james comeys sense that he was being pressured, whether or not that ends up being obstruction of justice, but thats still a big deal. But theres also the subplots. Theres the you know, the attorney general lynch subplot, the subplot about james comey leaking. I think that all of those things deserve coverage. The problem is that fox news will focus on solely on the subplots, and i think the other Cable News Networks focus solely on the main plot and never get around to talking about the subplots. About james comey leaking, clara, we learned in his testimony, remarkably candid from comey, that he told his friend at columbia law school, shared one of the memos with his friend, and this friend apparently called up the New York Times to share the details. What did you make of that revelation . We almost never hear about Public Officials admitting to how they share information with the media. Well, he was asked a direct question under oath and he understands it directly. I dont think it came really as any surprise that we had heard much of what was in those memos and that in all likelihood, the things we had been hearing had come from comey. So i didnt find that that leak was so much of a surprise. What i think was remarkable about that moment was he said he did it because he wanted to trigger a special counsel. He was that worried, not just about his firing but of everything that it applied. He figured that this might trigger them to appoint a special counsel, and indeed, it did. I have been noticing the coverage, especially since thursday, but before thursday, this tone of a white house in crisis. There was a cnn program late night for a few days called white house in crisis. Its been a banner on the bottom of the screen. You can hear it in the tone and tenor of some journalists articles and stories. Is it accurate and is that overplayed or underplayed that this is actually a white house in crisis . First of all, the overplaying of stories has long since been the default response, forgive me, of Cable News Networks. There is no event that cant be overcovered. The countdown clocks, the graphics. But in this case, youre combining that instinct with the fact this is real news. And as i think if we can take a step back, the whole history of television is embedded in hearings like this. Going all the way back to 1950 and 51, when organized crime hearings made a National Political figure out of the Army Mccarthy hearings, the watergate hearings, theres a riveting courtroom drama aspect about it. And in this case, to be fair to Networks Like cnn, this is potentially really big news. So, you know, i think in this case, the hype was accompanied by reality. Which isnt always the case. So is it a white house in crisis, in your mind . Yes, and the funny thing, funny is not the right word, brian. The odd thing about it is what has put the white house in crisis is not so much what comey said but Donald Trumps response to it. When the president said im willing to testify under oath, i think there were a lot of folks in the white house who just suddenly reached for the metamucil or whatever, because thats the circumstance under which any statement under oath, if its false, can be prosecutable or impeachment, even if the underlying event that hes talking about didnt give rise to it. I think its not an irony, but what happened after the hearings with the president s statement is the big news and just if i may say this, i think were going to see trump testify under oath about a minute after we see his tax returns. He would be just so wrong to put himself under that kind of potential problem. Matt, do you agree . Yeah, i agree with everything jeff said. I think, number one, the media does hype stuff, obviously. When you have 24 hours to fill, and youre competing, you know, vigorously for ratings against other networks, you end up hyping things. Pretty bad for democracy overall, but its the world we live in. Having said that, i think this administration is in crisis. Okay, and its not just the fact that the James Comey Hearing was worthy of hype, but its the fact that every day it seems like theres another major story or scandal or revelation that drops. Sometimes its from leaks. Sometimes in the case of james comeys memo, that was a big one that dropped around 5 00 one evening that the fbi director had in fact been taking copious notes after meeting with the president. This is real, and then you have on top of that the fact that republicans very much in peril that they may not pass any major legislation. We need to tell it like it is and make sure our language reflects the dysfunctionality of the administration. If we shirk away from stating whats in front of us, we do a disservice to our audience. It doesnt mean they cant make a comeback. Its possible this is survivable and he could have a successful presidency, but its under a crisis right now, certainly. Clara, what was overlooked on thursday . Was it comeys very stark warning about russia attacking this country last year and coming back in the future . Yeah, i think that that is something thats been kind of lost in this liar versus leaker debates. Comey really laid it out. He told us there have been over 1,000 governmental and private corporate things hacked by the russians in the last two years. That they had probed into our, as we know now, a little bit clearer, that they probed into our electoral agencies. That they have probed into electrical grids. And i think he really laid it out that this is a crisis and that it should not be seen through a partisan lens. This is a hostile foreign state trying to disrupt our democratic institutions, trying to get us to turn on ourselves and they have been fairly successful at that. And thats the goal. To sort of hollow us out from within. And i think comey did actually a really great job laying that out and making the case for working together to really get to the bottom of this because its not going away. Its not going to always favor one party, and its really in our best interest to fortify our security be that our actual electoral institutions or our media and the way that we kind of interact and deal with leaks and revelations. Klara, youre an editor. You could be assigning more stories about the russia angle. Are you doing that . We sure are. We just published a big issue that we put online early that gives sort of all the background and context for this. I mean, as you know, david corn was the first reporter back before the election to report on Christopher Steel dossier. Its something we have been covering for months and months, far before the election, and were sure going to stick on it. Klara, matt, thank you for being here. Jeff, stick around. Well bring you back later this hour. Coming up after the break, important new reporting about leaks and about leak investigations, as the Trump Justice Department turns up the heat. I have a reporter standing by with talks about spylike tactics to help protect himself and his sources. Operational security after the break. Lets see, there are the wildcats til we die weekenders. The watch me let if fly. This i gotta try weekenders. Then weve got the bendy. Spendy weekenders. The tranquility awaits. Hanging with our mates weekenders and the its been quite a day. So glad we got away weekenders. Whatever kind of weekender you are, theres a hilton for you. Book your weekend break direct at hilton. Com and join the weekenders. Yet up 90 fall short in getting key nutrients from food alone. Lets do more. 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Ain finally theres drugfree aleve direct therapy®. A tens device with high intensity power that uses technology once only available in doctors offices for deep penetrating relief at the source. Aleve direct therapy. We come into this world needi others. Then we are told its braver to go it alone. But there is another way to live. A way that sees the only path to fulfillment is through others. Welcome back to reliable sources. Im brian stelter. This week, a woman named reality winner became the first person to be arrested and charged with leaking since President Trump took office. Winner has pleaded not guilty. Today, she remains in jail and could face up to ten years in prison and or a 250,000 fine. This goes much deeper than one case, as sources tell me that u. S. Intelligence agencies have referred several recent leaks to the Justice Department for possible criminal investigation. Possibly as many as six referrals. The doj declined to comment when i askded, but intelligence reporters say they can tell leak investigations are under way. They say they know it because their sources are feeling the heat. Joining me now, a reporter who is no stranger to being under government surveillance, adam goldman is a reporter with the New York Times covering the fbi national security. He had his phone recorded seized by the doj under the Obama Administration back in 2012 when he was at the associated press. Adam, good to see you. Hey, thanks for having me. Theres been a lot of attention up until now about the Obama Administrations record about investigating leaks. They prosecuted more leakers, alleged leakers, that all over prior president s combined. Now we have the first case of the trump era. What do you make of the reality winner case . What does it say about the Justice Departments apparent crackdown . I think it says a couple of things. One, that this administration under Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein are going to take these leaks seriously, and theyre going to prosecute them if they can. Rod rosenstein has already shown an inclination to go after leakers. And the president told him to. The president told him to. He has been very vocal about, and the fbi and Justice Department have heard that. Is this the opening salvo of a number of leak prosecutions . It could be. We have to see how far this administration and Justice Department wants to know. Reality winner is charged with sending a top secret nsa document to the intercept website. She and the intercept were criticized for sloppy behavior that made it easier for the government to figure out she may have done that. Do you think the intercept made mistakes by, for example, showing the top secret document to the nsa trying to verify it ahead of time . Im not going to sit here and criticize the intercept for trying to provide the American People Important Information about russian meddling. What i will say is what happened was a cautionary tale, and all journalists, and especially editors running newspapers that deal with leaks, especially involved in classified information, have to think very carefully about what they want to publish, what documents they want to publish, how they want to describe these documents, if they want to share these documents with the government, and they need to think about ways to protect the people providing them information. They have to be extremely careful. What are you doing differently . We spoke earlier this week and you used terms like source protection, operational security. This sounds like spy craft. Ill take a page out of the governments play book. I dont talk about sources or methods, but i will say this. You know, i had my records seized, phone records seized in an investigation that the government conducted against someone they believed had leaked me information. So i have been very careful for years now since that happened. How i handle information and how i contact people. You know, there are ways to protect sources. I would raise one point about the tip lines that all these newspapers and other Media Outlets have set up. They set up and say you can contact us secretly and provide us information. Is there a problem with that . You know, theres one glitch in that. You know, if its anonymous, then and you cant speak to the other person on the line, its difficult to take steps to protect them. Thats what the intercept said happened. They didnt know who this person was who slipped them a document. Right. Its difficult to protect them. They didnt know. But like i said before, you know, you have to think seriously, look, if youre going to publish a top secret document thats the clearest evidence yet to the government that classified information has been made public, and that is a road map to who might have handled it. So you have to think seriously about what youre going to publish, and do you want to give the government that road map . Listen, hold on, reporters are enarmored with these top secret documents. But you dont need to publish the top secret documents to tell the stories. Before the age of the massive leaks, were talking to people and theyre telling us things and were not providing documents. Its very difficult for the government to figure out who might have told us what. Help me square a circle. I have been hearing from intelligence reporters that sources are feeling the chill. They can sense leak investigations are happening. Theyre wary of talking. On the other hand, theres an extraordinary number of stories attributed to Anonymous Sources about administration incompetence and classified information. Are both of those things true at the same time, sources that are afraid to talk but a lot of them. I think both of those things can be true at the same time. The government is clearly taking efforts to find leakers. The fbi itself is looking for people within and looking for people outside the fbi. We know that. Thats really no secret to the reporters doing this type of reporting. But both of those things can be true at the same time. What about the series of sories from Anonymous Sources that proved to be wrong. James comey this week under oath said the New York Times had a story from february 14th which was wrong in the main. He didnt go into detail and the times says it stands by the story, but he says the story is wrong. How do you react to that when you have a Big Government official saying the story is false . To be clear, it wasnt one of your bylines, but still. I had a contributing line on it. You know, i like the way the New York Times responded to it. I wish the government would do more of this. We responded with transparency. The three reporters who were involved in the story wrote a story laying out what we knew to date backing up that reporting. You know, comey also called a Washington Post story nonsense. So you know, we feel, the times feels very comfortable in what we reported and laid out what we knew and let the readers decide. Other cases of anonymous source credibility issues. Earlier in the weex, cnn had a story saying comey is going to get up there and testify that trump did what was it, comey said trump was not under investigation im messing it up, adam. Sorry. The cnn story essentially said comey is going to get up there and say trump, i never told him he wasnt under investigation, and comey got up there and said i did tell him he wasnt under investigation. Cnn had to correct that. Msnbc had Brian Williams on the air saying i have a source who told me he wasnt sure where qatar was and whether we had troops there. My point is on both of these cases, anonymous source credible coming under fire. Is this a problem for journalists as we try to convince our audience to believe us . No, i think when we make mistakes, we need to correct them. But i will say, look, we are operating we are operating with speed that i havent seen before as a reporter. I mean, theres such urgency to get these stories out. And you know, in a normal atmosphere, it could take a long, long time to do one of these stories. I mean, my colleagues and i broke a story about how the cias Informant Network had been decimated in china. We did it under the radar and it wasnt in the media and it took a long time to nail that story down. There are perils with using Anonymous Sources. Its up to editors and reporters to be humble and say, you know what . We dont know everything about this. We have to approach this with humility. We have to be under the assumption we dont know, we dont have a holistic view of whats going on. Thats whats really important here. And reporters need to tread cautiously and carefully. And readers need to be skeptical. They need to understand were seeing pieces of a puzzle, not the entire puzzle all at once. Yeah, thats true. You know, i like to say, and i have said this repeatedly, and i have said this in public. Newspapers need to be careful. And you know, theres no gun to our head. Nobody says you have to publish this story. We find this repeatedly in breaking news. News outlets get it wrong because the fog of war. Of course, we shouldnt treat these longer term investigations any differently. Adam, thanks for being here. Thank you. Up next, an interview youve got to see, President Trump saying hes willing to testify under oath. He has done it before, and it didnt go so well for him. 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Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids. And these guys. Him. Ah. Oh hello that lady. These houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh. Sure. Still yes you can get it too. Welcome to the party. Introducing gigspeed internet from xfinity. Finally, gig for your neighborhood too. Conference, President Trump said that defiance he is 100 willing to testify under oath. The magnitude of that statement was not lost on the media. He is 100 willing to speak under oath. Well, you can really take that to the bank. 100 . Under oath. Underoath. If you were his attorney, would you advise him to do this . Absolutely not. Under oath. Lets talk about it. I have a guest who knows how to mind of trump works. He wrote a book about trump. Hes also seen how the now president behaved under oath because trump sued him for defamation back in 2007. The testimony trump gave back then, it was really notable because the lawyers in the case counted 30 times when the now president either misspoke or exaggerated things. Heres how the Washington Post described it recently. Quote, for two straight days, they asked trump question after question that touched on some of the same theme. Trumps honesty. 30 times, they caught him. Tim obrien is the executive editor of Bloomberg View and the book is trump nation, the art of being donald. He joins me now in new york. You were a long time ago my editor at the New York Times on a few stories. At that time, you were dealing with this lawsuit. I was. This defamation case. You prevailed in the case, but what did you learn when the now president was under oath . That his Loose Association or relationship with the truth becomes problematic for him when hes confronted with documents that are contrary to things he said over the year publicly on a wide range of issues. In our deposition, it turned out he misrepresented how much money he got for speaking fees, he misrepresented how briskly his condos were selling, how much money he borrowed from the family estate when he almost went personally bankrupt, on and on, issue after issue. I was fortunate to have a great legal team that simply let him walk in that trap. He said x publicly and we presented him with documents that were contrary to that. Lets look at an example from the depositions. It starts with saying have you ever not been truthful . Trump said my network fluctuates and it goes up and down with markets and feelings, even my own feelings, but i try to be truthful. The lawyer says lets talk about net worth. You said it goes up and down based on your own feelings . Yes, even my own feelings as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day. This was considered to be one of the most revealing parts of the deposition because the president is saying its his feelings guiding what hes saying. As opposed to reality, the numbers, the facts, accounting. Another part of the deposition, we asked him how he figured out how much his golf courses were worth, he said he had no written documents supporting the valuations. And they said how did you get to the numbers you got to . He said mental projections. Mental projections, which is another one of these phrases he uses, back famously when the art of the deal came out, he spoke about truthful hyperbole. His willingness to exaggerate about almost anything that came into his realm, people he met, how much money he had, how successful he was. And hes never i mean, we had decades now of trump frequently lying or exaggerating about a wide range of thing. Now, i might say its just bluster. Why does it matter, especially now that hes president . Theres a difference in bluster and exaggeration than flat out lying. He said in the campaign, he opposed the iraq invasion. That wasnt true. He said during the campaign, he only borrowed a Million Dollars from his father. That wasnt true. Now you have him in the white house, overseeing national security, overseeing serious policy issues Like Health Care and the tax structure. If he cant be straight with the American People about just bare bone verifiable facts, were in a very difficult place, and hes unusual in that regard. Considering what happened when you had him under oath, do you think he will speak under oath to Robert Mueller . I have to imagine every lawyers eyes in the white houses eyes rolled back in their skull. I think they dont understand the parameters of what theyre up against. Mu mueller could be at this for years. What you saw in the last week with mike rogers and dan coats and jim comey testifying is theyre clearing the decks, getting out of the way for mueller to have this investigation in a full bore way, and hes going to subpoena people. He has access to Global Financial records. And he has an intelligence and a Law Enforcement community that is deeply disturbed, i think, by the president s behavior. Thats all going to come to bear on the president. Last hour, Fareed Zakaria was expressing concerns about what could happen down the road. Could we see a repeat of what we saw before election day with the now president saying he wasnt sure if he would accept the Election Results . Could we be in a similar situation now with this investigation . If there are criminal charges, those arent voluntary issues. You cant simply ignore a criminal charge because he doesnt agree with it. Hes in a very different realm now. Hes played pingpong over the years but this is the super bowl. Last question for you. You mentioned at one point, trump, when he was suing you, suggested he had tapes of your conversations. What was that about, and did he have tapes . Yeah, he said throughout, and he said this to reporters over the years when they have gone to the trump organization, i want to let you know im taping you now. He said it multiple times during my interviews with him. He said that into my tape recorder. But when he sat down for the deposition, my attorney said, mr. Trump, do you have a taping system . And he said no. And he said, well then, why did you say this to mr. Obrien . He essentially said i wanted to intimidate him. Thats the perfect segue for my next segment, tim, thank you for being here. Up next, why does secrecy seem to be the mantra of the Trump White House . Award winning interface. Award winning design. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. The most awarded luxury suv of the century. 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Hes acting like a man with a lot to hide. And thats the subject of my essay today. Lets add it all up from his tax returns to his golf habit to his afghan war strategy. President trump and his aides resist answering basic questions. Which contributes to this sense that hes hiding something. The latest example is this hint that maybe trump might have tapes of his conversations with james comey. Surreptitious tapes would be one heck of a secret, and when Sarah Huckabee sanders was asked about it, here is what she said. He said that you had no idea whether or not there was a taping system in the oval office. Could you try to find out . A lot of people are interested, as you might imagine. Sure, ill try to look under the couches. Ha ha. Ill come back to that one. Consider all the other examples. First, something relatively small, like the president s love of golf. According to cnn stats, trump has spent about 29 days at trump branded Golf Properties since becoming president. Thats about 1 out of every 5 days. Reporters care about this because, a, trump constantly blasted president obamas golfing habit, and b, trumps aides now try to keep his golfing a secret. Sometimes we can confirm trump is hitting the links this way, by peering through the bushes. This was a cnn photo journalist down in West Palm Beach in april. Other times we can confirm it when clubgoers post instagrams at the clubs. More often, we ask and press aides refuse to answer. On saturday, for example, mark noler tweeted, trump spent the day at his new jersey golf club. The white house said he was briefed on the attack against american soldiers in afghanistan. They wont say if he played golf. Afghanistan is an area where official secrecy matters a lot. One month ago, there was a flurry of stories about a possible increase in troops in afghanistan. The times said trump was expected to make a decision before his nato meeting on may 25th. Now, its june. And the white house has not said a new word about it, and reporters havent had many chances to ask. The president has not given any tv interviews in a month. All of his press conferences since february have been short ones with foreign heads of state. At his most recent presser, trump condemned leaking again, which is another way of encouraging secrecy, and lets not forget the other attempts. Like the decision to withhold white house visitors logs. More and more reporters are noticing this bent toward secrecy. When the Washington Post said Jared Kushner talked about a Russian Ambassador about setting up a secret back channel, they talked about an obsession with secrecy. It clearly was in his wheelhouse to have these contacts. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with him engaging with people like this. Foreign ambassadors. The issue is why the secrecy . Why the secrecy . Thats the question i keep coming back to. Even on silly stuff like cov fifi or whoever its said, sean spicer claimed to a small group of people, a small group of people knew exactly what the president meant. In other words, it was a secret. This matters when it comes to serious issues like the health of the planet. I know the president hasnt make a public decision on the Paris Agreement and you dont want to get out ahead of him, but on the more broad issue of climate change, can you say whether or not the president believes human activity is contributing to the warming of the climate . Honestly, i havent asked him. I can get back to you. I can get back to you. His deputy, sarah sanders, said pretty much the same thing. One week later, Hunter Walker followed up and got nowhere. Quote, we still have not received any answer from sanders or anyone else in the white house about the president s views on manmade climate change. Trump used to say it was a hoax. Has his position changed . Thats a secret. He often promises to have an answer later, some time later. In fact, right now, thats his position on the prospect of secret white house tapes. And you seem to be hinting that there are recordings of those conversations. Im not hinting anything. Im tell you about it over a short period of time. Okay, do you have question here . When will you tell us . Over a fairly short period of time. Are there tapes, sir . Youre going to be vardisappointed when you hear the answer. Dont worry. Trumps showman like tactics, his ability to always kick that can down the road, masks whats really going on, which is withholding information. Keeping secrets. And devaluing his own words. Before becoming president , trump suggested he would be transparent. Heres a 2014 interview with an irish tv channel. Trump said he would absolutely release his tax returns if he ran for office. Really . He said that. Heres the clip we dug up. If i decide to run for office, ill produce my tax returns, absolutely. And i would love to do that. Now, of course, his tax returns are a secret. Just like all those other examples. So what do you think . Why is the president acting like a man with so much to hide . Send me a tweet, brianstelter at twitter and facebook. When we come back, new polling that helps answer one of the biggest questions about media and politics. Just how corrosive has the gops antimedia campaign been . See the data right after this. G . Or make a backseat. That feels nothing like a backseat. Why give it every feature you could want. Along with a few you didnt know you needed. Its simple. You can build a car, or you can build a cadillac. You didnt know we had over 26,000 local activities listed on our app. Or that you could book them right from your phone. A few weeks ago, you still didnt know if you were gonna go. Now the only thing you dont know, is why it took you so long to come here. Expedia. Everything in one place, so you can travel the world better. Its ok that everybody ignoits fine. N i drive. Because i get a safe driving bonus check every six months im accident free. Because i dont use my cellphone when im driving. Even though my family does, and leaves me all alone. Heres something else. I dont share it with mom. I dont. Right, mom . I have a brand new putter you dont even know about its awesome. Safe driving bonus checks, only from allstate. Sometimes i leave the seat up on purpose. Switching to allstate is worth it. To a new world. S. Deeper than the ocean. As unfathomable as the universe. A world that doesnt exist outside you. But within you. Where breakthrough science is replacing chemotherapy with immunotherapy. Where we can now attack the causes of disease, not just the symptoms. Where medicines once produced for all, are now designed to fit you. Today 140,000 biopharmaceutical researchers go bodly to discover treatments and cures unimaginable ten years ago. And are on the verge of more tomorrow. Welcome back to reliable sources. If you dont believe the media, then you probably dont believe that the Trump Administration has had a dysfunctional few months. If you dont believe the media, you might not believe russias meddling in last years election is a very big deal. Trust in the media has been low for years and getting lower. And the president feeds that inherent distrust with tweets like this. Here he is this morning the fake news obviously the press does report job creation, stock market records, et cetera. Their entire business channels. I think what he means is he wants the press to report it more often, more positively. In any case, we can see how this antimedia rhetoric is having a real . 52 of the country believes trump has changed attitudes towards the news media for the worse. 22 say for the better. 20 say he hasnt had an impact. Back with me for final thoughts, jeff greenfield, Award Winning journalist and analyst. Jeff, how corrosive has this an antimedia campaign been, do you think . I think the singular success of President Trump, going back to his campaign, he has convinced the core of his supporters that anything you hear critical of the president is by definition fake. And so i think that has served that Relentless Campaign on twitter and in his comments, fake news, fake news, has been to convince that group of people that there is no such thing as a set of facts independent of your politics. If you are criticizing donald trump, if youre pointing out inconsistencies or outright falsehoods, by definition you are lying. And that has certainly served to continue and accelerate what youve talked about as a long process of declining trust in news. And by the way, its not confined to the political right. A lot of people on the left think that the press is, you know, the handma maiden of corporate america. That is a key to the fact that even though President Trump is unpopular on a national level, Something Like 96 of his voters told a survey they would vote for him again. Thats not an accident. This is not independent of a very shrewdly calculated political judgment. If i can convince my supporters not to believe anything they hear about me thats critical, im in relatively good shape. To me this is the story of the year. It might be the story of the decade in media, the issue of mistrue and venom thats encouraging folks to trust less and less. I come back to the same question, what do we do about it . Theres nothing to be done about it other than to report the news as fairly and you can. Here is one of the problems, though. So if lets say youre a journalist with no particular political bias, they do exist, and you discover the president has been dissembling, lets use the polite words, on any number of issues, the judgment that the president is not trustworthy, if that judgment doesnt come from political ideology but from your experience covering trump, and trumps supporters say, no, we dont believe that, youre just another left winger, its like sisyphus. You have to roll that stone up the hill. I think eventually if this pattern continues, you may well see people youve seen a lot of people who are conservatives, who have broken sharply with trump on the grounds of trustworthiness. But among that core, you know, theres nothing you can do. All you can do is say, here are the facts, here is what ive found. And if people want to dismiss it as saying, fake news, elite, brieeating journalists. Thats very much. Coming up, comedians have made no shortage of jokes about the purchaser. My next guest has the answer. Saturdays used to be for college football. Now you drive 300 miles to watch this. Dont get me wrong. You love flag dancing as much as the next guy. All eight hours of it. But what you really love is your little girl. Yes, nice pop toss flag dancing . Weve been there. And with free hot breakfast and a warm welcome, well be there for you. Book direct for a guaranteed discount on your next weekend stay. Hampton by hilton. When they thought they should westart saving for retirement. Le then we asked some older people when they actually did start saving. This gap between when we should start saving and when we actually do is one of the reasons why too many of us arent prepared for retirement. Just start as early as you can. Its going to pay off in the future. If we all start saving a little more today, well all be better prepared tomorrow. Prudential. Bring your challenges. Listen up, heart disease. you too, unnecessary er visits. And hey, unmanaged depression, dont get too comfortable. Were talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. And fragmented care stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. Every single one of you is on our list. For those who wont rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. Optum. How well gets done. Livestreat the airport. E sport, binge dvrd shows, while painting your toes. On demand laughs, during long bubble baths. Tv on every screen is awesome. The allnew Xfinity Stream app. All your tv at home. The most on demand, your entire dvr, top networks, and live sports on the go. Included with xfinity tv. Xfinity the future of awesome. One upping plump is a tough assignment for comedy writers. Really. Thats what the new yorkers Andy Borowitz tells me. You take something and exaggerate it to shine a light on it. This whole age defies exaggeration. You have a president of the United States who is a former game show host. That sounds like something that would happen on a shark nato sequel. Its difficult to satirize this stuff. Its hard to take something thats already really ridiculous. Covfefe is a great example, everybody has had a lot of fun with cav covfefe, i waded in th direction. Its hard to make fun of something thats already ridiculous. Trump posted, his impeachment will good night highering ratin will get higher ratings than all other impeachments. Tell me what you were getting at there. Hes one of the few sitting president s who would interrupt a press conference to trash the ratings of his reality show hosted by his replacement, arnold schwarzenegger. The difficulty of my job in trying to oneup what donald trump does i dont think anyone is going to shed any tears for you. It is a good job. For the rest of my chat with andy, log on to itunes or reliablesources. Com and listen to our latest podcast. While there, sign up for our nightly newsletter as well. Sign up at reliablesources. Com. See you back on television this time next week. Showdown. Fired fbi director james comeys dramatic testimony. Those were lies, plain and simple. Revealing how he crafted his case against the president. I needed to get that out into the public square. And trump strikes back. No collusion. No obstruction. Hes a leaker. Saying comey is the one who is lying. Some of the things that he said just werent true. And hes willing to testify under oath to prove it. 100 . Plus, secret tapes . Lordy, i hope there are