Transcripts For CSPAN Conversation With Jay Carney 20140427

Worked as Washington Bureau chief for Time Magazine. This is about an hour and a half. [applause] you, itsmust tell unfamiliar for me to look at you from this vantage point. Thank you very much for having us come here. To have an informal conversation before all of you about White House Press issues, s transformation from being a journalist to being a spokesman for the Vice President and then the president. Then we will take questions. The methodology we are going to we will have you write your questions down on cards. And welcome to our cspan audience watching live. It is, as i said at the top, a privilege to be here. Jay, i see that you brought the magic briefing book. We will get into that in just a minute. First of all, was that your aspiration ever as a journalist to do what you do now . And when youre are presented with that opportunity come how did you weight it . And having been a reporter, makes it more difficult or easier for your current job . I will start with the beginning of your question. I was a reporter, as you know, 21 years. Time magazine. I loved being a reporter. Aformative experience was as correspondent based in moscow for Time Magazine during the collapse of the soviet union. Studied russian in college which was the advantage i had that helped move my reporting careered forward. In thecame to washington mid 90s and covered president clinton, congress, president bush. I had never really at all thought about serving inside of an administration. Certainly not as a job. But as you will find, life happens and serendipity occurs. And shortly after the election in 2008, the day after, a close friend of mine who had been working on the Foreign Policy deal under clinton and had been working on Senate Foreign Relations Committee as a top staffer, democratic staffer, working for senator joe biden. N issummer of 2008, bide picked, they win. I am congratulating my friend the next day. That was the first time the idea was put to me about coming in. At the time i thought perhaps it would be kind of exciting and maybe something in the foreignpolicy arena, but it quickly became an opportunity to be the Vice President S Communications director, which was obviously a huge change for me. But a fantastic opportunity and a great, great decision in part because i woke up every morning for probably six months wondering if i knew what i was doing, was cut out for the job. I think what you think as a reporter covering the white house that you really understand , as reporters do, how the white house works, how communications how interaction with the media works from that side, when you get on the other side you find out its not quite as you imagined and its more complex than you realized and there is a lot to learn. I had the great opportunity when i worked for the vic president and a job that was not like the one i have now, a public spokesperson job, to learn with folksreat mentorstors, both who worked for the Vice President and president obama. After two years, when the president was looking for another second press secretary, this happened. Its been an extraordinary experience. Does it make it better having been a repor or does that create hurdles with you about questions with press access, trying to balance with the white house conveys with our neverending desire to be closer or more proximate to the president and Vice President . Better or worse is for others to say. Me more awarees of where reporters are coming from, having been there. I used to sit in the Briefing Room. Moreusly, and then broadly, covering politics, covering what houses. I have empathy, if not always sympathy, and [laughter] i think it helps in the decisions we make collectively. Its not just me. We have a team of people who make decisions about press access and interviews, and also how we describe what were doing as an administration. Let me stop you there. A decision you made yesterday on an interview, an excellent decision. We are still reviewing whether that was such a wise for choice. [laughter] if you dont know, major was with us at an event with Vice President biden. Nature had an opportunity to interview the president at length and the two men together, which is something we had not done, so the first time. That was at a Community College outside of pittsburgh where the president was talking about an initiative the Vice President was helping lead to make jobtraining programs more jobsfocused and jobdriven and connecting Community Colleges and other academic institutions with businesses around the country so we can maximize the potential of our people coming out of college, so they have the skills they need for the best and highest paying jobs. You mentioned there are things you learn once you were on the inside you never appreciate it or sensed on the outside as a reporter. Can you give an example . Sure. I think basically the complexity strategic you medications Strategic Communications was probably greater than i expected. And that there is just a lot more that goes into planning into the future about how you are going to roll out policies and talk about what youre doing and deal with all the incoming. I think when you are covering it, you sort of think about maybe this is not true for you, but i think about the communicators in the white house , the administration or other institutions come all they do is respond to questions, but there is a lot more to it than that. I learned a lot and continue to learn a lot from the most competent and passionate people you will ever in counter. That you will ever in counter. And just the diversity of the media, as a representative of Traditional National media organization, Time Magazine, i was suffering from a myopic perspective where i had a very National Media perspective and traditional media perspective on how the interaction between elected officials in washington and National Figures and the rest of the country operated and should operate. What we found, for a couple reasons, what i discovered, is people get their news in a variety of ways, and Regional Media is still hugely important. Any president or white house that doesnt pay great attention to that is missing a huge opportunity in terms how to reach americans out there. And also something that has sinceed explosively president obama took office, but it was obviously happening before he took office, par his campaign in 2008, the diversification of media, the advent of social media and how andrives News Coverage turns everything into kind of a warp speed interaction between events, coverage, reaction, and i think it makes the job i do the job that our team does, the Communications Team in the press office, it makes it a lot different from what it was when i first covered the white house in president clintons first term. And even the second time i came back and cover the white house, president george w. Bushs first term. The world has changed quite a lot. Let me ask a couple things about the social media aspect of communications from the president. You and the white house were very pleased with the between two firms interview with the president. It would be inaccurate to suggest that people in the white house have not done things of a similarly informal or conversational way. Richard nixon was on last minute as a candidate in 1960 eight, bill clinton famously showed up on the arsenio hall show. Does the presidency as an institution in any way become diminished as something as kind of a sendup hes . A sendup piece . That is the first question. The second one come yesterday, coming back from the event in oakdale, pennsylvania, the president and Vice President ok selfie in the back of the beast the president ial limousine. That suggests a ubiquitousness of the president and the social media universe. Any of those things as over saturating the public, the president making his constant presence on social media . Is that something you worry about or try to drive . And talk about how you probably anticipated the reaction from the fuddyduddy media me and what you actually found in the real world. Question, irst think saturation would be a firstclass problem we dont have. The fact is the president could come here today and give a speech covered by cbs, all the cables, everybody, and most americans wouldnt even know what happened. Thats just a fact. They certainly wouldnt see it or hear it. They might come if they watch the evening news, see 30 seconds of it, maybe. Maybe. You know how it works. Most speeches you guys dont even put on the evening news. Even the cables dont necessarily carry them live. And then they will get covered, maybe on the inside if at all, the major newspapers come original. Which is not a critique of the media. Whereust a statement of we are and the media environment of anybody who is trying to break your has to deal with. You have to find ways to communicate, to reach people. When it came to the decision to showe between two phones with zach galifianakis, we obviously look at ideas and we have some ideas we dont take please name one. [laughter] but i think there is an advantage to pushing the envelope. Did they approach the white house or did you approach them . There was a conversation about wanting to help and do something. It was their idea. It was presented to the president. He has pretty good compass on his own. The ability to judge what is right for him. But he also has faith in his team. We knew there was some risk associated with it, but it was also a smart thing to do. Im hoping that almost all of you solve this, but the numbers would suggest you did, but we were trying to reach you. Diepeople watch funny or and the between two phones interviews in your age group than the evening news or the morning shows. It was an opportunity to get that message out and talk to young adults about the need to enroll in health insurance, the wisdom of having health insurance, the fact that none of you are invincible, though some days you probably feel like you are because you dont have the aches and pains that major and i do. But, obviously in retrospect, we all think it was a brilliant idea. It worked. And it also worked it worked in what metric . In terms of reaching people and getting a lot of views and clicks. We also have metrics that show that it drove a lot of direct traffic to healthcare. Gov and contributed to some of you some of you may know, a huge surge in enrollment in march. You probably know less about that then how bad it was in october, but the good news does not get the kind of coverage bad news does. It worked, and it also worked because we asked the president because we knew he would be good at it. You have to understand when you are doing these things, you have to have the right principle, if you will, somebody who can pull it off. We were confident he could, and he did. And his team, zach were fantastic doing it, but what it wasnt and never was presented as was a Political Interview with the media. I remember we had some discussion during 2012 about, well, is it appropriate for the sitting president and candidate to give interviews to john stewart and others. The answer was yes, again, because the young voters are more likely to watch the the daily show than some other news shows, but also i think if you look back at 2012 in the series of interviews the sitting president of the United States probably the most subsequent interview he had was jon stewart. It was with the anchor of the daily show. What does that tell you . Uh [laughter] i think you all should examine it and write about it. I think its a broader discussion about where the traditional media are today. Its also a reflection of the fact that somebody like jon stewart is a very smart, sophisticated, good consumer of an percent are of the news. He presents it in a way that young eyeballs, which is what were looking for. The ubiquity of social media . I wish we were ubiquitous. What were you trying to tell people with a selfie in the back of the president ial limo . Well, which im sure it is. I think the purpose of that is the same as the purpose of a photograph of the president and Vice President that might have been released in the 1940s or 1970s or 1990s. Including a casual one as opposed to a stiff meeting. But it is translating that into the way that pictures are taken and distributed in 2014, as opposed to the way they used to be done. I think it also was a great way to show you know, i was not in the limo when they took that picture. That photo capture the relationship, which is an amazing relationship. Of twore men generations, remarkably different backgrounds and experiences who have forged a very powerful working relationship and partnership, but also a true friendship. I think what appealed to me about that photo when i signed off on it was it seems so real. Did you think for a moment how Hillary Clinton might react to it . No, not for a minute. [laughter] spend the press, we dont a lot of time picking about 2016. Im sure thats true. Talked to us about the briefing book. I will confess something that im probably sure other reporters have told you, sometimes we feel there is something less spontaneous when we are questioning. Having you read from the briefing book. As you know, we sometimes go back and forth at you, to try to pull you out of the contours of what is in the briefing book and do everything in our power intellectually and persuasively and every other way to get you off the talking points and Say Something more revealing about whats happening within the building or the administration. How are you doing with that . [laughter] i would say lukewarm success is probably the best i have ever achieved with that. How is that put together . Why do you sometimes have to parameters,those and do you even flirt even momentarily with the notion of jumping outside the lines of whats in the briefing book . A few things about it. The briefing book exists because on any given day this is yesterdays i could be asked, this is just a compilation of subjects that i might be asked about, based on what we are getting in terms of incoming questions during the day, what is the news of the week. There are probably 60 subjects here. I think i have a pretty good imntion, and yet i know not going to remember everything about what our policy positions latest all the incremental developments on a particular news area or subject. So it is basically there for me to refer to if needed if i get a know, thebout, you plane in malaysia. I have not talked about it in a few days. I may have had a brief verbal update on it in the morning, but there may be specifics about what kind of assets from the Defense Department we are deploying that im going to have to look in the book to find. You have the exhaustive potential list defensively, just so you are prepared yes, a matter of being prepared. There is a little percentage i would imagine of the things you have there that we ask on. Well, when you say percentage, i would say, you the, some days all of questions are on subjects within here, but it could just be two subjects. Even though my briefings last close to an hour, if it is a grab bag day and there is not anything or any subject or set of subjects that are driving the news, i could get 20 different subjects in a briefing. What often, as is the case the day before yesterday, i think, i think 80 of the briefing was ukraine, and in many ways the same three questions posed differently. Thats because ukraine was driving the news. The other thing there are subjects because they are alive everyday, the Affordable Care act, economic issues, development, ukraine, havekind of stuff that i and i can speak comfortably about in terms of discussing where the president is, new developers, what our objectives are. And you will see that i will open the book less on things like that. If there are things, specific things i need to say, and this can be especially true with National Security, or the wing which sometimes has to be very precise where the light which has to be very precise, i will in order to be precise consult the book. That will not be on every subject, but it will be an objective on a particular issue i want to achieve, and the language can be especially on Foreign Affairs very important in terms of what you are telegraphing to allies were opponents allies or opponents, and what you are not. That is one of the purposes of having the briefing book. Lets go to a recent example. Monday we asked about something that i think more than half of us did not think you would necessarily be able to confirm, john brennan, the cia director, was in kiev. Typically when we ask a question like that, it is we dont discuss the travel plans of the cia director, check with the agency, a brushoff. But internally you made a decision to communicate that, confirm it, and push back on whatever russian characterization had been made of it. Walk us through that process. Its true that we dont of the the travel director of the cia as a rule. In this case it had been pretty wellpublicized he had visited. So you do, and making decisions like this, sometimes we have to conceding the record what Everybody Knows or acknowledging what Everybody Knows. But the broader purpose of doing that was to point out that the russian response to that and attempt to use that as something that it wasnt, it needed to be knocked down, in the same way that some russian government officials have said lately about events on the ground in ukraine have been fictional, fabricated. The kind of sort of heavyhanded propaganda that you used to see at a time long since passed in the soviet union. So that was the reason. Needed to there, we explain what was and wasnt. Services,ntelligence ours and others, meat and travel all the time. It was just another opportunity to point out the distance that wefact and reality were seeing out of russian rhetoric. But it was also meant to send a signal in our interest and what is going on there. You dont send the cia director willynilly to places true, we have cooperative relationships on National Security issues, including intelligence issues with many, many countries around the world. Signal in terms of the that our commitment to ukraines thateignty, the symbol of will be more powerful i think than John Brennans visit will be the Vice President s visit early next week. That serves the purpose to send the signal that we strongly support the ukrainian government, we strongly support ukraines sovereignty and , and as al integrity representation of that the Vice President of the United States will be in kiev. The relationship between president obama and president putin has been a longrunning discussion long before this crisis is in ukraine exploded on the flip front pages. Today, putin said trust in that relationship broke down long before the disagreement over crimea and ukraine and there is essentially no relationship now on a fundamental working basis to join the United States and russia. How do you evaluate those comments . Do you believe the relationship broke down before ukraine or should be viewed historically is a Tipping Point . Theres no question that russias actions in ukraine are of an entirely different order in terms of the severity of them. And the opposition they have brought from the United States and the rest of the world, compared to other things, although similar in many respects to georgia. But the other disagreements we , missile syria havese, and the like been challenges in the relationship between the u. S. And russia, but this is obviously the most significant divide we have seen in a long time. But i think its a simple fact that our relationship with russia has always been one, in the recent past, of some and alongside significant disagreement. We have gone down again and again the appalling support for ssadbrutal, homicidal a regime in syria. Its refusal to allow United Nations Security Council resolutions pass, condemning what they are doing and support the syrian people. We did not hide the ball on that at all. We havent in any of the disagreements we have had with russia, predating ukraine. I do not see everything that president putin said, but i think the context here is important. Lets talk about the Affordable Care act for a minute. How grim was it for you when it theme clear to you that all briefings we had received before the rollout of the Health Care Website were false, because we had been treated to this behind the scenes assessment there may be some glitches but structurally it was sound . You find out its not. Egov for a week of saying we are getting our arms around this, you go for a week saying we are getting our arms around it, but how did you have to adapt to what you knew was probably going to be a month if not longer of pointed questions, criticism, and that you would just have to as the chief spokesman for the white house take all that in . A couple things. First of all, the briefings turned out to be less than accurate. [laughter] the use of that word suggest that the people giving the briefing were misleading the press. The people in the briefing workve this is going to with some glitches. Not saying that nobody expected, certainly among those who briefed the press on it, that we would see the severity and the kind of problems we saw. To answer your question, i think as you recall, this was all happening concurrently with the shutdown of the government. So these were two major things happening at once. Once the government reopened, it became quite clear both internally and publicly i will not lie, that was probably one of the most difficult moments for not just in thefor everybody administration who worked on these issues, because this was entirely on us. It was our fault, if you will. It was supposed to work far better than it did. It did not meet anything like the standards that were set for it. Therefore, it was our responsibility from the president on down to get it right, to fix it. That made this unique because a lot of the more challenging times we face have to do with , things likets that. This was something we controlled and did not get right at the start, and that made it difficult, but all the more important that we get it right as soon as possible. The president instilled that message to everyone, that for the millions of people who were demonstrating by coming to the website that they wanted quality Affordable Health insurance but were not able to get it because functioning,as not we owed it to them to fix it and get it right. It is a rather remarkable story, i think, a focus and perseverance by those on the team that fixed it, that we are where we are today. Is 7. 5 million americans enrolled in the marketplaces, despite the fact that we basically gave up two months at the beginning. That is the good news story. Having covered the president as a candidate and this white house im sure you have a better sense of it. What is it about the president s approach to leadership that you gleaned from his decision not to fire anyone in the heat of the notis, when many people, just critics, but friends and allies of the white house thought it would be helpful both politically and as a leadership tool to fire one or a number of people responsible for bungling this rollout. The president was not and never is interested in the a femoral status ephemeral satisfaction of being praised by his critics or friends. What mattered to him was fixing the problem. Firing some people would have actually set back the cause of fixing the problem. The team that was responsible for healthcare. Gov had a lot of expertise. They were added to by a surge of , but everybody felt responsible. Everybody roll their sleeves up and got to work fixing the problem. That was far more important than saying,the newsday by the president hired somebody or some fired somebody or some number of people. He is not into pointing fingers. Results. O the website was merely a tool, and is a tool to provide access to folks to quality, Affordable Health insurance. Responsibility to knock the obstacles down and make the website work, but it was just about fixing the website, not to diminish the size of the problem i should note since we were here that open enrollment is closed and the period of open enrollment that was still open for those in line by the march 31 deadline has ended on april 15. But some of you will be affected by this. It is still possible if you have a lifechanging event, graduation, marriage, birth, loss of health insurance, or maybe this applies to graduate students. Because of the Affordable Care act if you are 26 or under you can stay on your parents insurance policy, but once you 27, you get old, turn have to be responsible for your own health insurance. That is an event that would mean you are able to enroll even when open enrollment is over, as it is now. Keep that in mind, and if you are one of those people, i urge you to go to healthcare. Gov. I want you to recall your days as a reporter. You and i covered a lot of events together. You are a competitor, and a very good one. You know the satisfaction that comes from the, i got them now, moment, or something approximating that. You probably as a reporter would have looked at politifact identifying if you like your plan you can keep it as the political line of the year lie of the year different than now. Reporters say, that seems about right. For you, you view that differently. Talk to me about the political lie of the year, if you think it is fair, and if you were a journal iist would you do it differently . I do a lot of things differently view a lot of things differently in this job because i, things come at things with a different perspective. Alieat particular issue, a isone of intent, a lie one of intent, and that is what the president believed the policy would deliver. When it became clear that it did not and things needed to be fixed to help those individuals, which according to rand is somewhere under one Million People in the all caps or he, it out to be done. But i am not going to obviously not every item out the re is one we think is accurate or fair, but as a rule, coming press i rep recognize there are a lot of serious reporters who do very good work even if i do not agree with every story they write or broadcast. Talk to me about how you believe the media has changed just in your time in government. Do you, does any administration worry about the contraction of the media, how it is changing, forms traditional previous white houses used to have to rely on, the evening news or newspapers, are less important. You talked about Regional Media. Anybody in my business knows regional newspapers have shrunk dramatically. Coverage is different. How do those things strike you from the governments perspective, the white house perspective. Do you have any concerns about how the media is changing and what it means for any white house to communicate with the country . So there are a variety of ways of looking at this question. I think as a citizen i am some of theout transformations that we have seen in the media over the last five or six years. In fact, the last 10 or 15 years. A lot of the major organizations that used to cover the world do not anymore. They do not have people overseas, the bureaus they used to have. I think we are all poorer for that. That is a direct result of the financial pressures on the media that were 20072009. Y severe avoided athe fact we depression, the president did, put the economy on the right track again so we have been growing and creating jobs, the media has benefited from that turnaround as well. We are not nearly where we need to be economically yet, but we are on a far better trajectory. That kind of crisis atmosphere financially for the Mainstream Media is not nearly as severe as it was five years ago. There are different baskets here. A generally very positive and world changing potentially development is social media when it comes to the ability for anybody to have that theyinformation could not even have imagined having access to just five or 10 years ago. That is true in the United States, but very importantly, true around the globe, including in repressed countries where they experience political oppression. That makes it much more challenging for oppressive regimes to control their citizenry, and that is obviously a positive thing. We have seen how that can affect and transform societies in a positive way. What it has also done, and we talked about this earlier, the hyperspeed of the news cycle we live in now. Few things last for very long. That can be good or bad from our perspective. Something that seems one of the things that i do every day and we do as a team in the white house is we see the incoming, we monitor twitter, we have to , certainlyly quickly much more quickly than our meritsssors, about what a reaction and what does not. Part of it is predicting when this thing is going to burn out, whatever it is. Often, as my colleague dan pfeiffer said recently, the fires burn brightly but also burnout faster. Is that convenient for you . It can be good and bad, like i said. It can mean a great deal of attention on something positive can dissipate very quickly. As well as a story that is not as good. But for ask him it means having some judgment and perspective of that, and resisting the impulse toreact or overreact something that seems like it is becoming a big deal or blowing up on social media, and sometimes just knowing when we need to jump in either through twitter or through a statement or all the different means we have, going up to eight president ial statement. Or wait and see what it is going to turn out to be. If you want to bring up questions, i will take some now. You are touching on something i experienced at the white house. I am wondering if you would agree. I came to washington in the early 1990s, there was a common phrase the great question, will it have legs . Forcere a title tidal to something Building Momentum and holding front page on the New York Times or the networks. Is that less of a concern, the story getting leg, because things have this quality where they are driven by social media and they can rise and fall in the course of a morning or afternoon . Less of a concern if you mean you mean in terms of legs, like a problem story . Legs,mes stories do have even in this environment, and they last longer than a few hours or a few days, again, this is a doubleedged sword, because that means that also makes it more and more keepenging for us to stories alive about what the whatdents agenda is and he is trying to do, and what we think are positive developments, or important developments, whether they are good or bad. Another problem we have is because of this ratcheting up in action and reaction we see, especially on twitter and other forms of media, cable, we have know,s that build to, you huge proportions really quickly, and then there is a temptation in the media to label everything a scandal or a gate this or gate that. I would point to one year ago and the three stories that consumed the presidency and focused a great deal of minutes on broadcast. About how potentially damaging they were. They are not the subject of anything or much coverage at all, because they ended up not being what they were reported to be. Obviously i am talking about some of the issues republicans tried to say were scandals, but were not. For us, we just have to focus on getting out the information as quickly as we can, and sort of muscling through that static. Isnt that how the process works . Issues are raised, questions are posed, you deal with them, and there is a sorting out of what is or what is not. Within one hour you get people on cable tv saying, i cannot tell you how many times has ident i have never written that. I am just saying, there is that intensity. Social media and the current structure of the media contributes to and makes it worse. I am not saying it did not exist in the past, where there were stories that did not have legs and got knocked down in the past, but there is a race to the top or the bottom, depending on how you look at it. Questions, we will start out with a light one. What is your favorite place to eat in d. C. . A shout out to the wonderful people of the u. S. Navy i have never been invited. You are not allowed. But i could bring you a burger if you came to my office. That is all right. That in my kitchen with my kids. Got it. [laughter] this is on cspan. He knows what he is doing. Whatl ask this once advice you have for a gw student who once your job in 30 years . Shorten it to 20 years . I think i ended up in the position i am in because not in a traditional way. By imagining i would end up there. So i am not sure if im the right person to ask, but if you are interested in policy and politics, get involved. But you were not. Im saying im the wrong person. I would not say go become a newsmagazine journalist and see what happens. [laughter] but look, i think one of the things that has been enormously gratifying about how my life and career changed has been that i joined a team that has a reputation of being insular, and turned out to be anything but, which took me in and taught me a lot. I have made really strong friendships and have learned an enormous amount from people who have been doing this work for a lot longer than i have. With whom i would work and struggle and fight on a lot of different fronts in the future because they believe in what they are doing and they are there for the right reason and they are enormously talented. Develop cynicism in this profession, and i mean this political journalistic sphere, not just on my side of the divide, and i believe it is important to remember, we are not doing this, we should not be doing this for any other reason than to help people and help make the country better. That is what i see. If people ask me what is the most surprising thing about being on the inside, the surprising thing has been from the beginning how human an enterprise it is. In the end it is a handful of people sitting with the president of the United States, trying to help him and informed him and discuss with him as he has to make incredibly difficult decisions. People are there giving him the best advice they can and doing it from the right reasons and the right place. It might not always lead to the right answer, but when i walk away from this, i will walk away from this with a lot of reaffirmation and faith in the capacity of people to come to washington and do the best they can for all the right reasons. Has the Vice President ever given you a nickname . [laughter] i dont think so. You would know. Goodhave a very relationship with the Vice President and im hugely grateful to him for taking me on one of the most decent and bighearted and wise individuals you will ever find in politics. What i admire about him, he has been doing this for a long time and he brings to it a passion youenergy that if some of going to politics you will be lucky to match at 22 or 23. He is not somebody who cashed in or got too cynical to make a difference. He has been the opposite of that. He is a great public servant. Have you ever knowingly deceived the American Public . If so, was it justified . The answer to that is no, i have not. Look, i think credibility is important. A lesson i learned very early is when you are asked a question to which you do not know the answer, do not guess. Say i do not know and i will get back to you. If you are asked a question you cannot answer for National Security or other reasons, you do not mislead. Answer, or uset a forthrightly, i cannot discuss that, i will not discuss covert programs, or Something Like that. Thatnk that doesnt mean something i said or anyone else i work with speaking on the record said did not turn out to be wrong, but that is different from intentionally saying something wrong. Is the flak jacket a real press secretary tradition . It would not stop much. It there is a flak jacket, but it is like a dress flak jacket, not the kind you would see in theater. The west wing, what is your favorite episode, and favorite character . Got to say c. J. I would think so. Who is fantastic, and who i do not know. I know some of the folks. Brad is a terrific person. We did a thing you may remember, the big block of cheese. Fried who wrote for the west wing. There is one episode with constant rippers references to a congressman james carney, which was a friends way of inserting the into an episode. And the one where the reporter is going to go to jail because he will not testify or divulge something and he is talking to c. J. I get choked up. [laughter] when you have kids, you will know. Question we have with some frequency. Because this is a parallel universe, i will ask you. Will president obama signed an executive order banning federal contractors from engaging in discrimination against lgbt americans . As you know, the president strongly supports action taken by the senate to pass the employment nondiscrimination act and urges the house to follow suit. Those who oppose this legislation are profoundly on the wrong side of history and will be seen as set in a very short time if they do not already feel it. That is what the president believes. It is certainly what i believe. As is the case with any prospective or speculated about executive order, i do not have anything for you on that today. Understood. The Obama Administration came to washington promising transparency. In your view, has the administration fallen short . Can you update us on the status of the White House Correspondents Association complaint regarding journalists and photographic access to the president . There is no question. I covered the previous two administrations and know a thing or two about ones before that. There has never been a more transparent administration. That does not mean we provide more information about the rwavs record. By thee the records held secret service on individuals for meetings in the white house. Those have never been released before. It is fair to say the release of that information has made this white house far more transparent than any other white house. That does not mean it is perfectly transparent. It creates headaches for us. Ridiculous stories on fox news and elsewhere about, the waves records show Hillary Clinton was only in the white house five times, whereas secretary so and so was here this many times. People like Hillary Clinton and most cabinet secretaries literally get waved in, they are not entered in the logs. Secretary clinton and her successor were in the white house every week. It leads to challenges, because the records were not devised to be a complete picture because of the way individuals who are part of the administration enter and depart the white house, but they provide a lot more information about who visits the white house than has ever been provided before. In a variety of different ways, we provide a lot more information. Anyh does not mean we or white house is ever going to be able to be completely transparent. This blends with the other question. It is absolutely the case today and will always, has always been the case that the white house ps will not be satisfied with the level of access it has to the president or the rest of a president s team. The reason why it will never be the case is because there will always be meetings, there will always be a limit on the number of interviews or press isferences that the press not a part of. It is simply impossible for any president or white house to function otherwise. Should keeps pressing for more access. That is the right and responsible thing to do. When we get into debates about levels of access that this white house is given compared to previous ones, i like to cite that president obama has given more than two times as many interviews as his immediate predecessors, and even more than bill clinton at this stage in his presidency. He has given more fullblown, than up our long pressers president george w. Bush. Which does not mean you guys should be satisfied and think we are getting enough, because you absolutely are doing your jobs by asking for more. I will get to the numbers in a minute, but for those of you who do not know i have been part of the conversations we have been having with the white house. Jay has been a part of almost every single one of them. I want to bring up for this audience something that i know you have a perspective on and we have a perspective on. Not limited to photographic access to the president. This dovetails with the earlier conversation about social media and the flexibility it gives any white house and any future white house to use the immediate mechanism of social media photography, photography on social media to work around those in the building every day. Whether you are streaming something live we are not there for or you have the White House Photographer shoot something that the press corps is present for, you can pump that out and that becomes a declarative statement or image of the white house we were not involved in. We obviously chafed against that, not just professionally but for a matter of principle, which i know you can understand. How do you measure those things, and do you find yourself likely to go more in our direction, giving us more entree to those events that had been much more White House Photographerdriven . I am sure most of you have not followed this to the degree major and i have. Here is what i will say. That wedo is use tools did notof you have that exist in previous white houses. Ickr accounts, twitter, instagram. Every white house after us will do that. The next white house and the one after that will have tools available to it, as well as most of you, that we cannot even imagine when it comes to distributing information. Malpractice not to take advantage of those tools. Starting with photographs. When we release a picture taken by the White House Photographer , one of the white house we areaphers, online, doing nothing different than what our current chief White House Photographer did when he was president reagans White House Photographer. He would make prints and hand them out in the Briefing Room. She difference is those print would be delivered to news organizations who would then decide whether to publish them, but now because of the internet we can put them online and you all get to see them. It is not up to the ap i understand that creates tension. To theely sympathetic financial pressures that are on the organizations, but i think there was an visit Interesting Exchange over photographer access where someone said she wouldve been fine with no press coverage of this event if we had not released a White House Photo which is a weird way to talk about transparency. It all reporter was not allowed in here, then nobody should see the event. I dont think that is good for the american people. There cannsumers out judge for themselves whether what to make of the picture that is taken by a White House Photographer versus somebody from the independent press. They are not substitutes for one another. We are doing would previous white houses have done but we are using tools that are available to us that were not available before. Having said that, know you and i work closely, i and everyone else is committed to trying to do as much as we can to expand access and we have done that to some degree. We are going to continue to try to do that. Quacks on the numbers question thats the president s preferred mode of conversation. Others were more willing he has given more fulllength press conferences. I wish we could see more of it. I want to ask you about the president s thoughts on this. These with a money president or foreign leader or any event, taking one or two questions on the news of the day which interferes necessarily and by definition with whatever you are trying to drive and went to work very carefully behind the scenes trying to push out there. He seems less comfortable with that, your team seems less comfortable. Bill clinton did a lot of those things. Is inrse, for anyone that the building every day as a reporter, that is what we crave the most. The chance to put the question of the day whenever the news is to the president and get his reaction. That seems to get to happen less frequently. Why is that . Is not a matter of comfort. At least on our part. The president is comfortable taking questions with the press just like he was with you yesterday. I think you return it around, especially with some of the president predecessors, you have i think it is worth looking at what benefit is greater . When the president stands up and takes multiple questions for many hours allowing followups, i think i would be willing to go head to head with past president s on the number of minutes this president has spent answering questions from the free press compared to the number of minutes in his presidency that his presidencies have badges predecessors his predescessors have. Reporters dig deep and present followup whereas the news of whatay i know that is that is an important thing and i know that is what folks who cover the white house on a daily basis need that day. What it does allow for any president , and you might suggest one of the president predecessors preferred that mode because it allows just this, it allows for quick answer and there is no followup, there was no pressing, no depth to the exchange. We make decisions all the time. The president will have a lot of encounters with press and multiple foreign leader press conferences on his trip to asia that begins next week. It is all about balancing the most valuable commodity we have, at least in the communication sphere which is the president s time. Lots of questions here. Have you do with the ethical dilemma of having to profess stances that you might personally disagree with . Has that ever happened . No. I am not a policy expert. Our president or image it ministration has to work in. I cant say i have sophisticated opinions about every policy that we pursue, but i have been completely supportive personally of all of the major things this president has done. That clearly makes it easier to do my job. Having said that, you know, everyone who serves as president has to decide for himself or herself what, why they are there, what greater interests you are serving because if you are an expert in her up in an arena of the domestic policy, theyre obviously heated the beats debates about what course of action should be taken, which policy is the better approach. Not everybody around the table is getting get what they want. I think that is the way the process should work. If you dont get 100 of what you want, i dont think that means you get up and leave because you want to contribute to the process. A very direct question. How can i get a job with you or your staff . [laughter] whoever wrote that has a promising future. Well tackle them after the event. [laughter] we have winter internships that you can find on whitehouse. Gov. Send yourotherwise resume. Have you had spokespersons from other countries, prime ministers and president s, any appearances of working together with them or stories . How different or similar are there jobs compared to yours . I met a lot of great people who are spokes man or women for other leaders. It depends on the country. I dont know there are that many where there is a press secretary or spokesman who is giving briefings was giving briefings everyday. I find there is more regular briefings of the kind we have. It is really interesting. I usually have these encounters when traveling and the president is going to have a press conference with a foreign leader. My counterpart and i traded notes about what to expect in what order the questions will come in because im thinking most recently when we were in the netherlands and i was with my dutch counterpart and she was saying, here is what we are interested in and protocol has the visiting leader go first and the host leader go second. Those kinds of things. I think one thing that is a little difficult or challenging for our counterparts is that when you have the president of the United States taking questions with another leader, there is sometimes an eeriness press part of the foreign corps to ask our president questions as well as the White House Press corps asking the president questions. Sometimes the other leader is standing next to the president is spending a lot of time listening to the u. S. President answering questions which can be a little awkward. It is not delicate. I think it is just you have the massage that either before or after. I think it is useful for our press. Major, i think you have done this. It is good to hear the prophetic the perspective of a foreign leader on some of these things and the issues that are at stake. The two countries may be working on it together or may have a conflict over. I think that kind of only go for the u. S. President can lead to less Interesting Press conferences. Im going to ask one of my own. Ambivalente an reaction when you saw the rocket the Washington Post and the prize at a Nobel Pulitzer prize due to the leaks by Edward Snowden . Our views on mr. Snowden have not changed. You walked in both places. I think i will refrain from commenting on each individual award. They are prestigious awards. Theiew in general is that best of those awards go to break new ground through the shoe leather reporting of the past. Who develops sources to find information. Who devote hours and days and weeks and months to get a story right. Year you seeafter the pulitzers and other similar awards that meet those standards. With the white house support casting to be alias sebelius . We dont speculate on candidacies that are only speculated about. I would wait to see who is going to run in any individual race. The president spoke very clearly the other day about secretary sibelius and a dedication she showed through a remarkable period of change that she helped bring about. She has been in the hotspot for a long time, not just because of the healthcare. Gov challenges, but through the development of the legislation, the incredibly period when that legislation was passed and through its implementation. The president truly appreciates your service. Which former press secretary do you consider to be a model for the job you do . They are all great. [laughter] how much consulting to do with them before you took the job . I spoke with every living predecessor. Or tried to. Singularere a important advice . Question,er the first probably because of when i came in to cover the white house and i had always admired Michael Curry and joe rock arhard. Aslon fitzwater as well reagans last president during press secretary was exceptional. What each of those secretaries would tell you is that the world has changed tremendously. One of the things that bill clintons press secretary told is thathis successors he apologizes for having been the press secretary who agreed to allow the briefing to be broadcast in full on television decision,ior to that the White House Daily briefing firstly broadcast for the 10 minutes was on air the cameras would be turned off. That was so tv correspondents can get what they need at the news and the rest of the briefing was offcamera. Say andit is fair to ive experienced this every week, the difference in tenor and combativeness and that you between briefings we have in the Briefing Room in the white house that are on camera versus the ones i do when we travel on air force one is stark. I think that is partly because folks in the Briefing Room are where the camera is on and it becomes a little more of a performance. I have no idea what he is talking about [laughter]. [laughter] some people of noted, sometimes they ask the same questions that the previous correspondents have asked. What i say in defense of them when although that can be frustrating is that each of them may need that for their piece. Butand why it often happens when you dont get what is happening and youre watching like why the person asking the same question as the woman down the road asked. Theyre going to keep asking the same questions until they find something. Question from someone who not only watch as the white house briefings, but also watches the state department briefings. The press briefing sent the feature tend to feature more competition between reporters and the press secretarys. Is there a different expectation of respect for white house secretaries . I didnt know that was the case. Marie are upjen and to the challenge. I dont think so. We have had our contentious days in the white house Briefing Room. I think that the state department tends to be more granular. There was a level of expertise on narrow subject matters that you can find in a state department briefing. For the most part, people have a sense of where they are. There is at least a minimum level of the quorum of the quorum of decorum. You are the west wing of the white house and that is a special place to be for everyone. One of my favorites do you watch scandal . The 13 reel. I havent seen it yet. I watch house of cards which is excellent. Especially the last episode. Im catching it, dont say that. [laughter] you will understand when you get to it. Things i needt of to watch and read at some point when i have a little more time. This one is from someone who might also be a psychology student. Describe yourself in three senses without talking about your role in the white house or previous journalism positions. [laughter] messenger. A husband and father of two, proud native of virginia. A Boston Red Sox fan. [applause] very good. What is the best way to think on your feet and field a tough question . Did you have to teach yourself how to do that or to the fact that you ask tough questions before give you a particular capability that maybe others didnt have . I had, evenrter, though i was a print reporter, i had done it some ground roundtable tv. It is a different thing entirely. What is true is when you go on a sunday show as a reporter and Say Something it turns out to be completed wrong and nobody cares. It is not that way when youre on the press secretary you are the press secretary. It takes practice. When i was named press secretary, there was a 2. 5 week gap between that day and the day a brief for the first time. During that time, i benefited greatly from Mock Press Conferences that i had, briefings that i had with staff. Whouding my predecessor, knew from personal experience just the kind of question to ask that would completely unsettle me. You mention it in a moment ago that the things you have to read and watch. I want to ask you about the pace of the job. Does it ever come near to it is not breaking you, wearing you down, and could you describe the tension of a position like yours or any position in the white house and relationship to the to why youre actually trying to conduct as a father and normal human being . These are demanding jobs, but theyre wonderful jobs to have. There is not a person i know who works in the white house who doesnt feel anything but lucky to be there. And, it is tough on family. The sort of tradeoff i made was that Everything Else gets put aside. I have a close friend that lives in washington. I am sure i havent seen him this calendar year yet. We get on the phone every once in a while. Doing my jobt of the best of my ability and that requires a lot of hours on the road and office. Making as much time as i can to be there for my family as well. What that means is that Everything Else like movies and books and friends get put on hold. But, you know, i think its a challenge for everyone who does the job and not just those of us with kids but for everyone. What are your thoughts on new projects like exrzra kleins website or some of these other whoforms where reporters believe they have created a brand identity is sufficient to make themselves commercially independent from either where , do you think that is something that is going to become more prevalent . Some critics believe if there is any model but need that beneath that. Im not a good judge of what will succeed commercially, but i do greatly appreciate that kind of development because in the two examples you gave, these are deep onto go broad and issues and policies and subjects in a way that you often dont see or get through traditional Mainstream Media or even a lot of the new media which can be almost by definition, if we are talking about twitter, short and to the point and superficial because how much can you really say in 140 characters . I think explanatory journalism is hugely valuable. The matter how steep in the news you may be, and you and i are a steep as one can be, there are going to be subjects where he read the newspaper in the morning and the story starts with what happened yesterday and the subject has been going on for a long time and you may not know the back story. You are not going to get it from the store that you read that day. Some of these sites are because of the infinite capacity of the internet and are able to in a few clicks bring you up to speed in a way that is uniquely possible with the internet. I think that is a good thing. Can they succeed on their own . I dont know. I have one more question before we wrap it up. You mentioned there were three stories about one year ago that took on from your perspective and outsized importance compared to what they actually were. One of them was obtaining records of reporters and either prosecuting Services Sources that talk to reporters. This administration has done it more than its predecessors numerically. Do you feel that is a legitimate issue . Do you feel comfortable defending the initiations approach to tracking down those leaks and trying to find a prosecutorial trail . Whered do you come down on that application of the powerless of the power of the federal government . On the broader subject, i think some of the shorthand is misleading when it comes to the number of active investigations. The fact is a number of them were inherited from the bush administration. Imagine what wouldve happened if a new president had come into office and either he or his attorney general had ended investigations and the National Security leaks. There is that. The on the issue of the you are aware of what the president and attorney general have said about their concern about the need to provide greater protections for the press and that no reporter reporting the president should be prosecuted for doing his job. That is the president s view. Isthe flipside, and this separate from reporters at least , and iy, we as a country think reporters also specifically need to decide when they talk about this issue and frame it in a way that makes it ism like the only issue here press freedom and the ability to do the job, whether or not it should be against the law to divulge classified information. Because it shouldnt be. We shouldnt have classified information then and we shouldnt have secrets. Think about that and whether that is even possible for any government to function . Abc and then evolves into coming to government . I think i have become more sensitized to the damage that can be done by leaks of classified information. The president has spoken on the issue of the disclosures that have come out of the nsa story has beendebate that intensified because of this disclosure is a very important debate to have. The reviews that spawned have been very root very important and that led to significant changes already instituted instituted by the president. There is also no questioning the fact that harm has been done to our National Security interests. You cannot be dismissive of that. That is real and it involves our ability the governments ability to keep american safe, arechieve objectives that very important in the National Security arena towards, not just keeping americans safe, but our allies safe. So there are costs. Wante last question 00 i the person to raise their hand. The question goes like this can i have a selfie with you . I am the cute blonde in the middle im sorry. How did i jump to that . She is right there. Thank you very much for your time. Its been a pleasure. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] next, tom perkins on what he calls the demonization of the one percent. Andr that, james baker Vernon Jordan speaking at the funeral for former ambassador. To see whitee House Press Secretary jay carney talking to students at George Washington university. On the next washington journal, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page talks about politics and the Supreme Court ruling. Columnistndicate Terry Jeffrey discusses the future of the gop leadership and the divisions between the gop among the Tea Party Activists and establishment figures. Deputyfbi and cia director talks about the recent drone strikes that killed dozens of all kind of members al qaeda members. We will be looking for your calls and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. Washington journal, live at 70 and eastern on cspan 7 a. M. Eastern on cspan. Ira member the first conversation i had with a group of people at that table. It wasnt about where you are from, what your school is like, it is about ukraine. It was about politics, our belief in education and religion. After that moment, i was like, wow, this week is going to be intense. It has been cool to see the evolution of our friends and bonds just talking about politics. We havent talking about our experiences and what we learned in who we met. I have always kind of been really cynical about it. I was thought i could never really go that far in politics. Week,ly throughout the different speakers in different people i have met, that has chipped away at my opinion. I thought maybe i do want to make a difference in run for something local and state local in my community because like president obama said yesterday, he told us do not get cynical because we dont need more cynical people. That is not going to help us believe the problems. One of the things that comes up is our social media. We are able to express our opinions very easily. We can send a tweet