We welcome over 800,000 visitors a year. We invite people of very different fls if is to come together to discuss challenges to our fundamental liberty and our newsium Education Program reaches over 7 Million School children in the United States and 150 countries across the world and provides them with digital Course Material on freedom and democracy. We all know that there will be friction between and administration and journaling. However, perhaps at no point in living memory has there been more concern about freedom of the press in good part because of real or perceived conflicts between the Trump Administration and the media. A recent Research Poll found that 83 of americans found that current tensions have made the relationship between the administration and the news media unhealthy. We will employ several different formats including stand alone talk and panels in order to investigate these complex issues. We are pleased that this symposium is being broadcast by several different networks. We are also live casting it at newsium. Org live and on several social media platforms hashtag trump and the press. Important support for this symposium was by the foundations which we are extremely grateful. Addition funding has been provided by the fund for the National Capital region. Would also like to express my thanks to our friends at had dad media. For all their help for putting together this ambitious program. The newsium will continue to explore issues that are vital to our democracy. This symposium will launch a year log set of discussions entitled the First Amendment and the Trump Administration. I hope that you will attend future events in this series and other programs that explore consequential issues. Tonight, for instance, in this room we are showing the First Episode of films new Program Inside the f. B. I. New york. After the episode i will be interviewing the f. B. I. Director and execute yoif roduder. His work dominated the political conversation last fall and he hasnt led up. He has graciously agreed to share his approach and his insights into what the future holds for this sort of vital reporting. Now, david. [applause] to say magine, i want this at the begin ginning. This is the time for extraordinary power for the media in washington. Although there are a number of people some of whom may come on the stage today who call us fake news. We live in a time when the folks with power in washington often lack the cohesion, the ability, the organization to shape a narrative about themselves. Usually one of the dynamics that we deal with in washington is that a president ial administration is acting as a unit to see the way the public sees them. We dont have that now for better or for worse so the ublic look to us to make sense of what happens. How did mike pence the Vice President learn that the National Security advisor mike flynn had misled him about contacts with the u. S. Ambassador . He read it in the u. S. Post. How did folks find out that the Health Care Bill had been pulled without a vote . They read about it from the Washington Post and the New York Times where the president himself had called to spread they s, hoping that would get it right. One of the dynamics that we dealt with last year in the transition period before President Trump took over is the power of his twitter feed. His ability to use twitter to get around us or to actually more often just sort of command us to cover whatever he wanted. But weve seen that President Trump has diluted the the power of that weapon by repeatedly use it to hint that he would do things that he would not do or make claims that he had no evidence to back up. For example, they werent wiretapping trump towers. Those have taken away to act as Americas National news from his bed to the kitchen table. That ability that no president ever had to command the media that we saw in january. So we come back to the idea that people now rely on us more than ever to make sense of hats going on here. The people who were tuned out are now engaged. Theyre excited, encouraged, terrified, whatever it is theyre reading decisions. All these thing that is used to be thing that is we covered for a washington audience and some audience beyond now has this enormous national audience. So for those people coming to us for the first time are acting as a sustained audience for the first time. We must show them why were better. If they dont know we have to show it to them in our work. So last year in the course of reporting this story about Donald TrumpsCharitable Giving or promises to give to charity, i tried to use social media as a means of that kind of transparency, to show readers what i knew, what i was trying to learn, what i still didnt know and how i knew what i knew. This kind of began not by any plan but by necessity. Last year, in may, i had this reporting problem, a problem i never had to deal with before. I had been writing before about the promise donald trump had made to give 6 million that he gathered from the public including 1 million out of his own pocket to give to charity. I couldnt account for especially the Million Dollars that came out of his pocket. Then his Campaign Manager called me and said donald trump had given the Million Dollars away, this was in may. Given to two veterans groups but couldnt tell me when, how, or what amount. Hes not going to share that information. We had to take his word for it. But i dont want to take his word for it because this is a hugely important promise that he had made to make veterans lives better. A huge selling point of his campaign. If he said he was going to give his own money to veterans i want prove. How do you get that . You wouldnt prove that he gave no money away. So i tried to prove a positive, to find some evidence. To find 1. I did it on twitter. Heres one example. I tweeted that veterans organizations, veterans advocates, journalists who cover veterans, celebrities to advocate for veterans, anybody active on veterans on twitter, i asked have you gotten even one dollar . Do you know anybody who did . And i included trumps handle as you can see so trump himself would see. So either a group would see and say i got 100,000 and heres the proof. Or trump might see and come forward. I spent a day searching this way on twitter and i found no money. I didnt find a dollar. Turned out that was because the money did not exist. When he told me that he had given the Million Dollars away he had not. It was only until that night, may 23, the night after i had done this long public search that trump actually gave the Million Dollars away. Gave it to a group called the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation whose leaders he knew. Trump called me the next day to say that he had given the money away. I asked him, did you just give this money away now because i was asking about it . He called me a nasty guy, as you can see here. The last time we talked. So later the scope of my reporting widend and we said if he had been willing to try to wiggle out of a promise to give a Million Dollars to veterans, what would he be trying to do when nobody was looking when he was a private citizen . He had been promising to give away millions of dollars and i started calling charities. I asked the Trump Campaign to identify charities they had given money to. They didnt respond. I looked at charities that would be the most likely to receive money from donald trump. I made a list and i took pictures of it and posted it on twitter. I got to 450 charities again that trump had praised in public, that had rented out ball rooms from him. Charities that he had given money to from his foundation which was not his money. Anybody that i thought if he had given a dollar of his own money they would have gotten it. So i also thought maybe we would call again and tell me the truth. This time he did not call. My search turned up between 2008 and 2015 a period in which trump had said he was giving millions of dollars away it turned up one gift less than 10,000. I also so in this process i used social media to ask trump supporters. Anybody who might know where he had given away his money to come forward. At the same time i was using social media to try to solve another problem which was the foundation, it wasnt really his money, he had been using it to buy thing that is you shouldnt use your money to buy if youre running a charity like giant portraits of yourself. In one case trump had paid 10,000 to buy a large portrait of himself. I needed to know where that portrat was because if you bought it with the charitys money it has to be used for charitable purposes. I needed to know where it was. This is one of a number of times in which i asked my readers for help. And they amazed me with their ingenuity. A in this example, theres reader a stay at home mother and a short story writer in atlanta. She had the idea to look on the trip adviser page where trumps golf course where people had posted pictures of the 18th green or hotel buffet. Photos and she finds at the very bottom there a picture of donald trump. The portrait that i had been searching for was shown on a trip adviser page hanging on the wall at a sports bar. So thats a huge break. But the picture that she found was dated february 2016. Its now as you can see september. I need to know, where is it now . An anchor sees that i have retweeted and we know where the painting was at least in february. He realized its four blocks away. He uses a reservation using points. He didnt want to give donald trump any money. In, late, r, checked 12 30 at night. He asked the cleaning crew to let him into the sports bar and there it is. So in 14 hours we went from not knowing where in the world this portrait was to having it on the wall in the flesh. In this case apparently breaking the law. Just as a post script one of the funniest parts of the story is the explanation for how this portrait came to be hanging on the wall at this sports bar. They said it may appear that the charity did the sports bar a favor by buying art. But really the the sports bar is doing the charity a favor by storing their charitable portrait on the wall. This got me my favorite quotes of the whole story was legal expert said its hard to make an i. R. S. Auditter laugh but this will do it. Since President Trumps inauguration i have seen a number of news outlets sort of embracing transparency other ways. One example is the great things the New York Times have done where they post the full transcript of their interview. They sit down and talk to trump. They want to give people every word. So people can dig through and find things that they think are interesting and see the whole picture. You also see it in a raft of incredible stories from the post times, wall street writing politico, about west wing and tell you how many leak to them from within the west wing. If youre somebody like me, its more people that you thought that are being quoted. Theres a politico story that i admire where they talked about a rebranding effort where i think 20 people had been gathered together to talk about the messaging of President Trumps first 100 days and six 20 people had leaked. I talked earlier about how we want to show people why we what we do 20 people had is better. If you see that story you have a lot of confidence that story is right. So being transparent helps readers understand that we are not fake news. It helps trust what we can do by helping us focus on what we know and to be more explicit in our writing. So if you want to call a source because it would be better to have 20 leakers rather than 19, that 21st might tell you something the the 20th source might tell you something you didnt know. The story gets better and being more explicit only makes our reporting better and only i creases that trust. So in closing, for the news media our new power should come with a profound sense of humility. An openness to criticism what we ignore, as we become more ransparent we have to listen to what comes back in from people who think were not doing it right. I hope that with Greater Transparency we can show readers why we deserve their time and trust ifment also hope it makes it more likely we question ourselves in the process of explaining our process. I look forward to hearing a lot more. Thank you for letting me start it off. [applause] , here to introduce the group its a special pleasure to welcome mike allen. [applause] talking about communicating for and with the president. We have two of the great practitioners of this. re lucky to have jen, the Communications Director for president obama. She held the same position in ecretary clintons campaign. A long history of working with the press. And when the New York Times did a story about her joining the clinton campaign, they pointed out that she tends to work with rather than against the press. Ot necessarily common. We were friendly and our worked re friends and ogether quite well you were on camera for how many . 300 off. What was the biggest mistake you made at the podium . I think it speaks well of you that i cant think of one. Taking it. Watching what happened to shawn yesterday, i twice had to issue apologies. It is immense. So what was the other one . Pick the scabs. What a reporter. No. Thats exactly right. Good memory. One of my favorite reporters asked me a question once about isnt bush to blame for the violence in the middle east because george bush wasnt doing anything to the resolve the situation in the middle east but bill clinton was and there was no violence when bill clinton was president. I didnt like the premise so i pointed out that the violence began in 2000 when clinton put the status of jerusalem on the table. So i continued in an effort to shoot the moon when the violence began. So bush blames clinton for middle east violence. Conde called me into her office and said i need to apologize. I said no i dont. After five minutes, i realized yes i do. So i marched myself into the oval, turned myself in to the president the, apologized. And then the second was in the war could be avoided if the iraqi people took it to their own hands in just one bullet there would not have to be a need for any military operation. When you make a mistake, you walk through it. I say this as a press secretary and somebody who is very proudly jewish. He should make clear it was a heartfelt apologies. What has surprised you . I have been surprised that its relatively conventional actually. I wasnt sure they were going to continue the daily brief but it doesnt seem to be effective way for the Trump White House to communicate. Theres a lot thats newsy and thats great for the public and there have been moments that were helpful for us. But they do that from fox and trump tweets. But other than that they dont really do much communicating. And i thought that they would be more unconventional in trying to reach local press, trying to reach regional press, be President Trump could going on some of the shows. What i saw my job working for president obama is the is his job to community kate to the American People. Be going on that is you want to communicate your message but you also have responsibility just to explain to the American People whats there came a time when its not possible to only talk to the press. If youre doing so youre not reaching everyone. About how you there came reach everywhere where they are so that he could be communicating with them. And they seem to the Trump White House talking to you guys which is great and i think that the press has risen to the occasion and how trump is being covered and not letting important story lines go by the about how you side. But you know, leaving a lot on the table and not communicating with others. We can see the tweet there for those listning on line ari fleischers tweet. That was that saturday beginning to the administration. The inaugural celebration. Was just a foolish endeavor from the start to the end. You know, the notion that crowd size was just a mattered. That the president needed to weigh in on what the size of the crowd was as a validation of his election. And poor shawn. Shawn was sent out to argue with the press about it and it was a terrible way for a press secretary to begin relations with the press corps on that saturday night. I said at the time that if shawn fumbled the ball on saturday night he picked it up, recovered, and ran for a first down on monday when he had his first briefing. Nightline quote to and they chopped it in the middle and said shawn fumbled the ball. But look the press secretarys job is to reflect nightline the president d it in the and i will make the case would you rather have a press secretary who you really like, get along with well, who treats you nicely but has no clue what donald trump is thinking, or would you rather have a press secretary who knows what donald trump believes, wants to be said and says it even if he doesnt get along with you . Im sure the answer is they would the president and i will like to get along bu they would much rather have a press secretary who knows what the president is thinking. H because thats his job. As the top communicater for both president clinton and president obama how often was there a conflict between communicating effectively for the president and balancing concerns for journalists . It was inherent in every conversation that you have as a Communications Person with your colleagues and its inherent with every decision that gets made involving the press at the with the at the white house. And i thought that i think he is right, everybody would just value someone who they prefer having a source that was knowledgeable than somebody who gave them access elsewhere in the white house or someone who was pleasant. And that was always the most important credibility to for the press secretary and the commodity to protect. So you would go and i worked for president clinton and president obama you make sure that was when i was there ay was press secretary and josh. That their relationship with the president , everyone had to understand that was direct and that josh. They had could walk and have access within every point in every meeting and that was really the key thing. But it was also our job to advocate for the press within the building and thats they ha very unpopular thing to do. And every heres something true of Hillary Clinton, bill clinton and barack obama. Your friends in the press. This is what every bus i have had, your friends in the press. Bush called them my people. Your people. Yeah. So thats a big thing. Your people. So you have to but it is you understand that is part of your job not just because youve got to service the press but youre ultimately youre just constantly trying to keep your side out of trouble. Wheres the line between overresponding to buying into the premise of a processes story that the press are pushing that is damaging your white house, like wheres the line between lets ignore it and try to make and wait for it to run its course, or were compounding our problem by not engaging and trying to figure out when you engage and when you dont. Thats the constant battle thats going on. On the best days, did president clinton or president obama like the press, understand the press more . President obama i guess. The president obama would get i mean, president clinton i guess the funny hing about both is you can see itser one having chosen journalist as a path and that they understand communicating, they understand the power of journalism. They would both get frustrated by journalists that they considered being lazy, taking the easy way out, being cynical in that by dummying down politics to just process. And that would frustrate both of them. President obama had an interesting learned bare, though. So a good example. I had worked at the white house during health care. Gov and which back then counted as a huge disaster that the website didnt work. It seems sort of quaint in retrospect. But that was like the the big crisis in the country was that the website didnt work. People werent Getting Health Care fast enough. So president obama thought it was a wreck. My god, this unbelievable stress. Ridiculous now. But we were at a meeting in the oval Office One Day and i started to walk out. The president said hold on, i want you to know that i know that the press around the website isnt going to get better until it is fixed. So hes like you should keep trying and its great youre trying but i want you to know that this isnt a press problem. Until it actually works and people are Getting Health Care the press isnt going to improve. So i just dont, like, carey that around with you that its not and i was like, wow. Thank you. That just really lifted a lot of pressure off. I was assured by my colleagues that was a Learned Behavior on his part that he didnt walk in to the white house thinking that the press staff shouldnt be able to fix press problems. It was a big joke in the Obama White House and i really credit my colleagues because they would look at me. I would say to them just because a story appears in the press or an issue is aired out in the press doesnt make it a press problem. Usually its just a problem. Where you read about it they would always joke, i dont know. This is like a Big Communications problem. The whole thing with the website. Or ebola. This is a big press problem because people are really worried and its showing up in the press. But they understand the difference between what you could what was actually just a problem that needed to be managed and there were communication problems, too. In going in i thought there was a possibility for press relationships to be different. I think that if you talk to the press that covered the campaign they would say we did our part relationship professional and pretty good under those circumstances. I had a few screaming matches. Everyone does. But what we walked in to was the press thought that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president and they thought and they were harder on her and came after her in an effort that i thought that they believed was going to make her a better candidate, was going to make her a tougher president d made an issue out of e mails into such a big issue could get ahead that. And i think that it but i think that is the why is they thought she actually was going to win. Thats early on. Thats like in the that. And i think that spring of 2015. Blown out of got proportion. I think grossly mishandled by the press. Obviously haunted her until the election. The other end of the telescope why does she hate us . She doesnt hate you. And she does was that a singular you or plural you . Youre very observant. He doesnt hate you, mike. It is pretty hard, you guys, to look at what Hillary Clinton has been through in the last 30 years and not understand that she is going to have some doubts about how the press is going to treat her. I would note that when she was secretary of state she had a great relationship with the press because her relationship with them was on her job and issues. And she even socialized with the members of her press corps that covered her during the state department. But thats different than what happens in a president ial campaign where its much more of a cat and mouse game to the detriment i think of the public and also where it is much more about her personally, and i certainly think, i could write a book. I may write a book. About how shes a generationally challenging figure. She was a baby boomer from the moment she walked obto her commencement stage and gave a challenging commencement address, she was a woman, a baby boomer, challenging the roles of a woman. The next time we saw her was a next lady. E had a career, she wasnt home and bake cookies. That was a challenging, and drew fire from that and that defined her in the minds of a lot of people and her press coverage has been colored by that home and bake cookies. That was ar since. The hatred that hangs around that woman is completely irrational. I think it has its beginnings in the decades before and it elements to this day. Right after the inauguration the New York Times interviewed you about shawn spicers eagerness and willingness to confront the press corps. You pointed out that was a break with tradition. You quoted everybody complains about the press but most people bite their tongue. Donald trump does not bite is tongue. I do think its fair to hink that the press is biased. Donald trump pushed back on that. Let me give you the predcalt of why it largely is working for him although in this town would believe it. But theres a couple polls i want to site. September 2016, a gallup would. But theres a poll came out asking the most fundamental question about do you have confidence in the press to report the news fairly, fair lirks and accurately . The core mission of the press. Alltime low. 32 have confidence in the news. 14 of republicans have confidence. Alltime low. 2 30 of independents, 51 of democrats. Alltime historic low. Pew poll asked in november 2016 a list of institutions in our society and said give an f grade to these institutions. Voters. So the public was asked to give a grade to the voters themselves. 13 . Hillary clinton she got 21 of the public gave her an f. Democrats got 2 f. Pollsters 30 fch. G. O. P. 30 . Donald trump 35 f. The press 38 . They hated us. Dont dismiss it. This is my point. After the election then has anything changed because donald trump is so unpopular . Are people changing thoughts about donald trump . Gallup poll came out last week, percentage of adults who have no confidences in scientists 4 , k12 principal, business leaders, elected officials, news media 21 . Finally gallup poll also last week, 64 say the press favor democrats, 22 say they favor republicans. But the press tends too often to just dismiss it to go beyond it to just acknowledge it, i think theyve heard it for so long but they dont chair. They dont change. And this is the fundamental problem with the press and why donald trump does strike a cord when he takes the press on. He does it in a way that is sometimes over the top and can be offensive but also resonates with a lot of people who are tired of it and think the press should change. My only advice to reporters, a group i do enjoy working with and i believe in because its important for the country to have a strong independent press is you have to take seriously when youre at a historic alltime low people dont have confidence that you report fairly and accurately. Stop focusing on process, stop pitting one camp against another, focus on substance and stop telling the American People what it is they should think or follow. Just tell them the facts and leave the judgments up to the people. [applause] intreeg heres has it has a role in coverage i think. It should be covered to some degree because it tells you a lot about how a white house is operating and that is relevant for the American People to know and it tells you what kind of leadership style the president is employing. I think that is somewhat relevant for people to know. It goes way overboard. And to a point of being a distraction not just for the press. It can burn up a lot of time in the white house too. Its a very dangerous thing. You can get consumed. It was something that the Obama White House did a good job of ignoring. Whatever the press is saying about the staff and were able to keep it to a minimum but can be very, very distracting and thats damaging for everyone. I think it happened because if the they wait for the press its a way for the press resists covering issues in a deep and serious way because if you you are either in doing so youre youre usually coming down on one side or the other. So if you cover if you cover process, if you cover personalities, if you just judge the white house on who is getting along or who is not or are they excuting well or not and you dont have to the weigh in on what theyre actually doing thats a favorite place for the press to the be. I think when i worked in a Democratic White House i found and its been changing. I think most journalists are probably leaning more to the left than the right. Think about the kind of person thats drawn to do this as a career. They believe in government, they think politics matters. They like it. They find it interesting. They dont you know they dont make a lot of money. But what i found is it means they come after us harder on i describe as the crap. They come after us on the intrigue, on the process, on things that shouldnt matter. But really contribute to the cynicism thats revealed in these numbers because youre not talking about what people care about. And to make that point more broadly. We were chatting back stage and talking about topics would be fun to cover hand the topics that both brought up is bias. You were making the point that because of what you think reporters natural inclinations are theyre more likely to be harder on you in general. I think they also i remember during president clintons years, where first really revealed to me gas prices were high. And theyre coming after us on something. It was during gore and bush. Said, if president bush were president you guys wouldnt be coming after him on gas prices. No, because hes a republican. But youre said, if president b president you guys wouldnt be democrat. You should solve the problem. Oh, ok. Youre supposed to be better than this. And they would put and i hink that is really i definitely found a different standard in covering democrats than covering republicans. And not necessarily democrat. I different metric that they democrats, and i think they come after us harder on both being able to solve a problem or and then also on the process and intrigue. Its very interesting to me for jen to say that. I think what youre saying is valid about the clintons. The press had no like for the clintons and i think that was reciprocated but with barack obama it was totally different. The press was soft on barack obama, they were hard on the clintons and harder on trump. The atlantic magazine did a story that showed that 24 journalists working journalists went into the obama dministration. Do you know what its like to be a press secretary on the phone with a reporter asking legitimate news worthy stories only to realize later do you know what its like to be a press that reporter entered the administration against those ideas that you hold. And they will say to themselves were fair, independent, neutral. But 24 went into the obama administration. It reminds me of the saturday night live in 2008 between hillary and obama. The press now loved f loves to cover donald trump. But remember how they had the debate and the press question was can we put any pillows behind you barack obama . How many pillows would you like . I dont think thats fundamentally changed in the eight years of the coverage. The press loved barack obama. They loved his story as a candidate, his speech in 2006 and i brought with me some of the greatest quotes about barack obama. Time, joe kline, obama seemed the political equivalent of a rain bow inspiring awe and ecstacy. Meredith, many people after your 2004 Convention Speech werent sure how to pronounce your name but they were moved by you, people crying that you tap into something. You touched people. It never really stopped during the years when he was president. Here is Washington Post about president obamas vacation fitness program. Between workouts during his hawaii vacation this week he photographed looking like the paradigm of the new kind of president ial fitness one geared less toward preventing heart attacks than womens sunsuit competitions. The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during weight lifting sessions, a body toned by basketball games. And david, Washington Post and then time. Now were all accustomed to the obeie wan kin obeie calm. But what seems sal ynt to obama is the anhe is a man about business. Spares us the dead or alive braveedo the mello drama of a 3 00 a. M. Phone call, a door swung open for a candidate that would merely stand and deliver. The competent man is king. Sounds like the Obama Communications staff did a great job. They did because they were journalists who became the obama administrations staff. Agreeing with your point that the media pools dont Pay Attention to the numbers you were talking about one of the services that ari provided is media training. If you were hired as a consultant for one of our great news organizations, if you in, what advice would you have for them about how to fix their or adjust their coverage . How much would they pay . Youre expensive. By the way, i have zero political clients now. Im on the board of the republican jewish coalition. I deliberatively wanted no politics. Corporate communications. One of the reasons i enjoy politics so much is it has nothing to do with my livelihood. But ile answer your question with a story. When i was on the wames committee in 1997, 12 students came to d. C. For a week long program. I spent an hour with them talking about how news is made on capitol hill. At the end of my talk i said just out of curiosity in the 96 election how many voted for bob dole and how many for clinton . Clinton first. 11 hands went up. I looked at the 12th person. Only one of you voted for bob dole . No. I voted for ralph nader. Journalism will never fix itself until it addresses the selfselection issue of who goes into journalism. Give me a news room of 11 Ronald Reagan voter and one pat buchanan voter and i guarantee definition of news itself will change. Journalists cannot correct it within the news room itself. Its a matter of the type of people who go into journalism. Theres nothing nefarious about this. I think people who go on to wall street are cut from the same cloth. You need people who are able to think differently. People who are able to say i think donald trump can win this presidency. Youre missing whats going on in the heartland and it range so wrong to so many because they couldnt understand it, they couldnt relate to it. The Washington Post when sonny perdue was named secretary of agriculture they put out a story, a headline, mocking perdue for praying for rain. Now, it was a drought in georgia. He prayed for rain. This is not uncommon, ladies and gentlemen, in religious parts of america. The post thought it rose up to the level. This is just this year last year when he was named of a headline for a man praying. What is wrong with praying . To the press its a legitimate news worthy issue that the public needs to understand the man prays. If you were a consultant to news organizations, how would you recommend covering the Trump Administration differently . What is being missed or what ould be done more sharply . The coverage is better than i expected. I believe that President Trump is i think that he is a real threat and i think that we cant have normal conventional tandards of how democrats or how the press how the press treats him. And i think that has been its been better than i expected. I was concerned that important story lines would get dropped like russia. Its you know, i understand when he tweets something you have to cover that because he is the president of the United States. But people are still going back to the story lines that matter. I do think theres still a lot out there thats sort of hidden in plain sight about how this white house operates. That they need to think more critically about. If you look at some of the circumstances. You know, the president retweeting excellent fox reporting thats clearly classified material that the nfc leaked. Its ridiculous. So its just so absurd. Think about what that means. That means someone in their white house is somebody from the administration or probably the nsc is leaking information to fox to justify the president s false tweet about president obama wiretapping him. And is the president in on that . Probably. Who is protecting the president from you want to protect the president in an investigation like this, to make sure the president doesnt know all the details of the machinations of what youre trying to figure out before you come to some sort of conclusion so they arent you know, theyre not contaminated by that. I find it really hard to believe that anyone is protecting donald trump when hes asking questions about what kind of intel do these people, do the obama people have on me when i came in here . Its like theres still not enough Critical Thinking at every new development about what does that mean thats happening now in that white house . Looking at leaks through the other end of the telescope from the point of view of the people in the west wing. Their fact of life. How do you deal with that . Its a we the Obama White House did not have a lot of them. Why . I think it was definitely a tone set at the top and there was an eetsdzos of we are all in this together. Theres a lot of respect for everyone. Their white house didnt have a lot of leaks either. You could see that was sort of set at the top. The Clinton White house i would say that was a little more volatile, a little more fluid. And we had more leaks. They are the best you could say about the person who leaks is they think they know better than everyone else. Right . They want to they think they can control the outcome by leaking. This is a problem that shawn spicer has is that if he doesnt have credibility at the podium and you know, theres reasons for why thats been a problem then everyone who is leaking has more credibility. So the press will go if they dont feel theyre getting what they need from the podium or press secretary, they go inside the white house everywhere else and thats why were seeing now the proliferation of stories based on leaks. This is where no drama obama served the president very, very well, the fact that he kept a calm hand. And that spreads to the staff. If the boss likes pitted camps then they act like pitted camps, which is prime leakage for reporters. Thats why i think president obama ran such a good ship in the sense of no leaks. While were playing consultant ari suggested two changes to the format of the modern White House Press briefing. He first is you would take off live tv. Explain why. My conclusion, mike and i wrote a joint op ed for columbia journalism review is the briefing has become a tv lost its value. The secretary acts like a participant in a tv show. Used to try to figure out what and deliver with hand movement. That my eyings are up. It becomes a stage that you act on. Now cameras do the cut aways of reporters. They didnt wear ties or jackets. Now you notice the tv ones do. Because they know the editors are watching and the question is going to the make it on air that night. Thats not a serious policy briefing. I would take the briefing off of camera and then reporters if the theres an event like september 11th, by mutual agreement you can change of course. There are times it should be live. But i would work that out with the white house correspondance association. But this Trump White House in my judgement doesnt need to shake things up, it needs to calm things down. Go back to thing that is work, which is actually talk to reporters, taking questions in the least confrontational atmosphere as possible, which is hard to do but the camera confrontational and often confrontational and often unnecessary. This week you told George Stephanopoulis that democrats were just figuring out the right way to oppose this president. And you said they should follow the rules but they should not follow convention. About how r thinking effectively oppose this administration . By that i mean effectively oppose this administration . By that i mean you need to there are certain niceties that washington observes. Thats convention. Rules are what is in the constitution and whats in and whats in the law. So they you know, not voting for gorsuch i think that they ave to take whatever stand they can take to use whatever leverage that they have to presure you know, at that time, the response theyre needing to get from the administration. I think that they should be pushing on any legislative lever they have to get on russia, for example. And that is there are only you know, there are less in there. They have probably a little more leverage than the house democrats. And they cant just stay in their own box. They have to understand that i think theyre there to protect our democracy and they have to use whatever leverage that they have to do that even if its never been done before. About to get the hook here so question for you. Jen, some advice for young people who are in this room who are watching on tv that could help them become you. So what i learned in the Clinton White house is nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems and this too shall pass. Those are and i think thats certainly true in politics. This is why i never read an email that leaked about myself from john because i dont need to know. I know thats going to pass. The other but what i also learned in the Clinton White house i wish the clinton campaign. I thought i went in there thinking, ok, i know how to do this. I have a ton of communications experience. I can control a narrative, i can tell a good story. I realized i had very little ability in this eepvirmente today to do that but i knew what to do, i could handle whatever did happen even if you cant control what does happen. In todays environment just bory about how youre going to handle something. As we say goodbye here youre at the top of the game advising president , professional sports leagues. Show us your phone. Mike caught me on my old flip phone. Which i was at a game once talking object my flip phone and my camera showed me and made fun of me. Go ahead and flip it. But i also have this one. Flip open this and explain why you have it. Im a new yorker. Spent 21 years here and i couldnt wait to move back to new york when i was done. So this is my last piece of washington i have is still a 202 phone number. And it still has direct dials to the bunker under the white house, to camp david. Im never getting rid of this sucker. We thank our audience on line, we thank you you for coming out this morning. Our amazing hosts here. All the people working behind the scenes. For an amazing conversation. [applause] thanks so much. Coming up this morning,. Harter schools u. S. A. Ed and efforts by betsy devoss to reform education and Advance School choice. Next, john brayo of the Consumer League talks about nsumer scans and his administrations push to do more to protect consumers. And the atlantic counsels george ben it ezz how much the u. S. Contributes to nato ministrations compared to what other countries pay. Be sure to watch. Coming up at 7 00 this morning. Join the discussion. In case you missed it on cspan c. I. A. Director on National Security and compared to what wikileaks. Because while we do our best to quietly collect information on those who pose real threats to our country, individuals such as Edward Snowden seek to use that information to make a name for themselves. As lock as they make a splash they care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to National Security. Former pakistani president. I think those blaming pakistan are absolutely wrong. They must understand pakistans sacrifices. The role we played and the sacrifices we have given fighting terrorism. And we continue. Nato secretary general. We have been loyal to our policy. Ue, our core ever since we were founded back tpwh 1949. That is that we are an alliance where we have promised to protect each other. One for all, all for one. Prize laureate addresses a joint session of the canadian parliament. 130 Million Girls are out of school today. They may not have their studies and they may not know the statistics but they understand that education is the only path to brighter futures. Secretary of state Rex Tillerson on u. S. Russia relations. We frankly discussed the current state of u. S. Russia relations. I expressed the view that the current state of russiau. S. Relations is at a low point. There is a low level of trust between our two countries. The worlds two foremost cannot have this kind of relationship. Cspan programs are available at cspan. Org, on our home page, and by searching the video library. High School Students from around the country were in washington, d. C. Last month for the United States senate program. Next we hear from some of the participants on q a. After that, washington journal is live with your phone calls and a look at todays headlines