you re a thoughtful guy. how do you get in the heads of these people. they must be knowing they re trading away their raupgs reputations for a job. that s a hell of a price to pay for government checks. they all know. first of all, one term i shy away from and a lot of us tend to use, what a thankless job, what a happless job. this is not indentured servitude. they re there of their own volition. why do they do it. they justify it for their own reasons. many of them a lot of are getting more, he posh than they ever would and a lot of them will not get white house jobs in any other administration. there is that opportunity. there s not a long line of top tier republican operatives trying to work empty white house. trump is someone who has a pretty stringent loyalty code to who gets to work for him. it s not a big pool in either direction but i do think, look,
during his tour and the inspector general s report that will come out will help them. this is a place that the president they think will be okay in. i think that jew has landed some punches in the past few weeks but i m not sure what it really means in the end. it s been a lot of noise. it s been a lot of aggressiveness. this is exactly what the president wanted. he wanted a television lawyer to go out and make his case. john dowd and ty cobb did not do that. giuliani is doing that in a much more aggressive way. winning a few points here but i m not sure that that matters in the end. the associated press is now reporting how the president is spin slg legitimate news reports to make questionable allegations. trump made one ally, told one ally this week he wanted to brand the informant in this case a spy. believing the more nefarious term spy would resonate more with the media and the public. let me go back to the judge to joyce on this.
many of them spoke on the condition of anonymity. what s the style book on this at the times? if somebody s trashing the president inside, you don t quote them and if they say something that s flackery for the president, do you quote him. how does it work? well, it works. it s case by case. if someone is a spokesperson for the president and they re the subject i ve story as hogan was in this case, i m not going to give him anonymity. obviously, usingen named sources is an occupational hazard in our job. sometimes you need to. i do think in this case it s kind of special because one, you have trump, whenever we use anonymous sources, saying they don t exist, they re just making them up. on the other hand, you have his spokespeople immediately asking for anonymity. which one is it. i m not very i was not very accommodating in general to that and i don t think this was not the kind of piece where i wanted to do that.
the new york times first reported today that president trump s son-in-law jared kushner has finally been grant aid regular security clearance. his background checks have dragged on for over a year fueling questions whether the mueller probe turned up any evidence he was a security threat. according to a person briefed on matter, that was not the case. the times further reports mr. curbners s clearances were approved by career officials and that the president was not involved in the process. nbc news confirmed kushner met for a second time with special counsel mueller s team. that interview lasted more than six hours that included questions on the comey firing. we ll be right back. people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. they thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldn t that be cool?
he s tab attacking the press and there were no cameras. there was nothing going on. i said you know, that is getting tired. why are you doing this? you re doing it over and over and it s boring and it s time to end that, you know, you ve won the nomination and why do you keep hammering at this? and he said you know why i do it? i do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when he write negative stories about me, no one will believe. you for more i m joined by susan page from usa today and brent stevens new york times columnist and msnbc political contributor. susan, you first then brett. this is something else. he s willing to destroy anything right now but i ll tell you, i think lesley stahl is a match for him in terms of credibility, more than a match. actually, what she said relating his comments to her make perfect sense. that is exactly what president trump has tried to do with the news media. it s what he s also tried to do