From our studios in new york, this is charlie rose. Jay carney is here. He is the White House Press secretary. He has served since 2011. He was director of communications for Vice President biden. He spent his career at Time Magazine. His position at the magazine was Washington Bureau chief. President obama announced that he had accepted carneys resignation. One of his favorite lines is i have no Personnel Announcements at this time. But, i do. It is bittersweet. It involves one of my closest friends here in washington. In april, jay came to me and said he was thinking about moving on. I was not thrilled, to say the least. But, he has had to wrestle with this for quite some time. He has been on my team since day one. For two years but the Vice President , with us as the press secretary. I am pleased to have jay carney back at this table. Welcome. Thank you. What was that moment like for you . I thought about it for a while. We wanted it to be a surprise. Once i had gone to the president in april and had a sad but gratifying conversation about why it was time, with my children, and the age that they are, we decided the best way to do this was quickly and discreetly. And, wouldnt it be wonderful to surprise the White House Press corps . We thought through this notion of them interacting the briefing and catch them off guard. It was still a tough moment. I realized what he was saying represented what i felt about this experience. The best thing about it has been in midlife to find myself amid all of these new people, focus on one thing, which is not self interesting. To be on this team, and to make, and to feel as i leave these are people i will want to fight for and fight with forever. It has been a remarkably rewarding experience. The relationship with him, he has said you are one of his best friends. You were not part of the inner circle that got him elected. Those are the people closest the president. How did you go from a guy that was a member of the press in Good Standing through biden, and to president , and create the sense that he is one of your best friends. I am the perfect example of why one of the myths about barack obama is a myth. That he is insular, and he doesnt want new people in his world. Because, i barely knew him when i joined the white house as a reporter. I met him a few times. Facilitated a few meetings with editors. Until i came to work for the Vice President i hadnt had much of a relationship. It says so much about our country. One of the reasons why we got along is because even though he is Barack Hussein obama, born in hawaii, grew up in hawaii, and i am jay carney from virginia, we have a similar worldview and temperament, and come at things in a way that is very unified. We both have two kids. We have been through a lot of the same things in recent years with our kids. When we sat down and talked, long trips on air force one, it would be about those things, and not just about what the press was saying. Which raises an interesting question. Ive talked about you. They have said to me, a couple of them, it was amazing how fast he went from a reporter at the top of his game, having served around the world and then in moscow, which is a great experience from that skeptic, probing, prove it, to a guy who went into the white house and became a true believer. Fast, quick. I dont disagree. Overnight. I dont think you sign up for Something Like this if you dont believe in it. Or believe in the president and the Vice President. Whichever party you are with, whichever administration you join, if youre not doing it for that reason you shouldnt do it. I did. Even though i was an Old School Reporter and i played it down the middle, i was not an advocate as a reporter for Time Magazine. Even had folks who were surprised, thought i was a republican when i joined the team. I believed in what they were doing. I believed the time was right for the change they represented. And had been very comfortable and proud of what the president has done. As i understand it, you placed a call to the administration after they won, saying maybe there is a job for me. The truth is, i called one of my best friends, and he was at the time working for joe biden in the senate as a senior staff member on foreign relations. Tony and i are in a terrible garage band together. He is more talented than i am. I was excited for him. I congratulated him. He knew my personal feelings about how much i was glad that they had won. We talked that maybe i should do this too. That led to the conversation at the Vice President was live for communications director. I spoke to my wife and basically no one else and said, i would be interested in that. That is exciting. I knew senator biden, but not well. We had both been in washington for a while. Long story short, suddenly during the transition i was leaving Time Magazine to join this new white house. Were you disillusioned with reporting . With the relationship between the press and government . That came after. Anything having to do with you werent settled with what you were doing or disillusioned by the way the world work . No, i loved my years at time. I was there during the coup in moscow, i was on air force one covering george w. Bush on 9 11, and Amazing Things in between. The only factor that played into my decision at the time related to my feelings for journalism, i was ready for something new. Not that i was i wrote for a living for 21 years. Every story came hard for me. Some people it is easy, they write and write. I wish i can be one of them. Every story was top. Every paragraph. I had gotten to a point where i didnt have that kind of fear when i said unto write a story. That told me it was time to do something new. But was great about getting the opportunity to go to the white house is that for the first time in both jobs, i woke up every morning wondering i was cut out to do this job. Whether i could do. Confidence to do it. It is new. When you cover a white house like i did, you think you know a lot about how the white house works, how press shops work. Within five minutes of joining the Vice President s team, i learned i had a lot to learn. I knew the surface about strategic communications, how you want to say things, how you want to frame policy choices, how you want your principal to talk about it. I was lucky. The reporter you mentioned before, saying how quickly i change perspectives, part of that was i was lucky because i spent those years behind the scenes with the Vice President , not at the podium. I learned a lot and had a lot of great teachers, like robert gibbs, and the Vice President s chief of staff. By the time i had done the two years, i felt ready to cross the street to the Briefing Room. Did you make this decision because you are saying goodbye to journalism . In the way i had practiced it. You would not be a reporter again. I dont think i see that in my future. Maybe i will write some more. I dont think ill be out there going after the story the way i used to. I have fond memories of doing that. There was a sense, im saying goodbye to part of my life. You cant go back and forth. I think that is right. I think, again, ive done things that i felt good about. I had great experiences. History at a great time. Have that front row seat again from a different perspective. What percentage reporters covering the white house every day, whose business it is to understand and discover what is going on, what percentage do you think they know, or can know . The good ones know 15 , 20 . Because they are good, reasonably, and carefully extrapolate beyond that. A lot of what you dont know is not necessarily the most important information. The one thing you find inside is how much passes through the white house. The bandwidth of that building and those who work in that building is extraordinarily broad. There is so much going on in there. It is too much for reporters who cover it. That is partly the result of this concentration of focus on the white house has been developing for decades. Where it makes you look at the way news media covers washington and politics. Especially the networks and tv, but everyone. More and more, everything is focused on the white house. They used to have the reporters covering the agencies and subcommittees of capitol hill. Now it is just this is the locust of power, that gets replicated where all the decisions had to be made in the white house. Is social media the biggest change since you were a reporter . Unquestionably. It is funny and interesting to talk to my predecessors from previous administrations, about how different the job was, and the cycles, which seemed fast with the advent of cable news, that seemed suddenly all the engines were having to churn much faster and longer because of that. Now, at the Briefing Room, half the questions i get are people looking at their iphone or blackberry and saying i just saw this on twitter, can you respond . You are in a dynamic that is fueled by the instantaneous revelation on the hour. This was a question i was going to ask regardless of how much i had read. How was it different than you imagined . Im speaking specifically about the white house. The first difference was working for the Vice President. What is it from inside that you didnt understand or expect . The first thing i noticed was how small it was. What is . The room, the number of people, the humanness of the enterprise. It is the center of power in the most powerful country on earth. And yet and even when you are down the hall in the Briefing Room, you are removed enough from it that there is enough mystery that creates a sense of grandeur that inevitably doesnt exist to the extent you imagined it. It is a handful of people sitting in the offices sorting out policy options for incomplete information coming from abroad in a crisis. And, trying to get to the decision point. That struck me. The intimacy of it. What also struck me, the scale. And the president deals with everything. And every challenge that arises, a natural disaster, an event overseas, a scandal in congress, they are all something he has to answer for. The press secretary has to answer for it too. What i learned was the scope of questions i might get asked on any given day. We were imagining with the subjects might be. On every day. Some would stay the same. Did you have a problem in the white house with not having access, not being at the meeting, not having access to the way decisions were being made and conversations about making policy . Rather than someone saying this is we will need to say. The answer is no. I didnt have a problem. When i came in i was clearly not in the inner circle. I think there was a goal, given that my predecessor was close to the president , and played a role as press secretary and advisor. Exactly. So, i was returned to the more Traditional Press secretary structure. I made the case early on to what ended up being a series of chiefs of staff and others. It was important to be in the room, not necessarily because i was going to volunteer policy advice, although i might if i felt like i had anything to say, at times. But, i was careful about doing that. I needed to hear it talked about and hear the president talk about it. In those rooms where he talked about his views of things, and the way he was looking at the decision, i learned the parameters within which i could describe the policy decisions he made, or the process. He created beyond here is the policy, here are the talking points. I knew the scope of his thinking on all of these issues. They gave me a lot. I felt more comfortable about talking about something if i had heard him talk about it inside. I knew what he would say. You are the right to have the same access robert gibbs had. I had no problems with access to the president , ever. If you went to the president said id understand this . Sure. We do a prep for my briefing. I would go down the hall and say can i have them for a few minutes. Or his door was open and i would go in and ask them. Everyone is careful of abusing that because there is nothing more valuable than the president s time. I always felt comfortable asking. I think he appreciated from me and others being asked. But you dont want, what happens in institutions and organizations, people are so careful about, or there isnt a relationship that allows for the kind of give and take the present or a ceo that you need, and he can be removed from his staff. That is not the case in our white house. Senior staff have access to him and are able to hear what he thinks. He wants to hear what they think. What is his day like . He would be the first to tell you that one of the great joys of being elected was that for the first time he actually was with his family more often. John kennedy said you got to walk to work. The walk that is so famous for some many photographs, that is his commute. He is up at 6 00 or 7 00 . He gets up, he sees his girls before they go to school. He works out in the morning whether he is traveling. I want to talk about that. That was this morning. Watching this, someone photographing the president working out. He is just a regular guy. Secret service all around him. They are hotel guests. It is kind of funny, we havent seen this before, the president does this everywhere he travels. He works out in public gyms. They dont ask anybody to leave. If youre a guest in your gym clothes, you might have to wait for the leader of the free world to take your turn, but he works out like anybody else. It is part of what keeps him levelheaded. He is very disciplined about getting that in. Then he comes in and works on the morning, not unlike most president s, usually does his intelligence briefing. Chief of staff, Vice President , security advisor, Deputy National security advisor. Press secretary is never in it. Not that i have been aware of. There is an intelligence presentation as well. We have security clearances, but you dont need to know the daytoday. You just need to know the decisions that are being made. After that, it could be a policy meeting, it could be a make a wish visit, it could be a speech or a rose garden ceremony. Or we could be heading out on a trip. One of the things that never gets old, it is always something to marvel at for me, i would be my office, my assistant would said he is ready, i grabbed my bag and walked to the oval office, the president was a lets go him and we would walked in back yard and get on a helicopter and fly off. The first time you do that, you feel like youre going to hit it you are so close. It is an amazing experience. Being in the white house, period. Every day ive been there i have taken a moment to say it is a special place to be. Does he have private time in which he simply studies . Yes. They try to carve it out. His schedulers and chief of staff. They try to protect that for him so he can read, and get some time. Potus time. They are pretty good about it. One of the things i was struck by with him when i began traveling with him is that he is the most Old School Reader of magazines in this country anymore. He will plow through magazine after magazine after magazine. Indepth articles, harpers, he is constantly reading. He likes the magazines themselves in paper format, although he reads digitally. Does he learn best by listening or reading about them . He does both. Ive certainly seen people who are one or the other. He reads a lot. It is gratifying if you write memos, i know they appreciate it back when they go for a meeting, he has actually read it. Sometimes it is filled with complex issues, and ive seen him do it, he consumes a lot of information. When does he go upstairs . 6 30 is the kind of dinner with the family. If there is a crisis, or a problem. You can get back, and then he gets working by phone, by email, keeps working with. Whats the job of the press secretary is, both in terms of how you define your function, your responsibility, and how it works through a day. I wasnt the first to say it. The west wing is smaller than most people think. It is smaller than it appeared to be in the television show. It is very small. On the main parlor floor there is the oval in one corner and the chief of staff, and the National Security advisor, and the press secretary who has enjoyed a piece of real estate for years and years. What that means is that it becomes our meeting space. It is strategically located halfway between the Briefing Room and the oval office. All very close together. It is 20 paces from the Briefing Room to my office. I think that represents what the role of the press secretary is. To serve both the president , the white house, and the administration on one hand, and the press. Im sure members of the press feel i could have served them a little more. My friend said to me he couldnt serve two masters. There is a hierarchy. Ultimately, you serve the president , the white house, the administration. The press is an important part of our country. That is part of the service youre providing. First and foremost, you are there to speak for him, accurately represent what he is doing, why he is doing it come and take questions, and some heat for him, and for what you believe. This is where it matters most. What you believe is right when it comes to what hes doing. Is it that i have to spend our case all the time, our responsibility is to sell our story, rather than my responsibility is to try to help this person who wants to tell a story as best i can, and is there a difference . Clearly, your interest is make the president look as good as he can. As good as he can. We certainly tried. I and others who work in communications in the white house, we try, and explained, and defend what he is doing. We try to explain in a way that reflects what we believe. Hes doing things for the right reasons, and they have the right policies. Acknowledging that therell be disagreements. The briefing has become theater. He has apologized to every predecessor. Do you agree with him . Do. What happens is there is a competition for creating moments