tv Reliable Sources CNN January 22, 2017 8:00am-9:01am PST
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i'm brian stelter. this is our weekly look of the story behind the story. we're live in washington, d.c. on the second full day of the donald trump presidency. for months now we've been wondering what covering a trump white house might be like. now, i think we're wondering something else. is this what every day going to be like? this is what i mean. here is the president furious at you know who. >> as you know i have a running war with the media. they are among the most dishonest human beings on earth.
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right. [ applause ] >> two hours later brand new press secretary sean spicer in his first statement astonished white house correspondents by attacking the press for accurately reporting on the crowd size of the inauguration. >> that's what you guys should be writing and covering that this, instead of sowing division about tweets and false narratives. the president is committed to unifying our country and that was the focus of his inaugural address. this kind of dishonesty in the media, the challenging of bringing about our nation together is making it more difficult. there's been a lot of talk in the media to hold donald trump accountable. it goes two ways. we're going to hold the press accountable as well. >> spicer went onto say trump's swearing in here at the capital was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period.
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that's not true. spicer said five things that were not true in the span of five minutes. you can see it at politifact. here for the hour, frank sesno. karen tumulty, jeff mason, lynn sweet for the chicago sun times. michael oreskes and martha kumar. she's also the author of before the oath, how george w. bush and barack obama managed a transif he were -- transfer of power. what can you tell us about where his head is at and what the
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white house press corps is think something. >> i want to treat that relationship as private. we started a relationship in the transition and now it's taken over. that's important for me and the white house wcorrespondents to have that open dialogue. it was absolutely surprising and stunning. it's not what i expected to have as the first one from the new press secretary. >> i thought i was done being surprised and yesterday i was surprised again. we're talking about spicer a lot in this hour. i asked him to be on the program today. sent him a text. he called. he said he would not come on the program today. my sense from other sources in trump world is that he is genuinely furious and so is donald trump. is there anything more you can share about what they are thinking? what they're mind set is? >> i think it's clear from the president's statement and the press secretary statements that it's something that donald trump is very concerned about or else
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he wouldn't be spending time at the cia talking about it. >> one source said they're planting a flag. this administration is planting a flag signaling they are not going to take it. karen, let me go to you on that. you said yesterday evening it was chilling some of what spicer said. why? >> you just played the sound bite that was the most chilling mind of all. he follows up a series of false statements by saying and that is what you guys should be reporting and covering. to hear a white house spokesman stand there at that lecturn and tell the press what they should be reporting and covering, i wasn't around for nixon but in my experience in washington, this is completely unprecedented. >> frank, can we use the word dangerous? >> yes. first president i covered,
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ronald reagan, his press secretary said at one point, i don't tell you how to write the news, you don't tell me how to make the news. that's been the rule and what both sides have operated. presidents and press secretaries have one big thing they count on and that's their credibility. a press secretary has two bosses. one is the president and the white house and the other is the press corps because he needs to have relationships with the press corps. sean spicer appears to be playing a delicate game with both. >> let's look at what trump a aides is saying. this is reince priebus saying what the administration believes the press is trying to do. >> the attempt to delegitimize this president in one day. we're not going to sit around and take it. >> this administration believes there's an attempt to
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delegitimize the new president. is npr trying to delegitimize the trump presidency? >> absolutely not. we're not at war with him either. the president may feel he's at war with the media. the media is honest men and women trying to do their job. that beautiful building behind us, it has a meaning. the meaning is very simple. when the framers created this country they designed brand new system of the government where the legislature and the judiciary were independent of the executive. james madison showed that to jefferson and jefferson said that's not good enough. he said you need more protections from freedom. you need more protections nfor liberty. they wrote an amendment and said the right for people to peacefully assemble were protected. as part of the plan, as part of the system of guaranteeing free society. that's what we watch play out of the last 48 hours. if you back out of it, it's inspiring. we're not enemies of the
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president. we have a natural adversarial relationship designed by the system. we stand independently of the president and of his people so the public can have information that comes separate from the president's own words. >> let's try out this administration theory, one of these trump sources was spelling it out this way that first it was about the popular vote. there was an obsess with the popular vote. then there was an obsession with russia, with the connections to russia. now it's about how there were fewer crowds on friday than on saturday. is this not a series of attempts to down play trump's victory, to make him feel small. do you see that? >> i look at the front page of the newspapers on inauguration day and it was pictures of president trump becoming the 45th president of the united states every newspaper in america that addressed this story had a clean president
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trump is the new president. >> you're saying no bias there, no attempt to down play. >> in you're looking at the main story and that's what i hope people do. understand there are many stories, not just one story. it's not like there's a meeting of the press. the press is pluralistic, diverse. here's the big thing to think about. if there's ever one story where the lead is obvious, it's the day we get a new president. no one was out that day to delegitimize him at all just as the day any president is sworn in. that's why to take on the press on this point is absurd. we can look at every tv outlet, every outlet, left, right, in between, everybody had the same story that on the steps of the capitol on the west front, we had a new president. >> there wasn't much attention about crowd size. we all new there were fewer people than for obama. it wasn't a big part of the story.
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>> no. i would say, as they say, take the compliment. you won. you became the president. front page of my paper. i bet the front page of every outlet or the main report at reuters, cnn. it was pictures of the family. you had coverage of the congressional lunch live. i would say that is giving the president the respect that you give a president no matter who he is. >> essentially, this administration trying to delegitimize the press. taking the word, flipping it around saying it's the press trying to delegitimize him. you used to call on him in class. you were my professor. the course was all about presidential transitions. my first visit to the white house was all about your class. you're witnessing this transition after witnessing others. how different is the treatment of the press this time around?
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>> the central feature here is that he is not held elected office. he is not had dealings with the press in the way that elected officials have. you have to build up a skin, a thick skin in order to deal with the criticism that's going to come through the press. presidents all complain about the press and they think they have press problems when, in fact, their problems are political problems. >> interesting. the idea here that on friday, steve bannon, sean spicer all came to the briefing room. did you get a sense this is a different relationship or were they trying to act like it's going to be normal? >> kellyanne conway stopped. i'm in the basement where not a
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lot of people come. they go in the upper quarters. she came in and talked with people. she was not in a rush. steve bannon came through pretty quickly. he came down as well and hope along with him and sean spicer and sean talked to reporters as a group upstairs. talked about the day and what they were doing. it was a normal kind of conversation. it wasn't antagonistic. >> it seems like everybody is sizie ining each other up. jeff, you've been in conversation with spicer about whether the briefings will move to new location. what can you tell us about the likelihood, the press briefings will move across the street. >> right now they decided to keep the briefing this the press briefing room. that was an important priority for us. we're pleased about that decision. we'll see how it goes when he has his first briefing tomorrow. on friday night they did bring in pool to watch president trump
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sign his first executive order. >> small group of reporters. same way obama and bush and the rest used to. >> we had a lot of conversation about the importance of a pool. they told us they will respect that and they did on friday night. we're pleased that happen as well. >> how would you describe your approach right now? as the head of the white house correspondent association, you had 100 of your journalists at a town hall. there's clearly some anxiety here. what are you telling the white house correspondents about how to approach this? >> i think it's important to reenforce the point we've ahead that there's always going be a level of tension between the white house and the press. there's normal, healthy and something we expect to continue. that level may have gone up. >> may have. he said there's a running war with the media. he's using war analogies.
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he's referencing combat. >> we recognize that. it puts some strain on the relationship. it's in the interest of the white house correspondent association to try to continue to be an honest broker. that's why it's important for me to keep meeting with sean and our board to keep meeting with his team. >> let's take a break. there's conversation on twitter and facebook about whether there should be a boycott. about what the treatment of this administration should be for the press. let's take a quick break. more reliable sources in a moment. th. "reliable sources in a moment. time is life. we have 18,000 people around the world. the microsoft cloud helps our entire staff stay connected and work together in real time to help those that need it. the ability to collaborate changes how we work. what we do together
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credit karma. give yourself some credit. welcome back to reliable sources. welcome back to a weekend of extrem extremes. friday's celebration was met with resistance. some of which we saw on saturday. these marches across the country and in cities around the world. these were happening in big cities, also small towns all
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across the country getting national media attention. so much so that maybe the trump administration tried to change the topic on saturday afternoon by attacking the press. back with me now an all star panel. lynn, we seen the schedule for trump for the day. we know he will be on camera this afternoon. what can you tell us? >> i got planning. i got the press schedule and now i saw it said planning purposes only. >> all right. >> i can say in general that the president is going to have activities this afternoon, very soon. since we get this under a set of rules, now it says for planning purposes and forgive me. i'm going with the rules. >> that's it. the normal relationship. that's where i wanted to go flexion with this conversati next with this conversation. are we in abnormal? i see people saying boycott,
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don't cover trump. you say it's impossible. >> i think it's wrong. i saw an explosion on liberal twitter. why don't you get up and walk out of that press room? i can tell you two reasons. it's the job, it's the job of every one who is in that press room to stay there and cover this administration fairly and professionally. the second thing that people have to recognize is that what goes on in the briefing roof is less than a minuscule part of covering this administration. what happens, the coverage of this administration is being done by hundreds of thousands of reporters and journalists and bloggers outside of that. what happened last night was exactly what should have happened last night. sean spicer came out and made a bun ch of false statements and every single media outlet immediately reported that they were false. every single newspaper story this morning holds these statements up to the truth.
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i think the reporters in that room handled themselves professionally. i think in the future you're going to see a lot more push back about not taking questions. it's our job the stay in that briefing room. >> what about a middle room? frank, you were with cnn for many years. yesterday they chose not to show him live. the reported his statement, reported what he said and corrected his misstatement. is that the right answer to not show the events live? >> you make a judgment call. is this going to be newsworthy or being used for political purposes. i would have argued to have taken him live yesterday. first day on the job. what's he going to say? let people see that. cnn brings a lot of things live. if he's going to go out there and declare war on the kblemedi. if the president is going to declare war on the media, they're not going to win. this is something the media
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convey information. the media are there to fact check. the media do a lot more than hang out in the press briefing room and turn on a camera. they work sources and agencies. they work expert sources. we're going to be talking about how we're going to reformulate health care in this country. what's going to happen on borders and immigration? the fact that donald trump went to the cia and stood in front of 117 stars and talked not about the russians or the other cyber threats that those men and women look out but instead talk about how he was on the cover of time magazine and complained about his war with the press shows what a rocky start we're off to. >> it's useful to remember that donald trump is from new york where the relationship between journalists and politics has been a contact sport for a long time. >> he's used to the new york post tabloid culture. >> part of what's happening here
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and why what karen said is this is a bit of a brush back. our job is to get back up in the batter's box and play the game we know it. to be straightforward and honest and even handed and not let the polarization that perhaps some of the trump strategists is to weaken us. our strength is our credibility. >> we need to very much need to explain this to the public. the media do not have the public support either. >> lynn. >> i know this is seen as some kind of cross roads for journalism and we have have many questions about journalism to discuss here. the job that we do tomorrow won't be different than what we did last week. you talk to people, you go to briefings. you work your sources. you look at documents. you see what's true, what's not true. you attend events. this has not fundamentally changed. the one counsel i have for people out there is if sean
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wants to have an angry tone, i don't care. i've been yelled at by people before or spoken at angrily. i've been doing this. i don't know where there's a day that goes by and i applaud you, sean, because you're kind of honest and told us how you felt and you didn't put a smile on it. you didn't pretend. i know you're angry. i have been dealt with smiles and politeness by people that say you in a nice way. >> that wasn't a bleep. she tried not to say the word. >> when we have something to announce, we will. you don't think that's asing i a aggravating as having sean vent a little bit. i care if he gives us facts. i care if we get a briefing tomorrow. i don't care about the sound and fury. they are straightforward which
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after going through eight years of people with the gentility of civilian. you send in your quote before you run it. oh, no, i won't. okay. at least. >> to borrow another man's quote for another network, let's play hardball. it's clear what's happening. >> i think it's been hardball any way. it's packaged differently. >> let's listen to what kellyanne conway said about facts. >> why put him out there for the first time in front of that podium to utter a provable falsehood? it's a small thing but the first time he confronts the public it's falsehood. >> chuck, if we're going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms, i think we're going to have to rethink our relationship here. >> it undermines the credibility of the entire white house press office. >> no it doesn't. don't be so overly dramatic
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about it chuck. you're saying it's falsehood. they're giving sean spicer, our press secretary gave alternative facts to that. >> wait a minute. alternative facts. alternative facts for the five facts he uttered. for the five facts he uttered were not true. alternative facts are not facts. they're falsehoods. >> alternative facts, new phrase now in the lexicon now as of today. if this is war on the press, the administration is not going to win. does anybody here disagree? that it is the administration win a war on the press could take down news organizations. >> what's scary is not the administration or the press but the society which will lose profoundly if we abandon our belief that there is reality. there are actually facts and that the phrase alternative fact
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is a lawyer's phrase. >> it's a george orwell phrase. >> we teach no courses in our journalism program about alternative facts. >> you're either fact or not. >> we will flunk you if you use alternative facts. >> this is a struggle going on in the world right now. there are people who understand that if you can create a different understanding of reality you can change politics or anything else you want to deal with. the problem is when society needs to make real decisions about life and death, about war and peace, about climate, economy, you have to deal with the actual reality. at some point you're dealing with the actual reality, the public gets to know the actual reality or you have turned over the public's power to individuals who hide behind be veneer of falsehood. that's a big decision for society to make. it's not about us. it's society's understanding of
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realities. >> and paving the way for this situation is our movements like the birther movement that was embraced by donald trump that raised falsely the question about president obama's birthplace that created national conversation among some people that i think may exist in some quarters to this day. if they want to look at the foundation of where this started, they could look in the mirror. >> martha, what's most comparable to this in history? >> you have businesses where press secretaries have come out and said something that the president had wanted them to that may not have been true, but one of the things ron nelson said in an interview i did with him several years ago, he said all press secretaries know the same rules, don't lie. tell the truth.
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he said the problem becomes that others don't understand that. the importance of it. white house staff and presidents themselves often want you to do something else. it's going to be a learning experience for everybody. it will be important for people in the white house to have the president's ear to say this is not working. >> briefly, frank, one last thought from you. >> i said earlier, credibility is the indelible ink of administrations. lyndon johnson is remembered for the lies around vietnam. richard nixon is remembered for the lies around watergate. credibility matters. it starts with small issues. people will take their conclusions and impressions from the totality of the media and what they observe and they're experiences.
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>> stick around. martha thank you for being here. quick break here. standing by right off. he was the press secretary for another clinton campaign. he probably would be prez secretary today if clinton won. he's going to join me with his view of what's happening with the press and president. with my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the possibility of a flare was almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid, where to go... and how to deal with my uc. to me, that was normal. until i talked to my doctor. she told me that humira helps people like me get uc under control and keep it under control when certain medications haven't worked well enough. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure.
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welcome back to washington. we're talking about the relationship between the trump administration and the press. it's as tense as i ever seen it. let's take a moment here. imagine what would it be like in hillary clinton has been inaugurated a couple of days ago. would the media be in the same situation. would the administration be saying the same thing or would it be different. now bryan, you're weighing in. you're on twitter. you took a new job at priorities usa where one of the super pacs for the democrats. what was your impression as you watched sean spicer. a situation you may have been in yesterday. >> i think it was an affront to anybody who is on our side of the wall and works in this business in public relations on behalf of elected officials.
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look, i know a lot of people that know sean well. i got to know him. a lot of them had great respect to him prior to this election, new him from his time on capitol hill. i'm concerned if yesterday's briefing is any indication that this is somebody who will put his standing with his boss leads of his integrity and standing with the press corps. those are things that are dangerous territory. sean gave an interview a couple of weeks ago where he said the only thing you have is your credibility. you cannot tell a lie. i think it's clear he went out and told a fundamental untruth. he told a lie. we shouldn't beat around the bush. some folks at the leadership of the wall street journal and i saw a politico headline that called it fudging the facts. we need to be clear. if we're going to contest what
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the trump administration is clearing setting out to do here, we need to call it out for what it is, that was a lie. donald trump himself went out to the cia earlier in the day and tried to suggest there was a million and a half people out there. he was called out on it and sean spicer went out there and double downed on it. it was clear intent. if he was put in the situation by reince priebus or his boss to tell a lie to the american people, he should have resigned. >> would you have resigned? >> i've never been put in a situation like that. i would like to think i have too much integrity to go out and say something that is proven false. >> i asked to call into the program and he declined. he hasn't done any interviews. i do wonder whatssuming there's briefing. were you troubled or surprised at all that he didn't take questions. reporters were shouting questions and he declined.
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>> that was a clear tell, as you might say, if you're telling poker that he was uncomfortable going out there. he kept the press waiting for almost an hour. who knows what kind of haggling was going out backstage about whether he was coming up with some other formulation that he could deliver to please his bosses. >> we have no idea. >> he kept everybody waiting. he was abrupt. to me that told me he have uncomfortable in performing that task yesterday. >> to the viewers saying this is no big deal, let's watch donald trump's executive orders in domidom i the coming days. that's the stories. >> both things are true. i think we have to be troubled by the approach this administration is clearly sig l signaling they will take. you saw kellyanne conway come down and defend. if they will lie about something as trivial as the crowd.
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they will lie about something big that will impact millions of americans. we can't let the trump administration ennoble a case of lying. they are trying to lend these lawyerly terms. the media chasing its tail about whether it's cultural elite task to insist on the objective truth being adhered to. this is something think point up to now will be called out for lying and they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. >> thanks for being here this morning. >> thank you. >> after a quick break he was talking about what sean spicer said a few weeks ago to david axlerod. we'll show you that video right after the break. when you have type 2 diabetes, there's a moment of truth. and now with victoza® a better moment of proof.
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welcome back. live from washington, d.c. today. all i have today are questioning. maybe you do too. will president trump deny reality on a daily basis? will he make up his own false facts and fake stats? what will the consequences be? will reporters give up trying to fact check? is that the goal? what will you at home trust?
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is this accidental? or are they creating confusion on purpose. is the idea to force voters to choose between the reporters and the commander in chief to cast doubt on the media so much that you give up and trust nothing? is trump gaslighting us, trying to manipulate? make you doubt your own eyes. does he know what gaslighting means? here is another question, whether trump staffers lie for him? does sean spicer remember saying this three weeks ago? >> the one thing that whether you're a republican, democrat or independent, you have your integrity. i may say i can't comment on something but i've never lied. i don't intend, i would argue anybody who is an aspiring communicator adhere to that. if you lose the respect and trust of the press corps, you got nothing. >> you've got nothing, he says.
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so does spicer have anything? has he squandered all the good will he built up over the years or is there a chance to repair this relationship? can he win back his credibility? this is all about credibility after all. take a look at what else sean spicer said. this was a david axlerod. he asked a very important question. >> would you quit if you were asked to -- >> it's not a question of -- i can't -- i don't think any communicator worth their salt can go out and tell a lie. you can't do it. i think it's one thing for a surrogate to say something and i'm not be any means advocating that. you can spin the way you want but i think to go out and tell an all out lie is something that's not acceptable. >> axlerod said would you quit if you were asked to lie? will journalists trust a word he
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says now? will spicer have to resign? these are all just questions but really this is about a lot more than the press secretary. this is about the truth. will trump use federal agencies to twist the truth. will we be able to trust the data, statistic, the numbers this government provides. will agencies like the secret service come under pressure for contradicting trump? last night cnn jim sciutto said will they tell the truth about life and death. >> what if donald trump orders troops into battle and they die. do we trust the white house to speak about that honestly if they're going to lie about this? what if the intelligence agencies say that, what if a terror attack happens and they had warning or he gets a warning and doesn't share it with the american public. can you trust him to share that information that the public deserves know accurately?
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>> what happens the next time the economy slips into recession? will donald trump and his administration tell the truth? will they tell the truth when it really hurts? let me ask you this. what happens if his approval ratings sink even further. will trump believe the polls or will he say they are rigged? will his pollsters conjure up numbers he likes more instead. what will you believe? will you and your neighbors just shrug or demand more honesty from your government? what about the media? is trump just trying to twist us into knots? is it working? do trump's allies want to silence skeptics in the media, destroy the press or support an alternative press that presents an alternative reality that's more favorable? will conservative media outlets play along with his lies.
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will they claim he is telling the truth or will they respect their needers enough readers en on bs? what can you do to know what's really going on? these are uncomfortable questions especially the last ones but it's time to ask them. do citizens in dictatorships recognize what's happening here right now? are they looking at the first two days of the trump administration and saying, oh, that's what my leader does? what should we learn from them today? those are some of my question, some of my panelists disagree with me. they'll be right back after there short break. introducing otezla, apremilast. otezla is not an injection, or a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. some people who took otezla saw 75% clearer skin after 4 months.
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back oh reliable sources, i'm brian stelter. we're in washington with a super panel talking about the new president and the news coverage. there were many investigations of candidate donald trump and now many investigative reporters eager to cover this government and what it's about to do. the executive orders coming down the pike. let me bring in one of those investigative reporters, david therrien fold, also cnn's newest contributor, just joined us this week. great to have you here. you're at "the washington post," covering donald trump's charitable giving or lack thereof during the campaign. you've won awards for it. more on the way. >> i'm part of a team looking at his con flibts of interests, his business empire, the ways in
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which those connections could lead him to chooses his own interest over the country's interest as president. >> what are you finding so far? >> the best reporting is by the non-profit website, when he promises to separate himself to his businesses, handing the business leadership over to his sons. they've been looking at the official documents to say has he done the first step to make himself not the leader and the owner of these organizations. they found no evidence that he's done that. that's the basic thing. >> michael at npr, are we seeing hiring and beefing up of investigative units? >> i think it's important to highlight that he's demonstrated that it doesn't matter what your relationship is with the principals. everything we've been talking about this hour about the struggles and fights we may well have ahead of us, that will go
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on. there's plenty of good journalism that has to be done and can be done separate from our relationship with the white house. it's important to keep doing that. there's agencies to cover, regulatory work and we've put a lot of effort into strengthening journalism at the state level. >> in fact, kellyanne conway just mentioned moving some of the finances in obamacare into block grants from the states. that's a shift of power to the states. some of the journalism that needs to go on is going to be at the state and local level. we have the good fortune to have local stations at every station in the country. we'll work with them to try to strengthen coverages of statehouses and legislatures because a lot of big decisions will end up getting made there. >> in the past hour or so, kellyanne conway on abc's "this week" saying donald trump is not going to release his tax returns. that's the quote from kellyanne conway.
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karen, is this a new development? he talked about an audit, he would release his taxes after an audit? are they changing their tone now? >> they do seem to be qualifying it now. they were at least before that this was all because of an audit and not just a basic statement of principle. kellyanne conway is now coming out saying this is our position, we don't release. >> another example of access to information or lack thereof. we were talking during the commercial break about what happens when the job report numbers come out? this is the bureau of labor statistics that reports jobs data. trump expressed skepticism in the past. are you concerned that fed rath agencies will change the numbers, shift the numbers? >> we talk about fact checking. everyone saw your inauguration. you can do your analysis on it. r government agencies, through the freedom of information, various
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processes, there's a thought that stuff is open to journalism with exception. what i am concerned about is will we know if there's an order to -- how will it happen, if there's new rules as to how you look at things like the jobs statistics? there will be new formulas and will somebody think you're trying to throw the game your way? this goes through out so many government agencies. is there just going to be any kind of wholesale change into how the recordkeeping of government is done? will stuff be shut down that normally people have? this could be true from -- we're coming up into the run-up to the census, all kinds of decisions are being made as to how we're counting. >> right now these are all just questions. we don't know. >> when you talk about really government and facts, there is a bedrock of career public servants led by
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still-to-be-named political officials that studied everything in our society and government. when you talk about going down in the other levels, all the big news organizations, what we can do in a local level, that is something where we have a lot of work and vigilance coming our way. >> that speaks to a real concern of mine. we are putting more resources into this. the question is, and i am truly concerned about this, the bandwidth. journalism is not second grade soccer where all the kids run after the same ball. we have a president now who has shown his ability to completely distract everyone with a tweet. and what we are going to have to be able to do is cover a bunch of things simultaneously and to also keep straight our own perspectives on what is important and what is just some sort of after fem ral little distraction. >> the media, in doing all this,
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you have to not look gleeful, like you're going after your own vendet vendetta. a good chunk of your audience, and i've heard from them already on the twitterstream thinks this comes from a left leaning media that's out to get this president, that has it in for conservatives. what you're going to have to do is pursue this reporting, explain to your public what you are doing, how you are doing it, why you are doing it and why you are doing it with this president as you did it or more than you did it with the last president. >> be careful and get it right. jeff mason, final thought here. sean spicer had a point yesterday when he said a reporter, zeek miller from "time" said the bust of martin luther king junior had been removed from the oval office on day one. he looked for it, couldn't see it. said it wasn't there. >> i would argue sean spicer blew it way out of proportion. those kind of mistakes will be
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pointed out and noticed by this administration. is that the fundamental point for the white house press corps, that it's going to matter more than ever to get it right and be more than accurate. >> it mattered in the obama administration, clinton administration, the bush administration. it will matter in the trump administration. everyone in the press corps and the press has that responsibility. >> jeff, do you feel you near a running war with trump the way he says he's in a running war with the media? >> that's his language. it's our job to report the facts, do our jobs. part of that will hopefully be from the perspective of the correspondents association. at the end of the day, we're on different sides. we're to report the story and do so accurately. >> thank you for being here this morning. we'll continue the conversation online, cnn.com and we'll see you next week. reliablesources.com for daily media coverage. i'll see you next week.
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president trump. donald trump is sworn in as the 45th president of the united states. >> congratulations, mr. president. >> promising to be the people's president. >> this moment is your moment. >> and putting his stamp on the pomp and circumstance. ♪ i did it my way >> what does this weekend reveal about how he will lead? >> should i keep the twitter going or not? >> plus, new action against obamacare. changes for homeowners and a
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