stand by taipei. as "the new york times" tellingly pointed out, even though taiwan's president attended the opening ceremony last year, the first vessel to pass through it was actually chinese. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. i'm brian selter. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is reliable sources, our weekly look at the story behind the story and how the media really works and how the news gets made. ahead this hour, a rare interview you don't want to miss with tv legend phil donahue. sharing his surprising views on the media's trump coverage and the president's relationship with his favorite morning show. we've investigated his ties to fox and friends. what he's hearing every morning when he turns on the tv. i'll explain how this is the fox news presidency. a little later, the public seems to be in the dark about the gop's health care bill.

i'll talk with top health care reporters about what's being missed. first, the trump administration rolling back press access inch by inch by inch. declining to answer questions and dodging interviewers. this month we've seen a sharp increase in off camera briefings, with the white house forbidding live video and audio, leaving cnn to send in a sketch artist on friday afternoon. what is this about? is it a sign of insecurity at the white house? a way of admitting they don't have answers? or is this trump's latest attempt to please his base by ticking off the press? either way, it's about a lot more than briefings. it's about whether the public knows what the government is doing in its name. take the stepped up fight against isis for example. on saturday alone, the defense department reported 37 more coalition strikes in syria and iraq. who died? how can we know if the strikes are making the world any safer?

well, president trump has been promising a press conference about this topic. here he is. this is on may 21st, five weeks ago today. >> so we're doing very well in the fight against isis, as general mattis has just explained and we're going to be having a news conference in about two weeks to let everybody know how well we're doing. tremendous progress has been made. >> that was five weeks ago. trump said almost exactly the same words again on june 12th. >> we're doing very, very well. we're going to be having a news conference in two weeks on that fight. and you'll see numbers that you would not have believed. >> now it's two weeks later. there's no indication that trump has an isis press conference on his calendar. but i hope to be proven wrong about that. joining me now, someone in the briefing room every day trying to get answers to these questions. april ryan. white house correspondent and washington bureau chief. also a cnn political analyst. another cnn political analyst, david drucker.

he's covered politics on both coasts. senior political columnist for the washington examiner. here in new york, someone with an inside perspective on how president trump thinks. michael d antonio. the author of the truth about trump. >> april, let me start with you. i'm hoping for a press conference this week. i think it won't happen. do you think the president is trying to avoid situations where he'll be asked anything about the russia investigations or other controversies or scandals? >> yes, most definitely. brian, you know the february press conference did not go well. >> that was the last time with a full fledged press conference. >> that solo press conference did not go well. we saw his strength and many weaknesses. the question is, when this president does give a press conference, is he now going to be informed enough to give us a press conference where we have the -- we go into the weeds, we know a little bit more.

the question also begs, is he given sources and means? sources and methods. excuse me. sources and methods are some of the most critical and pieces of intelligence, information. and the question is, will he have that and will he be able to hold that back if he is getting it now? will he be able to hold it back and give us information in the weeds without compromising national intelligence? >> i see you shaking your head, michael. is that a concern you have also? >> it is. i don't feel that the president really has command of issues. he has command of his personality. so what we see when he's giving a response to a stray question is, believe me, oh, it's going to be the greatest. these are salesmen's techniques. not data, facts, policy issues. so i don't think -- >> i'm saying we're going to have a press conference in two weeks, it's a salesman tactic. >> in two weeks, two weeks.

that under coating on your car is going to prevent all the rust. it's really kind of nonpresidential. i think this is the problem. he's out of his depth in this office. he doesn't have command of the facts. he has command of talking points. he'll watch fox and friends. he'll read something from breitbart and get a line or two of argument that he wants to make. you'll notice, too, in those two clips you showed that he was saying the same words. so he'll have a little bit of shtick. almost like a stand-up comedian and he rolls out in front of the audience and delivers that shtick and that's it. >> maybe he thinks people are going to forget about the promises, like to have a press conference. >> in april's point, revealing something he's not supposed to reveal, that's key. i think that's a brilliant observation. there's a danger when you're president of the united states and you can't control your mouth. >> let's get to the issue of the briefings also.

david drucker, sean spicer is not here. but we have audio from the laura ingram show earlier this week. describing why he's holding more off camera and not allowing audio or video. here's what spicer said. >> the nice thing about turning the cameras off sometimes and i find in when it is not performance art as you call it, that you end up having a more, i think, sometimes a more substantive discussion about actual issues because they're not trying to get their clip and figure out how do i get on tv, how do i ask a snarky question. >> david, you're an observer of these things. you're not a television guy in the briefing trying to show off and make a spectacle. does spicer have a point? >> well, i think in the old days he had a point. years ago, before these things were on tv reliably religious every day that they're televised at least, i think that, look, reporters and journalists, we're all human and maybe we're looking not just to elicit information but we're also trying to, in a sense, push the

news forward and make sure our copy is read or viewed. but i just don't think that holds water anymore. the questions that i have listened to during these televised briefings -- look, as an old guy, that's how i got into this business. i don't have as much sympathy for television reporters as maybe i should now that i do more television. i have not noticed a difference in the questions asked either on capitol hill or that sp seen in a briefing room whether the cameras are on or off. but, i think this works really well from the administration's point much view because as long as they're fighting with us, it makes the republican base -- this is beyond even the trump base. the broader republican base, i think, loves it. i've noticed a big difference. 15 years ago when i first got into this business, a lot of times i'd be accused of twisting a story or exhibiting bias and now often i'm just accused of making it up. it's been fun to watch the president via tweets and

interviews back up a lot of the stories that were reported based on multiple anonymous sources because it shows the kind of work we're doing. sometimes these sources have to be anonymous, but we have to put our names on this stuff. we don't make it up. otherwise, we'd look like fools. >> cameras, live video and audio proved that we're not making it up. it shows spicer speaking. it's on the record. >> april, how does this affect you as a radio reporter? >> i need the audio, brian. i need the audio. when sean goes in there and he does not have audio, you're not allowed to use the audio for the film, i'm affected. so i transcribe the quotes. >> not to interrupt you, the white house said you can't air the audio later. >> right. >> that seemed like a dramatic restriction. >> right. again, going back to this point that we keep hammering home since the beginning of this administration, even before, when there was a concern we will not have any briefings, they would move us out. this is not about us.

this is about the american public. it's about information for the american public. just getting information from a tweet does not give you the broad scope of an issue. it doesn't give you another side or other sides of the story. so that is one. reasons why the press, the free press was baked in to the first amendment of the constitution. it's not about us. we are fighting for our access. we are asking the questions. but to hear the news maker, the principal, the president or his press secretary say what they have to say. i believe, brian, a lot of the problem is, they flipflop so much within these 150-plus days, they've been caught on tape and they're trying to fix their faux pas as well. they're new and behind the curve in a lot of ways. it's not our fault. i think some of it, you gave three points at the top of the show. i believe it's all of the above. but i also believe it's doing

the american public a disit wsee if they can't see or hear what's happening in their house, the people's house. this is not democrat or republican. >> viewers the home might be asking, why not just skip the briefings? david drucker, this becomes the new normal. one on camera briefing a week, four hidden off camera. why shouldn't journalists just leave? >> look, i think that -- i think often we are too compliant as journalists to the conditions laid out for us by politicians. they give us things on background. they say it's got to be off the record. i think we have to -- at times i think we should be more aggressive in pushing back and say if you're not going to give us this in a fashion where we can report real news, we're not interested in talking to you. i do think that the real issue here and i think april speaks to it, whether or not they're answering our questions in an attributable way. i'm sensitive to the needs of

radio and television reporters because if you don't have a story on camera and you're cnn, we're reporting news on television, in a sense it's cutting off our ability as television reporters to do that. i think the real issue here is, are they going to answer our questions. i think the broader issue is, do they feel compelled by the public to answer our questions? because over the years, i've noticed when politicians need attention or feel pressure from their own voters, where they feel the story has gotten away from them and they need to set it straight or start answering for what they've been doing, they talk to us. we don't have the fights. it's only feel when they can get away with this that they play these kinds of games. one of the ways we can impact this is by saying these conditions are not acceptable that you've laid out. i don't think there's a rule about it one way or the other, brian. i think it's a case by case basis. if we talk and stop asking

questions, we won't have any stories to tell, whether print, radio or television. to your point, are we getting answers. i got an e-mail i sent to the white house. i can't show you who it's from because they replied off the record. michael, maybe i'll get a real answer unlike the e-mail i got back this morning. you mentioned off the air before we started here, you saw a shock and awe strategy from trump early on with regards to his relationship to the press. what was that and how has it changed? >> they came out really fast. we saw president trump at the cia, we saw all these complaints about the crowd size and how that was reported. he was very assertive for many, months and i think sean spicer's televised press conferences became a very popular program on tv. >> right. >> this was an attempt to shape reality. what we have to know here is maybe they were unsatisfied with the reality that emerged out of the aggressive reporting that people were doing on their own. so now they are scaling back,

saying, okay, shock and awe got us so far. but just as in the iraq war, shock and awe didn't defeat the enemy. it just was the opening salvo. i think now we're seeing this retreat to kind of hidden corners of the world where they -- >> to fox. actually not just to fox. to friendly pro-trump interviews on fox. >> not chris wallace. >> they won't ask a tough question and come with reporting and confront the lies with fact. i think that this is a convenient place for them to dwell in. but, again, that's not going to last forever. because constituents will get the reports from enterprised reporting in the field by reporters, anchors asking tough questions of other sources who will come on and be presented. so it's a risky strategy in the long run for them. >> michael, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> to our panel, thank you all for being here. i appreciate it. this is a perfect segue to our next segment. we spent a week watching fox and

friends. the president's favorite morning show. he gave two interviews to the show this week. it seemed like he was parroting the talking points of the show. see what i mean after the break. you too, unnecessary er visits. and hey, unmanaged depression, don't get too comfortable. we're talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. and fragmented care- stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. every single one of you is on our list. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done. with all the things you'll never learn from a book. expedia. everything in one place, so you can travel the world better. manait's a series of is nsmart choices. and when you replace one meal or snack a day with glucerna

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every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ what would a daily infomercial for the trump presidency look like? actually, we don't have to wonder. we have the answer right in front of us. it's called fox and friends. >> we're going to wash the dogs coming up on fox and friends live from -- >> look at this t-shirt. >> we're washing dogs. >> president trump watches all the morning shows. but judging by his tweets, as recently as this morning, fox and friends, is his favorite. he gave two interviews to fox

and friends this week. those were the only two of the month. we watched an entire week's worth of the show. we wrote down every guest and story and banner. what we found is fox and friends is trump's safe space. it looks like a newsy morning show. but fox executives acknowledge it's a conservative-themed talk show. the show is about showering trump with positive attention and burying his enemies with negative attention. the show's hosts and regular guests claim that one of his main opponents is the media. >> all a political circus at this point. democrats and sadly, much of the liberal media are using this as an excuse just to attack the president. >> the mainstream media, the washington bureaucracy, which are basically the democrats all pretty much the same thing. >> has to be some accountability somewhere in the media for continuing to have a narrative, which isn't true. >> gets really repetitive.

over time, all of the anti-media talk obviously has an effect on the audience. >> our discussion earlier, you said you can't stand the way that he's being treated in the media. tell us about that. >> exactly. i'm so concerned about the media because they're lying. >> sounds like she's been watching fox and friends. by the way, has the added effect of keeping you watching fox and nothing else. repetition is something we noticed all week long. monday until friday. denying collusion between trump and russia was an almost hourly affair. >> in terms of collusion, that's going by the boards. >> there's nothing there in terms of collusion with russia. >> this idea that there's collusion under trump is just not backed up by the facts. >> is russia collusion, investigation, if that's what you want to call it -- >> it's collusion. just saying. >> all the collusion, all the corruption that hasn't been proven, all the leaks, just give him a chance. >> it's never been proven. there is a leaker.

leaker shames comey. >> there has been no obstruction, there has been no collusion, there has been leaking by comey. >> there's the president repeating what fox and friends have been saying. the latest obsession has been undermining an attack, the credibility of special counsel robert mueller. remember, trump is hearing the talking points all week long and at the end of the week, repeating them back to the host, ainsley earhardt. >> can we trust robber muellel mueller? is it -- >> should he recuse himself? >> there it is. heroes versus villains. us versus them. on fox and friends, trump is us. mueller is them. watching for an entire week, we saw lots of the president's friends. but almost no dissenting voices. no trump skeptics or critics except in sound bites which were then knocked down. it's all about optimism for trump, resentment about his opponents. you can even see it in the

show's banners on the bottom of the screen. it's oftentimes an anti-media narrative. liberal press attacks hospitalized congressman or liberal press still pushing white house shakeups or msnbc graphic -- analyst makes a graphic president analogy. i wonder, what would they do without the liberal media? who knows? the host on the guests on the show know that the president is watching and they go out of their way to endorse his points of view and express their appreciation. >> america needs to say two words to donald trump. thank you. >> it's very simple. thank you, mr. president. thank you for keeping your promises. thank you for creating a new environment with our foreign friends across the world. >> that expression of appreciation seems to culminate in a celebration of the administration each and every single day. >> today is his 150 day in office. over the course of the 150 days,

today's 150th day. >> now it's 151 days in -- >> i think on policy -- >> it might be a problem if we have to remind viewers about how long a president has lasted in office. doesn't this preoccupation with counting remind you of something from your childhood? >> one, two, three ♪ ♪ four, five, six ♪ >> one, two, three ♪ ♪ count with me ♪ >> i'm just playing here. the bottom line, you might look at this and see propaganda from fox. i prefer to think of it as an infomercial. fox and friends is selling a product. in the geist uise of a news talw like qvc or hsn. it's a free country. viewers should recognize what product fox is selling. up next on the program, tv legend phil donahue. he thinks the press is focusing on all the wrong things when it comes to covering the president and the opposition. hear from him in a rare

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welcome back to reliable sources. i'm brian stelter. is the press missing the mark when it comes to the president? my next guess says yes. he's interviewed just about everyone on his popular long running program, the phil donahue show. one guest was a young donald trump back in 1987 when trump was just a budding real estate magnate. so what does donahue think the media could be doing better? let's ask him now. he's with me in new york for a rare interview. phil, it's great to see you. thanks for being here. >> thank you, brian. by the way, congratulations on

your new baby. >> thank you, yes she's one-month-old. watching right now. >> we're looking for good news and we welcome her. >> you see a lot of bad news out there? five months into the trump presidency and you're not known for being a conservative guy. >> no. that's true. i think the press really missed or at least ignored an important story. that is, as trump walks out at the rallies, you know, all the cell phones above the head that you see from the back, who are those people? the mayor of south bend, indiana, is the one who is saying his constituents are looking at all of it and saying, what about me? i think the mainstream media, it's trump, trump, trump, trump. >> they haven't drilled down on why is he president? how did this happen? i think they're going to

discover, well, i think it's already revealed. these are angry people. as we know now. white working class people. pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan. these are the people who make things. or -- and maybe they haven't had a raise in eight years. the rumor is that their company is being sold. their kids can't pay back their college loans. they come back exhausted from their day at the factory and they read the paper where a guy in a hedge fund made a million dollars on thursday. you can't do this to people. sooner or later, they're going to go kaboom. and they did. the kaboom expressed itself in the election of donald trump. same circumstance for brexit. david liam heart -- >> new york times. >> new voice on the op-ed page. i think a welcome one.

he had a fascinating piece just this week. he makes the point that the reason -- the people who elected donald trump president didn't vote. >> because so many people didn't vote. >> yeah. the victory for or at least the people who cause him to lose would be the people who didn't vote who wouldn't have voted for him. it's a little bit of a difficult thing to grasp. >> i said on cnn, 46% of the country voted for president trump. actually, no, about 19% voted for trump and more for clinton and a lot of people didn't vote. >> hypocrisy is killing us. we're running around america and at least half of us don't vote. only 17% of 18 to 24, the earliest voters are not voting at all. older voters have a better record, to be sure.

but it's really, i think, apathy that's killing us. bernie did get it. but it was cynicism that killed him. i would like to vote for him, but everybody knows he can't be elected. socialism. we are under the spell of these old ideas -- mccarthy. >> what kind of old ideas? >> shut down government and everybody will start up a small business. i mean, this is the republican mantra. the only thing government should do is build things that go boom. and we have people out here whose financial strength is serious in deficit. and now we've got a health care, republicans are sleeping with a time bomb and they're not sure

what to do. it's all making the middle class angry. >> i would say to you, lots of trump commentators are on television. i think what you're saying those that represent trum's point of view, not seeing focus groups or interviews with normal americans. >> right. i agree with that. you know, it's the people in south bend. when i was there as a student at notre dame in the '50s, south bend was the home of studebaker. they made cars. so that's all over now. and these -- the people are left with a television shows talking about trump, trump, trump. and i have to say -- by the way, he gets on the airplane, a big old airplane, flies anywhere in this country and four cars meet him. all black limousines. he goes to the nearest, largest

venue in that area and sells out. not an empty seat. walks in. this is fascinating me. the other night at his rally, there were four or five really cute white girls. there are black people at those rallies, but you got to look for them. they're behind him. >> you're talking about the rally the other day he had in primetime on -- >> it's happening more and more. they're being produced. these little girls are taking his picture. he turns around and faces them and they're taking -- then they're showing -- >> you don't think that was a coincidence, huh? >> come on. this is a brilliant management of a campaign that continues. >> isn't it a problem that he's really only speaking to his base, to the folks that brought him to washington and not the rest of the country? >> right. but his base was enough to get him elected because of all the

people that didn't vote. the ages 18 to 24, early vote, 17% vote. we haven't inspired our kids. we are hypocritical with our brag doesh yus about america. the reason it's a cliche is because it's true. we don't use it, you lose it. >> what would do you on your program if you had it today. how would you address the issues? >> first of all, i'd be first in line to have donald trump. it's counterintuitive not to. as you know the coin of our realm is the size of our audience. we don't draw a crowd, next week we'll be parking cars. trump draws a crowd. it's the best thing and he gets ratings. it's true. it's true. i mean, why would we not put -- he's elvis. >> do you think he would come on your show? he's only doing friendly interviews with fox. >> probably not. i'm saying, i have to

acknowledge that this is the dilemma that people in media face. but, please, talk to the people out there. find out why this happened. there isn't enough attention given to that in my opinion. >> in six or seven months after election day. >> we finally realized white working class, middle class people were angry. and angry enough to go kaboom and the kaboom manifested itself in the election of donald trump. this is what -- >> do you feel the country is ever going to get over the election? the president was tweeting about it again. about bernie sanders and hillary clinton. >> this is a hell of a story. i mean, it's a revolution. it's revolution-light. they're going to be talking about it for -- there's no bodies in the street and we're not shooting each other yet. imagine, compare him -- compare trump to eisenhower. i mean, for example. this is my presidet, who i grew

up with in the '40s. and thes 50s. this is bewildering. it shouldn't be. if the press got out of washington, stopped worshipping power, go like so many people, amy goodman and other people are doing, go to where the silence is, you're going to get more truth the lower you go. all you see on the sunday shows are secretaries of this and that and powerful people. let's talk to the real people. find out what they think. get out of washington. see what's going on in iowa and the midwest. it's going to make us more informed and it's going to alert us to this huge event that has happened here. suddenly, suddenly you have op-ed people, they can't find

enough adjectives to express their disgust for this man. i wish they would commit that much energy to figuring out who are the people that made this happen. and i think they're going to discover it's not in the stars. it's in ourselves. we got donald trump because we let it happen. we didn't vote. we were apathetic and we looked up and think now, holy cow, we got a -- we got -- i don't want to say it. we got a -- grabber for president and we are appalled. we can't figure this out. one of the reasons we did -- we can't figure it out is because elite media as he would call it, failed us. >> i like the point about the lower you go, the more truth you get. phil, thank you so much. >> thank you, brian. coming up next here, we were talking about the health care bill, among other topics. we finally know what's in the

gop health care bill. but there's a lot of confusion. a top health care reporter standing by trying to sort through it for us right after this.

secrecy, confusion and now second thoughts from some within the republican party. that's the story of the senate health bill. it was drafted behind closed doors and now it is public and being criticized from the left and the right. here's my question. do voters know what's in the bill, what the bill actually does? if not, whose fault is that? a recent cbs poll conducted after the house passed health care reform but before the senate bill was unveiled, found that 76% of americans haven't heard enough about the gop health plans to know what they do. only 23% said they have a good understanding of what's really going on. seems like everybody could use a clift's notes version of what's going on. who better to know than the senior policy correspondent at

vox. sara, great to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> i know vote counting dominating cable news since mitch mcconnell is pushing for a vote before the july 4th recess. now five are not -- is that getting in the way of talks? >> i think it is. this is constantly true about the affordable care act. when you look at cable news coverage of health care, you see a lot more coverage of who is going to vote for it, will this senator or that senator get on board. what kind of tweets they want. you see very, very few cuts. very little coverage of what the bill actually does. you don't see questions about who will lose health insurance, how will health insurance change. i admit, it's complex stuff and hard to cover in short fast, segments. i think a lot of people are missing out on what this actually does when it becomes this political back and forth. one of my colleagues at vox did a video on how we cover it like

an episodes of house of cards. the drama is, is it going to pass versus what does it do? >> we're going to see senate debate that will make it easier to cover the implications. we'll have sound bites and quotes from these public officials. >> sometimes. but sometimes you see a lot of just -- like a lot of the debate has focused around the secrecy and the drafting. i think it's interesting that we've been obsessed with the process. with is it secret, is it not secret. do the democrats keep their bill secret in 2009? i think that has dominated a lot of the policy's details. you might see that when we have the senate debate that's expected to happen later this week. there will be a lot of clips on that. >> you were pretty blunt in a recent column for vox, i covered obamacare since the very beginning. quote, i've never seen lying and obstruction like this. who is lying? >> so i think there is a lot of lying from republicans about what this bill actually does. a lot of that comes from the

president. he has given a number of interviews where he says, you know, this bill will cover everyone or his health secretary, tom price, has said medicaid won't be cut, no one will lose medicaid. everything we know about this bill suggests that it's not true. people will lose health insurance because this bill spends a lot less money on expanding health insurance. i think there are a lot of people who get confused by this. i've spent a decent amount of time over the past few months in southeastern kentucky that voted for trump but also is very heavy obamacare enrollment. there are a lot of people in that area who are expecting that this health care bill will make their held insurance better. but everything we know about it is those people will be disadvantaged by this health care plan. >> a few minutes ago phil donahue was saying go interview the trump voters. that's what you've been doing and you're finding confusion in kentucky. >> yeah. i think they really listen to donald trump on the campaign trail. and he said repeatedly again and again in debates and different

from the other republican candidates. i don't want to cut health care programs. he promised i won't cut medicaid. i'm going to cut everybody. the health care bills, both the ones in the house and the senate -- he spoke favorably of at some point and has since got blowback. these bills don't deliver on the campaign promises. they cut medicaid very significantly. they would scale back the federal subsidies with the people in kentucky and people in other states rely on. the voters, they understood. they've watched the news. they've seen the promises their candidate made and took the promises at face value. >> sara, thank you so much. best of luck in the coming days. you have a lot of work to do. >> sign up for our newsletter as well. reliable sources.com. all the day's media news delivered every night. reliable sources.com. up next here on the program, president trump saying the russian hacking news is fake news.

but somehow on twitter also sort of acknowledging the hacking this week. my next guest warns about conspiracy trap. hear what that means in just a moment. smart choices. and when you replace one meal or snack a day with glucerna made with carbsteady to help minimize blood sugar spikes you can really feel it. glucerna. everyday progress. time's up, insufficient we're on prenatal care.es. and administrative paperwork... your days of drowning people are numbered. same goes for you, budget overruns. and rising costs, wipe that smile off your face. we're coming for you, too. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done.

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welcome back to reliable sources. i would argue the biggest story of this week, the biggest newspaper story was this "washington post" investigation. friday's report with new details about russian interference in the u.s. election. tracing it directly to vladimir putin. as the investigation continues into what russia did, and how and who, i have a guest who has met with putin, one of the few writers and journalists who has met with him and understands him. she says there's a conspiracy trap journalists have to be careful not to fall into. our guest is a russian-american journalist and author of "the man without a face, the unlikely rise of vladimir putin." thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> i'm curious, your assessment

so many months after the u.s. election, still so much conversation about what did or didn't happen. some conspiracy theories we hear both on left leaning cable news, on right-leaning cable news. is this a conspiracy trap people are falling into? what does that mean? >> so the fact that there is a conspiracy theory doesn't mean that there is no conspiracy. right? that's a very tricky thing to negotiate. because the more we learn about russian interference, the more compelling the conspiracy theory becomes, because there was really a russian -- i mean it seems, beyond a doubt at this point. but yeah, there was russian interference. the problem with falling into the conspiracy trap is thinking that it is the one theory that explains everything. it explains how we got trump and it explains how we're going to get rid of trump, and neither of those is the case. it doesn't actually explain how we got trump. russians didn't give us trump. americans elected trump. right? so it is also probably not going to be the way we get rid of trump. so there are all these impeachment fantasies and all

these ideas, oh, once it is exposed, our national nightmare is going to be over. meanwhile, they're destroying health care, due regulakacare, everything that can be deregulating and destroying the very institutions of american government. >> you don't mince words. you are very concerned about what this administration is doing. you said this is an autocrat in office. >> he's not an autocrat yet. >> you warn about an autocracy. >> he is an aspiring autocrat. he really thinks things are best run like "the apprentice." >> so far five months into this presidency, is he actually acting on that desire? >> oh, absolutely. >> you make the case he looks pretty weak, not pretty strong. >> actually, i think there is a common confusion between fascism as a master plot and competence. at one point people were saying, thank god, they're so incompetent, they're not going to really be able to destroy government. actually incompetence is what

destroys government. >> you say it still does damage. it's interesting. >> it does much worse than damage. i would argue his incompetence is sort of principled. he thinks the world should be simple. he thinks we don't need expertise, we don't need excellen excellence. that's very much the core of his campaign -- which he's still running. and so the way that he has tried to eviscerate government is completely in line with this idea that things just need to be done and simple. >> you wrote right after the election, maybe it was an interview, you were worried trump might start banning news outlets from covering the white house. is that an overreaction? we haven't seen that happen. >> actually, i thought he might start banning particular news outlets, that also he's going to get rid of the norm of having daily white house press briefings, that he is going to get -- that there a he no law that requires the white house to be open and the administration to be open. what we have seen is -- this is actually most concerning to

me -- a completely opaque state department, a secretary of state who no longer has a press pool, who travels without media. and that's the most important department of the presidency. >> we're all focused on the white house briefings -- >> but the only way to keep it accountable, the only way to keep it transparent is for the media to be there with the secretary of state. it's been six months -- five months and he's completely gotten rid of accountability in the state department. now we're seeing the white house press briefings going off camera, on camera, off mike, on mike. it's bizarre. but we are definitely hurtling towards a closed system of government. we will have you back to talk more. out of time on tv. reliablesources.com. the newsletter will be out later tonight. thanks for watching, i'll see you back here next week. so draw the line.

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and live sports on the go. included with xfinity tv. xfinity the future of awesome. high stakes health care. senate republicans reveal their once-secret plan to overhaul obamacare. >> a phenomenal bill for the people of our country. generous, kind, with heart. >> but members of his own party say they won't back it. >> this current draft doesn't get the job done. >> will senate republicans really pass it this week? >> i think that they'll probably get there. we'll have to see. >> the very latest on the vote count. plus, putin's plan. new details about what president obama knew about russian meddling in the election and new questions about whether he d