>> announcer: the following is a cnn special report. welcome to the white house briefing room. >> i know it's hard for you to understand. >> what are you? this is silly. >> when briefings happen, it can feel like a war room. >> my colleagues refer to it as "beat the press." >> you said something from the podium. was it accurate or not? >> i'm not going to engage on matters that are in the jurisdiction of the counsel. >> if you spent more time trying

to report the news instead of tearing me down -- >> frustration is apparent on both sides. >> you might find we are trying hard to provide you good information. >> the president of the united states should not refer to us as the enemy of the people. >> when you report fake news, as cnn does, you are the enemy of the people. >> tonight, a behind the scenes look at a historic room. >> i'm not taking any more questions. >> built by another president who hated the press. >> president nixon gets into office and said, we're going to move the sons of bitches. >> battle in the briefing room. the president versus the press. >> on pennsylvania avenue, past the posing and the protests >> liar! liar! >> is the gate the white house press core uses to get to work. down a short driveway, past the green tents where tv reporters

do live shots. >> where you come through the gates of the white house, it doesn't take you very long to walk right into the west wing. >> that regal portico is the gateway to the oval office. the office of the president of the united states. the man who constantly attacks. >> the world's most dishonest people. >> and tries to undermine the mainstream media. >> i call the fake news the enemy of the people. >> about 75 feet to the left is the door where the journalists he calls enemies enter the white house. the entrance leads directly into the briefing room. site of the much-watched -- >> and i'm trying to answer. >> -- much-talked-about daily briefings. >> frankly i think my credibility is probably higher than the media's. >> actually the briefings are no longer daily. but we're getting ahead of ourselves. >> all rise. >> it never gets boring. >> what is it about these white

house press briefings that has become must-see tv for people? >> to me, two words. sean spicer. >> cnn's chief white house correspondent jim acosta says it started on spicer's first full day. >> thank you guys for coming. >> there's no other way to describe it. when he came out that day, the day after the inauguration, and went after us about the crowd size. >> some members of the media were engaged in deliberately false reporting. >> he basically turned those briefings into must-see tv. >> this was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period. >> long-time white house correspondents were stunned. >> it was a bit hard to keep my sense of balance, even though i was sitting. that day signaled to me that this would be a completely different orientation to communication, to facts. >> thank you guys for being here tonight. i will see you on monday. >> sean! >> it was a head-shaker. >> former press secretaries say it was the day spicer sacrificed

his credibility. >> to call a special briefing and the first thing you go out there and do is attack the press for the coverage that was accurate. and right off the bat, you have a credibility problem. >> about that day, spicer now says, "if i could have a do-over, i would take it." but the tone was set. >> this is about the fourth time i've asked and answered. >> it was a different question. >> thank you, you've asked the question eight times. why are you asking why i didn't do it when i literally stood here and did it. this is silly. next? >> millions began watching. >> you tend to overlook all the other sources because i know you want to cherry pick it. >> and spicer often beat some long-running soap operas in the ratings. >> you're minimizing the point, jim. it's not about one tweet. >> in the trump white house, facts mattered less than the story they were trying to tell.

>> i think it came out of pugh, 14% of people who voted were non-citizens. >> that's not factual. and sometimes it wasn't civil either. >> you've got russia, you've got wiretapping. >> no, we don't have that. you've got russia. if the president puts russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a russian connection. >> i asked a simple question. simple answer required. >> you're shaking your head. >> no, but you want to talk about russian salad dressing. i thought that was trite. >> you're asking me a question and i'm going to answer it, which is the president -- i'm sorry. please stop shaking your head again. >> there's a level of respect we're supposed to have for each other. >> if respect was out the window, so were the rules of engagement. >> the press secretary conducts business governed not by law but by tradition and convention. so the convention was that the first question went to the ap reporter, associated press. >> i'm glad to take some questions. >> of course you can, john

roberts. >> spicer started where he wanted. often with conservative or non-traditional media. >> daniel halpern, "new york post." >> it was essentially a message to the press, hey, if you don't -- >> jen per. >> -- do what we want you to do, you're going to get frozen out. >> white house reporter john gizzy, who writes for a conservative website, sees it differently. >> press secretaries have historically favored reporters and publications their bosses liked over those that they didn't. >> another way to avoid unwanted questions. >> thank you, guys. see you tomorrow. happy valentine's day. >> end the briefing. >> sean! sean! >> come on, sean. >> he walked away. >> until spicer, the senior wire reporter ended the briefings. mike mccurry was president clinton's press secretary. >> i would stay out there until one of the correspondents said,

thank you, mike. >> thank you, helen. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> the white house press secretary sean spicer has resigned. >> spicer lasted six months, resigning after president trump appointed businessman anthony scaramucci communications director. >> i love the president, i'm very loyal to the president. >> scaramucci lasted ten days. fired following a foul-mouthed interview. in came sarah sanders. >> good afternoon. >> she's combative as well, but just a little sweeter about it. >> do we have to keep it to one question today? >> yes, sir. even you, john. >> not always. >> i know it's hard for you to understand even short sentences, i guess. but please don't take my words out of context. >> what are president trump's flaws? >> probably that he has to deal with you guys on a daily basis. >> what the administration wanted you to believe was more

important than fact. >> the president strongly feels there was a large amount of voter fraud. >> there has never been any evidence of widespread fraud. >> what about sarah sanders, is she 100% accurate? >> she's 100% reflective of what the president wants her to say, let's put it that way. >> look, i think the president, as he's said many times before, has been tougher on russia than anybody. >> i think they say things that maybe they know are not quite right. but they're trying to paint a picture, a narrative that fits with what the president believes. >> what color is the 69 the president's world? >> i think the president probably does believe some things that are absolutely wrong. so what are you supposed to do? you can't go out there and say, the president's full of it. >> we wanted to ask sarah sanders about her answers from the podium. but other requests weren't answered. she did speak with cnn in june. >> what i think is important to remember is that you guys get to ask the questions, but you can't

always complain about the answers. you constantly ask the same question over and over and over again and expect different answers. >> sarah? >> sarah? ahead. >> what is it about television coverage of you that has so aroused your anger? >> how the briefing room came to be. >> president nixon gets into office and said, we're going to move the sons of bitches so far away from here. isn't what goes into your soup...

just as important as what you get out of it? our broccoli cheddar is made with aged melted cheddar, simmered broccoli, and no artificial flavors. enjoy 100% clean soup today. panera. food as it should be. they seem to be the very foundation of your typical bank. capital one is anything but typical. that's why we designed capital one cafes. you can get savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. and one of america's best savings rates. to top it off, you can open one from anywhere in 5 minutes. this isn't a typical bank. this is banking reimagined. what's in your wallet? to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing it's best to make you everybody else... ♪ ♪ means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. does this sound dismal?

it isn't. ♪ ♪ it's the most wonderful life on earth. ♪ ♪ i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night. it felt like my heart was skipping beats. they said i had afib. what's afib? i knew that meant i was at a greater risk of stroke.

i needed answers. my doctor and i chose xarelto® to help keep me protected from a stroke. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem. warfarin interferes with at least 6 of your body's natural blood-clotting factors. xarelto® is selective, targeting just one critical factor. for afib patients well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® compares in reducing the risk of stroke. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily, or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and any kidney or liver problems. learn all you can to help protect yourself from a stroke. talk to your doctor about xarelto®.

this is the press briefing room at the white house. it's part workspace. >> is the mike up? >> part live studio. part briefing room. >> good afternoon. >> good afternoon. >> thanks for your patience. >> the room were president reagan faced questions about the iran-contra affair. >> did you make a mistake in sending arms to tehran, sir? >> no, and i'm not taking any more questions. >> the room where president obama mourned first graders killed in their classrooms. >> beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old. >> and it's where george bush 43

defended his decision to invade iraq. >> why did you really want to go to war? >> you know, i didn't want war. to assume i wanted war is just -- is just flat wrong, helen. >> president trump has yet to answer questions from the podium, which means sarah sanders fields the questions about credibility. her credibility. >> good afternoon. >> every official that speaks for this white house gets questions about their credibility because there have just been a number of statements that have been said at the top, from the president himself, that have just been simply not true. >> do you want to correct the record on your statement from august? >> in august of 2017, sanders said the president did not dictate don junior's statement about the 2016 trump tower meeting with russians. >> he weighed in, offered suggestion, like any father would do. >> ten months later it became clear he did dictate his son's statement. but sanders went silent on the topic. >> i'm not going to comment on the outside counsel.

>> not outside counsel. you said something from the podium. was it accurate or not? >> i'm not going to engage on matters that deal with the outside counsel. >> why should we be able to trust that the information we're getting from this administration is accurate? >> i think that if you spent a little bit more time reporting the news instead of trying to tear me down you might actually see we're working hard trying to provide you with good information. >> in the past, being perceived as credible was a priority for a press secretary. president forbes first press secretary, believed president ford's credibility was so central to his position he resigned when he thought he lost it. >> within the first 90 days, president ford stunned the country, stunned the world by pardoning richard nixon. and jerry terhorst had not been part of the circle of people who thought about it and went out to announce it to the world. and he felt, i've been so badly undercut by not being part of the team of the inner circle,

people will no longer think i'm credible and he resigned over principle. >> david gergen worked in the ford administration and said the press secretary aspired to be a man like jim haggerty, president eisenhower's press secretary. >> haggerty said my job as press secretary is to help you get the news, to have the president held accountable through the press. increasingly it's become a political arm of the white house, one could even say it's become a propaganda arm of the white house. >> gergen is talking about spin, something he and others did for president reagan. >> we worked very, very hard to convince people that our version of the truth was the right version or at least a credible version of the truth. >> how would you define the difference between a spin and a lie? >> i think a lie is a story that's contrary to the truth. i think spin is an effort to draw on parts of the truth. it's more like a piece of advocacy. >> thanks for being here for your daily briefing.

>> you don't have to lie, ever. you simply say i can't answer that question or i don't know. >> i always had a glass of water on the podium. and so if i got a tough question and i really needed to think, i would stop to take a drink of water. >> the goal of all this is not just to be truthful but to be truthful and supportive of their president's agenda. >> america is safer because of the action we took. >> that, says the former press secretaries we spoke to, takes hours of preparation. >> i would get up early in the morning and listen to the bbc and then listen to other radio broadcasts, then read a whole bunch of newspapers. >> by the time i come into the office, i probably have a pretty good sense what's going to be coming up at the briefing that day. >> i would mentally start figuring out what all the questions were. i would start talking to myself in the shower. >> and i'm starting to talk to the president, other members of the senior staff, and say, hey,

i might need more information. >> problem is, in this administration the president may not be ready to share that information. >> we are fully cooperating with the office of the special counsel. >> which can make sarah sanders' job difficult. >> she's getting questions about her credibility because the president often doesn't tell them what he's going to do, because he wants to be the person that controls the information. >> good afternoon. >> i think it's a very difficult dance, to be the press secretary in this white house. perhaps the biggest reason is that donald trump really sees him as his own press secretary. >> president trump may be the first president to try to act as his own press secretary. but his administration is not the first to have friction with the press corps. >> those steps have never been blocked to us. >> this door, which leads to the white house press shop, triggered a lot of friction at the beginning of the clinton administration. >> the press secretary's office

has never been off limits. >> i remember coming in and seeing helen thomas from upi standing at that door, banging her fist, let us in! >> photographer douglas mills is with "the new york times." >> what is going on, helen? they've locked us out, damn it! they've locked us out. it was a tough time. >> the door stayed locked for months until david gergen joined the clinton administration. >> i went to the clintons and said, can we open the door, please? and they said, yeah, let's open it. and it was seen as a symbol of, we're going to have a new day. and we began inviting reporters for dinner. they needed to spend time with the president and understand they're professionals too. it gradually healed itself. >> so can the relationship between this white house press operation and its press corps be healed? >> i think they're less interested in getting to a better relationship with the press than they are in using the press as a foil. ahead, behind the scenes in the briefing room.

>> it's smaller than it looked on tv and kind of smells like socks. save up to 10% when you bundle with esurance. including me, esurance spokesperson dennis quaid. he's a pretty good spokesperson. ehhh. so when i say, "drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of $412," you probably won't believe me. hey, actor lady whose scene was cut. hi. but you can believe this esurance employee, nancy abraham. seriously, send her an email and ask her yourself. no emails... no emails. when insurance is affordable, it's surprisingly painless.

♪ ♪ t-mobile will do the math for you. join t-mobile and get two phones plus two unlimited plans for just one hundred bucks a month.

this is where it all happens. >> i see why everybody says it looks so much smaller in person. >> the press briefing room at the white house is 48 feet long by 20 feet wide, about the size of a large classroom. >> it's a special place. but it's smaller than it looks on tv. and kind of smells like socks. and there's empty spray bottles on the floor. and -- yeah. >> there are just 49 seats. seven rows of seven seats. they are assigned. the organizations who invest the most in white house coverage and have the largest audiences are up front. >> this is the cnn seat. you can see the little plaque there on the bottom. so nobody here at the white house has peeled that off yet, thank goodness. >> if you don't have an assigned seat, you'll stand. >> where does that go? >> that goes to lower press, which is an office of the deputy press secretaries, and then there's a hallway that goes up to what we call upper press, which is where the press

secretary sits. >> in the back of the briefing room -- >> you open this and you find every single drop that we have in the white house. >> a drop is essentially the ability to plug in a camera at a given location and feed what it shows, either live or recorded. >> and this is where we control all these drops. >> up above, the photographers have tucked away memories from the road. >> some of the highlights are donald trump rubber duck, bobbleheads from campaigns, trinkets. >> douglas mills made an interesting discovery back here during his early days at the white house. >> noticed there was a hatch. i said to a couple of the other cameramen, hey, what's down here? there was a switch, i hit the light, oh, my gosh, this is a swimming pool. >> you heard him correctly. there wasn't a briefing room here in 1969. when president richard nixon moved into the white house, this space was a swimming pool. >> there was no briefing room.

you had a white house press pass, you were allowed to go to the west wing. >> before he anchored the evening news, dan rather covered the johnson and nixon administrations for cbs. >> so tell me about the briefings during the johnson administration. where were they conducted? >> well, sometimes they were conducted in the press secretary's office. >> and sometimes the president did the briefings himself. >> it was not unusual, if you were a regular white house correspondent, to some days be in the oval office, five, six, seven, eight times a day. president johnson would stand at the oval desk and in a normal tone of voice, mr. president, i would like to ask you about this. >> back then reporters were located in the office that now belongs to the national security adviser. it's very close to the oval. and when the reporters weren't busy, they gathered in the lobby

near the entrance to the west wing. sam donaldson covered watergate and later the white house for abc. >> before nixon, the press on many if not all the visitors to the oval office. richard nixon didn't want that. >> he hated the press. he felt they mistreated him during the '60s campaign. >> when nixon lost to john kennedy. >> president nixon gets in office and says, we're going to move the sons of bitches. the scheme was, put them over in the executive office building. >> across the street. >> every news organization in the country said, you know, this is ridiculous. and so somebody on the nixon staff came up with what for president nixon was a brilliant idea. among the people president nixon couldn't stand was president john kennedy. the white house swimming pool was identified for president kennedy because president

kennedy had a bad back and he liked to swim a lot. the advice to president nixon was, we can pour over the swimming pool and put the briefing room and it will still be in the white house and briefing room there, it will be out of the west wing. mr. president, we're going to board over jack kennedy's swimming pool. and that's how the president briefing room came to be. >> but the room you're used to didn't look this way when first constructed. >> ann. >> mr. president? >> says ann compton. she reported from the white house for more than 40 years. >> the briefing room itself looked like a doctor's waiting room with big stuffed sofas and captain's chairs and people milling around all day. >> behind and under the press briefing room, the nixon administration built office space for the press corps. >> on the first floor. down below, there's a basement which we nicknamed after a russian prison.

>> cnn has been in the basement since 1980. >> this is what we affectionately call the booth. >> we were assigned there as a startup network. fox is right next door. >> it's a very small space. >> nine by nine. about half the size of a bedroom. >> we're literally on top of each other. >> right. >> you better not bring smelly food to work. >> upstairs is a break room and a coffee machine with quite a back story. >> this is the tom hanks espresso machine. tom hanks came into the white house for a tour probably 20 years ago. he said, where can i get a cup of coffee? somebody directed him right back to this room. >> to an old coffee dispenser where you put in a coin and the cup drops out. the front display was crawling with ants. >> he said, i can't believe the press drinks it. probably two months later, and up in the mail comes a beautiful coffee machine, espresso machine. >> now somebody's got to put it

together. >> this is the third one. about every four years we get a letter from one of his assistants saying, how is the machine doing? >> walla! >> wow! just ahead, the briefings go live. >> at some point i said, i'm allowing the broadcast guys to have full access to the briefing. it was a big deal. >> welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to theater of the absurd. we do this five days a week, believe it or not. ion with our incredible selection of jewelry including hundreds of pieces under $299 dare to be devoted. only at jared. dare to be devoted. ♪ ♪ our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. (buzzer sound) holiday inn express. be the readiest.

woman 1: i had no symptoms of hepatitis c. man 1: mine... ...caused liver damage. vo: epclusa treats all main types of chronic hep c. vo: whatever your type, ask your doctor if epclusa is your kind of cure. woman 2: i had the common type. man 2: mine was rare. vo: epclusa has a 98% overall cure rate. man 3: i just found out about my hepatitis c. woman 3: i knew for years. vo: epclusa is only one pill, once a day, taken with or without food for 12 weeks. vo: before starting epclusa, your doctor will test if you have had hepatitis b, which may flare up, and could cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. vo: tell your doctor if you have had hepatitis b, other liver or kidney problems, hiv, or other medical conditions... vo: ...and all medicines you take,

including herbal supplements. vo: taking amiodarone with epclusa may cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. vo: common side effects include headache and tiredness. vo: ask your doctor today, if epclusa is your kind of cure.

prg good morning. >> mornings are interesting. >> home sweet home. >> the president is still tweeting about it today. >> he starts tweeting about 5:30, 6:00, sometimes 6:30. >> long before the internet reshaped the way the white house press corps did its job, television reshaped the briefing room. >> nothing has transformed white house coverage as much as the advent of 24-hour-a-day cable news. >> he could walk down here and tell us very easily, it's a very few steps from the oval office to here. >> in the '60s and '70s, print reporters ruled the roost. in 1980, cnn was born. television reporters at the white house were on the rise. and they needed good pictures and sound. >> i'll be covering the president and his advisers as they have never been covered before. >> the media-savvy reagan administration understood that and remodelled the briefing room

to help create better pictures. >> the old doctor's waiting room look gave way to theater seating. quality studio lighting, better microphones. >> there were also now lots of cables, which allowed tv to go live when needed, which was often. >> we became a deadline every minute. >> ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states. >> all this meant, when reagan came into the briefing room, the networks could easily take him live. >> has it damaged your reputation, mr. president? >> which advisers like david gergen sometimes thought was too much of a good thing. >> reagan was under a lot of pressure to come out and give a press briefing. we wanted to get the news out but we didn't want him out there for an hour taking questions. >> enter david gergen and nancy reagan with cake. >> we got past the requisite 15

minutes, we opened the door widely and had this great big birthday cake. ♪ happy birthday to you >> and he shared the cake, he shared the ice cream. the press briefing was over. >> we won't sell out for a piece of cake. no deals. >> you sold out for less than that. >> it was david gergen who took the briefing room podium first. >> good afternoon. >> on one of the darkest days there, the day ronald reagan was shot. >> his condition is stable. a decision is now being made whether or not to operate. >> and gergen was present that day when secretary of state alexander haig made an infamous briefing room blunder. >> as of now, i'm in control here in the white house. >> he said i'm in charge here, as if the constitution put him next in line, which was not true. it became an albatross for al haig. when he ran for president, it's

what did him in. >> it was a rough day in the briefing room. in addition to the president, the man who ran the room, press secretary james brady, was badly wounded. >> the vice president landed at andrews at 6:30. >> ordinary daily briefings were still not live. >> we're waiting for the united nations. >> that all changed during president clinton's second term. >> press secretary mike mccurry decided he would allow the daily briefing to be broadcast live. >> several radio reporters that came and met with me and said, look, we're at a disadvantage here because we need the sound in order to broadcast every hour on the hour. i had come from the state department, i had been the spokesman at the u.s. state department where the briefings were televised. i said, i don't see any reason why we shouldn't do it.

in fact i didn't even ask permission. i think at some point i told leon panetta, who was the chief of staff, i said, i'm allowing the broadcast guys to have full access to the briefing now because they used to have limits on it. he said, eh, that's fine. nobody thought it was a big deal. >> until there was a sex scandal. >> would it be improper for the president of the united states to have had a sexual relationship with this woman? >> mike mccurry has apologized to every one of his successors for being the press secretary who agreed to allow the entire briefing broadcast live. >> what is your priority? >> to get off this podium. >> it laid the groundwork for what we have today, forever changing the questions. >> we started seeing repetition of people asking the same question because they wanted to be on camera asking the question for purposes of their own network broadcast. >> what do you mean by an improper relationship? >> i'm not going to parse the statement. >> one more stab at this. >> why are these allegations outrageous? >> changing the answers. >> you've tried now i think a

dozen different ways to get me to amplify the statement. i'm clearly not going to do it. >> the press secretary, the briefer, now knowing they're on television, is far more careful from the standpoint of not going beyond the guidance. >> i'm not leaving any impression, david, and don't twist my words. >> and changing the main purpose of the briefing, which was to provide information. that's because televised briefings are viewed by a much larger audience. >> does the president have anything to say to monica lewinsky? >> in that environment, then the