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tv   QA  CSPAN  August 9, 2016 7:00pm-8:01pm EDT

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>> this week on cue and at "politico" editor susan glasser and "new york times" chief white house correspondent peter baker who are married talk about their careers and plans to move to israel. c-span: susan glasser editor of "politico" why did you get into this? >> guest: what an exciting way to earn a living while learning something new every single day day. always wanted to be a journalist. right nowhere did you start? where was your first journalistic experience? >> guest: you know i remember being 10 years old and handing
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out copies of a newspaper that my parents founded the legal times at the ada convention here in washington one summer and probably ever since then. c-span: how long did they own legal times? >> guest: they started it in 1977 and their company owned it until they were subsidiary of harper grace and all publishing firm sold in 1986. c-span: who is the first person that taught you what journalism is supposed to be all about? >> guest: you know what's funny there was a famous teacher at the high school i went to, tom lions who was the supervisor of the newspaper at andover. he was also george w. bush's favorite teacher in high school many many years later. he was an elder statesman of the school and not only was he a great journalist but more important in the role of a free press and he taught
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constitutional law seminar my junior year in high school. i was an incredible experience. c-span: your husband is with us today, peter baker. before that of peter baker what were the circumstances where you met him? >> guest: unit how people used to say i got my job to the "washington post"? i was lucky enough to get a job at the "washington post" and to meet my husband. we also like to say that monica lewinsky was the thing that brought us together so there was some good at least that came out of that debacle. i was an editor at the "washington post" and having to oversee investigative reporting for the national post. i started in january of 1998 doma when we do for the monica story broke. peter was a white house reporter covering president clinton and so that's how we met. c-span: we have video from 1998, actually right after you started
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february the sixth and this is your husband peter baker when he worked at the post. >> the lead story here is clinton discussed jones testimony was secretary peter baker. can you tell us more about the story? >> of course what's interesting about it is the president gets home from his deposition on january 17 having. >> six hours with lawyers and apologize who had gone through all this reporting sexual encounters with women over the years asking questions one at a time but the one that apparently stuck in his mind was monica lewinsky but guess he gets home at night calls up his personal secretary nasser to come into his office the next day so they can talk about it in that sunday in the privacy of the white house they went through the testimony and he tried to see if his memory matched her memory. the prosecutor was interested in math because her version was somewhat different in that he said he was in earshot in other
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words that he and lewinsky were never essentially amounted secretary betty currie essentially told them yes but told investigators that she had been in the outer office on a number of occasions. c-span: you are with "the new york times" now but when you are watching this what were you thinking? >> guest: my taste in ties hasn't gotten any better all these years later. it's a long time ago. this is a lifetime ago for washington, not just for us and think of the circumstances we were operating in those days are the issues that we were dealing with were so extraordinary and hard to imagine. never repeated since thank goodness that we were young journalist trying to figure out what the story was and what it added up to. was it about sex, was about power, was about politics? accountability? it was a stew of all of these things always really and extraordinaire time.
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bright company what do you think is residual at that time period on her policies right now? >> guest: i think it was part of a continuum in washington that became increasingly corrosive over time and they had a hard time figuring out what are the right boundaries and what are the ways you can hold the president accountable, when does it become partisan and i think if you trace it back to all sorts of events in the previous 10 to 20 years and extended through the days we see a think of evolution of the way politics has grown harsher and harsher in washington. c-span: you too at the "washington post" were able to find your spouse. what is your perspective on how it all happened? >> guest: she was my boss at the time and look we were studying late at night.
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the story was all-consuming and one thing we discovered completely by accident next-door friend al cayman at the time was that we lived on the same block and the same street. we had never seen each other on the block because because we had. >> all her time at the office and i think that was one more of the variety of things that was something real here and you know monica lewinsky brought us together. c-span: where did you grow up? >> guest: here in washington and fairfax virginia. i went to public schools all the way through and my high school journalism teacher was a man named stuart hill who encouraged me to be a journalist. c-span: what was it like? >> guest: technically that was not really the controlling legal authority. as you know there are many bosses in the big newsroom. i had been really lucky and i think what's so unusual and that
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if i can be sassy for a second to be able to have professional and personal partnerships for over 15 years is a usually really unusual thing and i will tell you though he was terrible on deadlines then and he is terrible now. what is the last possible moment you can turn in the story and then add time on the clock to that and that's when peter will turn it in. c-span: how are you on timelines? >> guest: well look less just say there a lot of procrastinators to gravitate towards journalism naturally because only the force of the gun to the head will get things done. but unlike those rigid newspaper deadlines that we started out in what happened in those years since we first started working together is the absolute proliferation explosion of we are about to all the wire service 24-hour deadline people.
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peter during the impeachment saga it's a little-known fact was basically one of the very first people to write a web story for the "washington post". we wanted to have a midday update but that's arc of time, 15 years ago from just a print paper and waking up in the morning to a fresh set of news and headlines you really didn't know about to this rolling world in which "the new york times," the "washington post" and "politico" were filing all the time and we sophisticated not just commodity news versions of the congregated breaking stories almost instantaneously within minutes of them occurring and here we were in our living memory covering the scandal in which he was the very first guy to write a web story at web news story for the "washington post." c-span: one of the things that triggered her and justin having the tube you talk to us was the fact that you are going to jerusalem together. when you go?
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>> guest: it's a two-stage departure. our son will go with me in august in time for school to start and then susan wolf finish out the election and "politico." there's no way can break yourself away so she will join us a couple of months after that. c-span: would assure thinking thinking about being of pure chief of "the new york times"? >> guest: is it's going to be great adventure. susan and i were bureau chiefs together and get the "washington post" so we have done the overseas thing before but we have never. >> time in jerusalem and i think we are looking forward to learning a lot and it's going to be a real adventure. it's part of the world that has so much history to it and a vital part of two days issues and we spend a lot of time with writing about it but we will be there on the ground. c-span: obviously will step down at the editor of political. what is next in jerusalem? >> guest: i will also basically be changing walls and
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continuing in a roll around having to lead our editorial. we are continuing to expand in the and internationally. we just launched cisco europe and we are looking forward to starting political magazine. two and a half years ago we started that. it's been a really extending a new platform to take us into longform reporting and the war of ideas. you can't own the washington conversation lets you are part of the debate over ideas and policies and how it connects up with the world of politics. i think that approach is something that can work in europe and other big markets in the world. both of us in many ways have. >> our careers focusing on the intersection between washington and the world and i think one of
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the things that we have learned from our two are in russia which coincided with president putin's first term in office, this was after 9/11. we ended up in afghanistan and iraq and came back here to the washington george w. bush's second term in office and you know that supply of ground troops, that sense of washington isn't just a capital capital of the united states, it is in many ways the capital of the world. it's a nexus through which things flow and get we are often very insular here. it's kind of the small village at times and we really have to renew your intellectual capital, your ground troops in order to really understand these issues. i'm going to be writing a weekly report column on foreign affairs which will appear in "politico". also i'll be working on longer form magazine pieces probably
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for "the new york times" as well as "politico." c-span: as you know they're all kinds of folks united states that hate -- and i don't need to say it any stronger than that, they don't like the media and the press. what do you say to them when you find somebody that's hostile to "the new york times"? what "new york times"? what do you do? >> guest: you know what i find it interesting is over the years to give indications from readers who are unhappy about this or that and i found, try to respond to all of them that i can and i get the most, most of them over the top in terms of hatred. for the most part people are angry, even if they're hostile if you write them back in you say understand why you're saying then here's my thinking of why he wrote the article this way are your point was a good one or a point you may have missed,
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here it is if you get a thought that there's a legitimacy to people's points and then there we are open to criticism they almost always, not almost eyes but two-thirds of the time the response i get is sorry i should have been so mean and i take your point. they look at us as an institution when they see us as individuals who can have a conversation with them it's a healthier thing. c-span: i want to go back to 1992. this was you when you are at roll call. what is roll call and what did you do there? >> guest: roll call was the original newspaper at capitol hill before there was "politico" and before there was the hill. there was roll call founded in the 1950s by a former hill staffer at in the mid-1980s, 1986 it was purchased by arthur leavitt at the time he had this really great insight along with jim glassman who you remember
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that really rather than just being a real community thing you could be serving one of the most important audiences in the world and members of congress and the universal capitol hill with original news that goes deep on those subjects, on the process and the topics that really mattered and it was also a really smart business proposition at the time. the "washington post" had a monopoly market but of course people were paying huge premiums to reach all the readers of the "washington post", suburbs and all over. how about undercut them and just reached the specific targeted influential audience and of course that business insight is given rise to this whole industry proliferated industry targeted ideas and issues of advocacy advertising so i was unwittingly put into that. i became an intern at roll call in the summer after it was bought in the summer of 1987,
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the first year and i was in college and if i was 18 years old. i was at harvard and my dad wrote an article in the "washington post" about this very interesting media experience. i didn't know these folks at all, just basically sent them a letter i think. you did that in the olden days and ended up with is this really incredible experience. i came back to work there after i graduated and in 1992 i guess si i was the managing editor of roll call and that this incredible window both into washington as it was transforming since the beginning of the first cold war elections, the election of bill clinton and really the beginning of the transformation of the media. i think what we did at roll call back then was very much a kind of pre-internet era, internet
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era kind of publication. c-span: today everything above that he did knbc in on on the web in on the web in your estate journey were in the world as far as that goes the less watch this clip of you in a roll call editorial meeting. jim glassman is at the table. >> everyone has done their generic story on line, okay women candidates are doing really well but i mean i think that what we should do is a story more specifically with women. where did they come from, exactly. and the flipside flip side to that is their salsa redistricting and how many new blacks and hispanics are going to be in the democratic caucus as a result? >> there are people we know that are coming as freshmen in the 103rd congress are ready are almost exclusively minority. >> the reason for that is
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because these new majority/minority districts created by the voting rights act are almost exclusively created as democratic districts in the country. these are districts that are inconceivably and this business 20 years before 1992. so how did this change? what has the change been like for you? >> guest: is very interesting. roll call was a great place to go after college for any journalist male or female. it was a great window and covered national politics in a very young age, not going that older route of a far suburb and slightly closer in suburban newspaper bureau and maybe someday getting downtown. i feel like we were very privileged to be able to jump
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right in under jim glassman's guidance and to start covering national topics and learned awful lot but it was kind of insulated from society at large. it's a start up basically. we didn't use those terms but it was a startup atmosphere. i don't think we were very conscious of gender breakdowns. in 1992 there was the need to hill clarence thomas hearings and a relevant tory sense that the broader society hasn't really come to terms but looking back at my very young just out of college, 19922 self and where women are in journalism today i think i would have been disappointed and surprised at how much we are still having many of the same conversations. that's not to say there hasn't been a certain amount of progress in many first women barriers have been broken weather was the first woman editor of "the new york times" jill abramson and obviously we
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talked about the year of the woman is what we talked about in congress. there were many more women in congress today but it's only 20% it's only 20% of course women ceos and the biggest companies still in single digits. i think i would have been surprised and we had a sense of a much more uniform march of progress and maybe that's what you always have and it's interesting to see the debate this year over hillary clinton's candidacy and what seems to be a generational divide between older women who have a sense of the barriers still existing for women whether it's politics or journalism and a new group of voters, the millennial voters this year who seemed to be bridling at the idea of a woman
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just because of her gender. but i would say how persistent the differential treatment outcomes are for women in our profession of journalism. it is surprising. it's a small number. i will say any editor of foreign-policy magazine before a move to "politico," there are even fewer women in foreign-policy circles and international affairs circles than there are in political circles. c-span: how do you view at? >> guest: well, susan has been very blessed by having a lot of opportunities and she has made the most of them. i think watching her up close has been inspirational and the editor of roll call. she is right, there are not
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enough women who have made it to that level in journalism. i have worked probably most of my years with women over the years but at the top levels there is a different expectation conscious or unconscious of what is allowed in the course of being an editor. i have worked for editors who are pretty tough guys and that was celebrated and you know women i just don't think have a tougher time to navigate. c-span: what year did you both leave the "washington post"? >> guest: it was in 2008. c-span: together? >> guest: i went to "the new york times" in 2008 and susan worked for don graham and and help them by foreign-policy magazine and take over as editor-in-chief. c-span: you weren't very happy with the way susan was treated at the post when you left. >> guest: that's true. there was a conflict in the
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newsroom and i helped them at the time, i thought they were very, i didn't think they were supportive of somebody who worked that hard and did doubt much and accomplished as much as she had. c-span: you said you would still be at the post had it not been for that. >> guest: yeah publicly. i grew up in washington area so at my house growing up we have the "washington post" and the washington star. when the star died in the "washington post" came along i remember riding seven miles on my bike to get the first day of the "washington post." washington newspapers mattered to me and still matter to me and my dream was always to work for the "washington post." c-span: what was the problem at the post? >> guest: that's a good question. there are lots of different answers. i would say i learned a lot.
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i was a national editor of the post at the time and these papers were not where they are today in terms of figuring out the very uncomfortable transitions. our friends and colleagues had just left to found "politico" and we were reinventing political coverage. we had a big large staff. it was a personal challenge for me to manage such a large staff of many varied compilation veterans, all of them extremely anxious about what this new air of transformation was going to be like and coincidently i would say longtime editor of the post was replaced right after that. the paper went through a big series of changes that needed to happen i think it's been great,
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its recovery over the last couple of years with a new owner and infusion of new ideas. c-span: back in 2007 at two of you are selling a book. here's an excerpt from an interview and i think the press club. >> very early on in five americans tenure in the kremlin we met with one of his top political consultants and he said very simply the goal of this which was nothing clear here in the west, west and the revolution and by the revolution what he meant was the revolution that toppled the soviet union back in 1991. >> i think the west has to be open eyed and clear-eyed about what russia really is. there was a time when fooling ourselves in thinking putin was going to be another westernizing figure and he wanted to be democratic treaty doesn't. c-span: when you look back at the four years you spend in moscow and russia what comes to mind first?
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>> guest: a great transition and we had come in after yeltsin and everybody thought you are coming in where breathing is getting kind of boring. yeltsin had stood up to the soviets and the economic crash of 1998. putin was supposed to bring stability and call him. in fact it was the period enormous change. there was as you just showed hopefulness on the part of the west. c-span: what is your memory? >> guest: number one that's a lot of the reason we are going to head out on another foreign assignment now because we found how valuable it is to go out there, do reporting on the ground, be open-minded and trust your instincts. we didn't come to it after to get decades of ideological
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preference one way or the other about the soviet union with the new russia should be and what we found was the resurgence nationalism at this figure in vladimir putin who really came out of the kgb was determined perhaps to use some of the tools of the west that had really been misread in some ways by people here in washington and elsewhere who wanted to believe in this onboard trajectory of democratization in a western style way that really didn't prove to be russia's trajectory so for us it was this revelatory experience in renewal and the faith of the idea of going out there and judging for yourself and being open-minded and reporting on the ground. people talk in very cliche term sometimes about the value of being a foreign correspondent
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and going out there and engaging with the world in order to better understand it but for us that really was the case in the thing to change certainly and deepened our understanding of the world and it changed our church at yuri undoubtedly and made us better journalists. when they came back here to washington. c-span: when you two are working together were you both are achieves? how did you stay not at each others throats? >> guest: not only were before your scope your cheese we wrote this book promoting video and we did that while she was pregnant with our first and only child. we had this great story where we are back in washington and finishing up the booking coming home from dinner and she said i think the time is coming. i said what he talking about?
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we still have two chapters to go. we were up almost all night basically polishing these two chapters and she finally went back to sleep for an hour or two and i said okay we are done. as in the last two chapters to the publisher and i said good. >> guest: by the way we were on c-span just the day before at the wilson center and i remember i went there and we were presenting russia and president putin and we agreed to do this and now here i was nine months pregnant and by the way we forgot to tell you that c-span is here. ..
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this war was surprising but the overall march, the toot opinion, which is a phenomenon it looks liked may well be the longest search be leader since stalin and to have been there, was to see, i think, the germs of all of these things, the love of these lovely photo-ops, and, horseback ride, and turned him into an icon. we used to love to run photo-essays, and, all of those
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things, that was a foundational period that we happened to be in, there was such a break from the 1990s, story of russia, that, there's more continuity with the story that we stumbled into, from 2000, through today. >> did he, were you able to interview him? >> yes in fact we were just talking about that. i was actually lucky enough, if that's the right word to have been at the very first interview that putin gave to ap anchor respondents and that was in the late of spring of 2001. he was a very unknown figure. he had been an obscure former kgb guy and he was little known in the west. he had not had wide experience, with west e western journalists and we were invited to a round table at the kremlin library. they kept us waiting for hours.
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so it didn't take place until my recollection is, of an 11:00 at night when we got out of there. >> ask the questions she asked. >> what questions did you ask? >> i do remember, because i remember that i was like, three-quarters of the way around this table and putin gives very long answers, and this time when he was new and insecure in the job he was very eager for show us that he had mastered his briefing books. so he was spouting lots of facts and figures and every question gave a very long detailed answer with stats, and out of the bureau's report on the farm crops. it got three quar tefrt way around the table to me. no one had asked yet, about the then very much ongoing war, and of course there were many serious allegations of human rights violations, of terrible
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situation for satville indian population as russia started this break away province in the second war, this is what brought him to power. no one asked the question. and i was like, the newcomer to the table, the youngest person there, and i was the one who got to ask the president about chelt ne a and human rights and he did remember me after that. >> does he speak eveninglish? >> he understands english but he always does translate mostly in his formal setting. >> hold on, for a second to give your response on the russian experience. because i want to show, putin in just at the end of last year, in december, at celebration, 10th anniversary celebration of the startup of the television networks and he is speaking, to it and then talk about the
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impact of r.t., on, we can say in this country. >> greatest advantage is that we allowed you to show yourselves. we're not making you will do anything. you are free in your work. we give you the opportunity to have fun, to enjoy your work. we can seat result of it. the result is awesome, great. i want to say happy anniversary, this is a great day ten years. you have managed to achieve a lot of things. you november all of that, but i want to repeat myself. six information channels have been created, and one documentary and global video agency. today, russia, today is great t.v. channel.
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it's number 1 in news channel on u-tube. [laughter] >> so, when i watch that, an american public television station carries it here, in virginia. what's your reaction to mr. putin talking about the fun that they're going to have at r.t.? >> it's state funded television operation that's meant to translate to the west. the kremlin's point of view is because c.n.n. and c-span, and washington post are not giving them ap fair shake. they have to counter. it's an information war. what i remember, the very first story we covered was putin's take over of m.t.v., which was the only independent network in russia. his whole rise to power was orchestrated through television. and he understood that television mat nerd russia, and
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the way to maintain power was to control the airwaves. he took over m.t.v. and it was a formative event that showed, a lot of what would come. r.t. is an extension of that. control the message and politics. >> how much information, is blocked, in russia, if any? >> you can get on the internet in russia. it's not like china. there's no great firewall of russia. instead, there's an exfreedomly successful, manipulation of the information environment. the one and only independent television network that russia ever had was the very first thing that putin and his team took over understand the important fans of that and the t.v. networks and news makes huge difference. it's almost the only thing that
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bindses this vast country of 11 different time-zones. so it matters in a way that it is hard to remember here in the united states, back to the era when people sat home and watched the network news every night, on one of three stations. but in russia that's a habit. there are a network of websites, that aggressively cover news in russia or on the outside by various exiles, types, so you can get access to information. but the information has been thoroughly man up in piloted -- it's fascinating to watch the coverage since the war, in your crane began. people have written accounts of if you just listened to the news in russia, what do you hear? you hear, an aller nat factual reality. the downing of the
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malaysian airways, plane, that's all a western conspire pray. russia had nothing to do with this. no russian troops, in ukraine, despite the document tasting and the war in syria, there's an alternate reality that's presented. of course this is a very powerful tool, in many ways, it's not new. in fact, if you look at the historical accounts of how the the soviet union took power, and maintained influence after world war ii, great book, that came out just a few years ago, that could be read as a guide to the approach information operations, that they would call. it's just the tools have
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changed. but, people should not think that just because there's the surface appearance of a robust network of websites, that, people aren't operating in a very prop pagan dised atmosphere. >> he invited, 15 journal lives and not any of the reporters that cover him, to come talk on the day that he was going to announce the isis campaign and he had invite he had a couple days before, some foreign policy people who worked in administration and those people, and get a sense of what he was saying.
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the off the record restriction des not apply to me. i wasn't there, i can't be held to a ground rule that i didn't agree to. and you know, it's our job to find out what he is thinking. if members of congress had gone in i would have called them, and they would have told me what they said. >> give auscontext. the president of the united states, communicates and he does it through off the record meetings, with nip column in any events, and, sometimes he does it and he brings in a lot of people. he brought in 15, 17 people and it's any job as reporter to figure out what he is thinking and what he is doing, and what he is saying. i called all the people in the
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room and got enough information to report it out. it was a little cur if you have fell. >> it is my job to report out as best i can, the big editor, is quoted back then as saying i don't think that anything the president has to say should be off limits to the readers of the 'new york times'. i would not have a news reporter in that room. please explain what that is all about. >> well, a lot of people don't make the distinction, that a nip like 'the new york times' has multiple pieces. there's the opinion page. and they say you're liberal or conservative. columnists are tree to do what inspect. but, runs the newsroom. it is reporters who are not
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taking sides, approach to things. so my job is not to take sides and i think the dean feels pretty strongly have an off an off the record will meeting, the president, of all people you, how could you hold that back from the readers. >> better for us not participate, because we're not limited. >> if you were called and the president said i would like to talk to you, but off the record, what would you do. >> i did attend an off the record meeting once, a lunch -- >> not one that i reported on. >> that's true. >> that's true. in my capacity as a writer, for blitz co magazine, i was writing. a precursor to what i hope to do when we're in jerusalem, and i
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did attempt a session like that. i very much agree with peter, and dean that's not an appropriate role for a reporter. i do think that it is a part of a very concerted part of the president's communications strategy, and the way he wants to get his message out without being publicly accountable for every word and every phrasing of what he is saying. there's a long tradition of that. we know that president kennedy was hanging out in georgetown, with ben bradlee, and, going all the way back, teddy rosa vel wowed reporters, with their access. and, terrific book. and, that stuff doesn't make its way we have seen it, in this
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last 15 years of the media, and of reporting and one of the very regrettable things, it's become more partisan the media has become more partisan, we used to have the three t.v. networks. and washington post, and wall street jury dismal now we have millions of different platforms, opinion, and ideas, and, certainly, much more division between our red america and the blue america, that it likes. one of the great things about 'the new york times', one of the things that attracted me, was that, they're dwindling islands of public space in which they have to contend and that independence of our journalism
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is really valuable when it is fading fast from many other platforms. >> i would add one other thing, from time-to-time the president does come to the back of air force one and he will talk to pool reporters off the record. usually, 5, 10, chitchat about a trip. as a reporter, sometimes i have been there and i can't get off the plane. so i have been part of it. because you can't control it. so i don't want to make this out to be holier than than you. the concern is, when it becomes a substitute for on the record. if the president gave interviews to the white house press, who covered it, and took his questions like the predecessors did, could you see it. and share additional insights, and
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he doesn't interact with the white house press, on a regular enough bases on the record. >> you did a big huge magazine piece on the president barak obama administration. what do you think history will say about the administration 50 years from now. >> that's the famous question. remember president barak obama said to david, in the new yorker, i just want to get my paragraph right. we once asked people, to write his paragraph. we all know the first part of that paragraph, we know that. it's going to say you broke barriers he made history by becoming the first african-american president of the united states. i think that furthermore he not only was the first black president, he was a two term president. this has been an administration that has not been marred, by
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ethical scandals or any kind of cloud over the president, and his judgment and decisions broadly speaking. he's going to be judged as someone of integrity. how will some of his policy decisions go? we're still debating everything from the basic assumptions, why did they go for obamacare first, should they have done some other things? how does the president's record in the world look, is particularly up in the air. what is the iran deal going to look like ten years from now? that's the beginning of the answer as to whether that was historic or the beginning of a different kind of unraveling, the unraveling of the middle east. we're not quite taking about the famous line during the opening
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to china, well, what do you think about the french revolution. the jury is still out. hopefully we'll get a a verdict before then. >> how many years have you covered the president barak obama white house. >> since the beginning. i came in with him. i was, i covered the second term of president clinton and bush, and, everything of president barak obama, i just left on book leave. so 7 years i guess. >> what is your book going to be? >> we're writing a biografrom a guy of james baker, never done. given what an interesting life he has had, not only secretary of state, during the first gulf war and he ran five presidential campaigns. and he had his hand in everything that happened, and i think he represents, something that doesn't exist.
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fiercely partisan and sat down and rewrote the tax code. or settled the contra wars. so he's an interesting figure. >> how much access has he given you? >> he's been very generous to sit down with us. we have done a lot of interviews with him and people that work with him. looking through his papers. we don't have enough time to work on the book. >> is there a difference in the role you're playing than your husband is? >> well, i have definitely not had enough time given that we're dealing with another once in a generation historical election. so, i would say, that, we're really lucky to be able to collaberror rate together and i'll pick it up after eat lex and see how far he has gotten with it. [laughter] keep running. >> what's the difference in the
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way you two approach journalism? >> well, you know, in some way we're the james car very well and marilyn -- i'm a reporter and she's an editor. she's a great writer. people think of that and she was covering the battle of tor a bora and afghanistan, and without an embedded unit to go in and explore that. she covered the theatre seize in moscow. what her temperament and great vision, in terms of editing is something that i don't have and i never really, spent anytime on. i have stuck very closely to the grunt side of the equation. >> how about how do you different?
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>> well, first of all, i don't agree with his character a sayings. he's a great journalist. he taught me a awful lot. he does have the instincts after grated dit tor, he chooses not to go. >> if you get a good editor. we're lucky to work together and when we wrote crem level rising it was interesting to see how we we approached. peter was very fast, and he wrote, the chapters, duty first draft and he wrote very, very quickly, much more quickly than i did, his first draft. whereas i was definitely taking more time, but producing a somewhat morphined product. given that i also was pregnant
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with our son and on the back end of his project, it may have been good that they were farther along. because then he had the process of going through and stitching the book together and rewriting more intensively. so we did have a different style the writing side of this, but, i think what we have in common, that is really, exciting is, we both just love the story. almost any story. i think that, we have had a shared passion for trying to understand washington in this sort of post cold war world. i think the thing that stitches some of these experiences together. but, it is definitely true that, peter, although he often is the person who deals with the computer stuff, is less interested in the broad
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questions surrounded the digital reinvention of jury into limp. i have seen a new set of possibilities. he's the last nip nip guy. >> as you look at your trip, how long are you going to stay, in jerusalem. >> three years tour. >> what are you looking forward to. >> get beyond the simple stories about the conflict and help washington readers understand israel as it looks in the grounds. we all understand here in washington, okay, jews and arabs, and hatreds.
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the wall and territories, and this and that. there's so many very passionate people about this, feel very strongly, and it's hard to find anything that satisfies both. but we want to broaden the story and see what we can do about helping people understand what it looks like, how it plays out beyond the very basic construct we have here, in the beltway continuum. >> what's one thing you want to do? >> peter has been telling people. we decided we would go israel because we were tired of all the infighting here. >> get along so well. [laughter] >> for me, i think there's really, it's a great story. it's always a great story. it is an important story. there's been no part of the world, that's been more cona
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gwen shal for american foreign policy than the middle east. not to have it in more a deep way, we would be missing out something. israel, is really extraordinary. that is i land, its own story. but now look at what's happening in egypt. and, syria. lebanon, all the countries surrounding israel. jordan which is physically almost connected, most closely to israel. 25% of its territory is -- 25% of its pop pew lacing is refugees, overwhelmed from the serious ann civil war. this is an extraordinary moment.
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with the middle east and politics of israel. talk to people, here in washington, and you have ap sense of real mounting frustration. on the one hand this is a super close relationship and partnership that the united states and israel have had and do have. the people who deal with it, are extremely frustrated. not just because of the bad relationship between president barak obama and prime miner netanyahu. are we at juncture where, the assumptions are not working and there's a growing sense of there is no peace process. >> how old is your boy? what's his name. >> theo. he's 11-years-old. he's a great kid. >> what does he think about moving to jerusalem. >> he's excited. he's a vulnerget particular explorer.
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and curious about the world. >> where will he go school. >> there's an international school, we went and visit he had a couple weeks ago. i think that's going to be a huge part of the learning experience for him. that is place where there are kids from all over. there's something like 30% turnover a year. in the 7th grade there's going to be something like two american kids, and then children from all over the world. >> if i understand right a lot of, you're not jewish. >> no. >> but a lot of 'new york times' reporters have been. what's the, united states fallout from that? >> how do they feel about that. >> it's interesting for a lost years, the times would not send a jewish reporter. the editor, said this is nuts, we should send somebody. i'm going to send a jewish
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reporter, and he sent david, and he says wait a minute. i thought you were sending a jewish reporter. he's a properties stand. [laughter] i think that, it can be complicated, because people will make assumption about you, and they should not and they assume you're this or that, and we go in without that kind of a back ground. i don't have a stake in this. i go in with fresh eyes and i don't take sides. and i just to want report what i see. hopefully that will be you know, follow good rules. >> peter baker, has been a long time correspondent, and susan, and both go for jerusalem. we're out of time. thank you.
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>> a lot of fun. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ tomorrow on "q and a," gerrard robinson, he's a former education secretary and former education commissioner in florida. he taxes about his career, and education policy in in the u.s. 7 p.m. eastern time.
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>> coming up, david malpass, senior adviser for the trump campaign will join us, and the impact those plans could have on the federal budget. and then, senior political reporter for where will be be oo talk about how rare it covers news for millennial, and, watch the journal, live 7 a.m. eastern, join the discussion. ♪ >> now a special edition of book t.v., every night in august a series of programs focusing on a new subject. tonight, education. first we'll hear from ed bowl

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