every single morning and it's seen through prism of how it's going to affect my reputation in my abilities to get reelected. keep in mind they say i want to work on health care. so the house within six months they are worrying about getting people in there. so there is no more honeymoon. i think it's really gone. they are raising money to scale people. >> is interesting conversation with no one was reelected in 2014 is previous dent in congress was 30 years ago i think. it's interesting talking to him when he came back to capitol hill after three decades and what he said the biggest difference with people have to spend so much more time fund-raising now and less time legislating.

i will say they have put up the house calendar for next year and they were supposed to be in d.c. for more days. maybe on the margins that affects somebody but you are right politics and re-election re-election --. >> one thing in the context of this year, this year congress was in session the fewest number of days in my memory and part of that was which was departing from the last few cycles. you have this seven week long break in the summer and then just the political calendar itself is extended. people are always running for re-election but i think we saw an extreme version of politics just completely consuming the policy agenda in the policy world last year.

these odd numbered years are a little bit better for policy reporters. you do get a chance to get to know people a little better and get to know the issues a little better before the next political cycle starts to take over. >> the fact that we have single control which makes these policy sites are richer because something could potentially happen increases the potential at least. >> one of the thing to keep in mind to shorten the policy a little bit right now it looks like from all accounts congress will try to leave as we can wrap up the lame-duck. it will be in terms of previous lame ducks a little less productive. they are going to probably within the next day or two or three pass a resolution to fund the growth of -- government into late march, april or may. that may seem like give the new administration a chance but that tends to push everything else you might have had on the agenda starting in january to decide.

we also have all these nominees to the cabinet in the supreme court nomination. the debt limit has to be addressed so it should be more policy oriented year but at the same time all of a sudden we are talking about may as a time when the slate will be clear. keep that in mind in terms of conditions. >> i have a question about immigration. looks like the new administration is going to come in and register and not back is that something you would agree with and not back seem that the question is how quickly and how deeply will they get into immigration coming in?

>> it's hard to tell right now. i do think having talked to a couple of people right now the transition is focused on getting the appointments and getting the cabinet fêted and i don't know troubles on the hill. is he owing to send a broader plan i think it will be interesting. democrats won't allow it. republicans want to put other things on there and there will be other issues that we have to address them what happens involving the dreamers. it's never going to be a particular piece that comes out. >> when they covered immigration earlier republicans got the

border and democrats citizenship and h-1b's and everyone jumps onto the train and now the question is does that calculus still hold? i agree that i don't think the border won't pass but that doesn't mean they won't try. and could that put pressure on democrats? to the rules that have traditionally found what makes an immigration package, have they changed? >> the problem with gauging trumps plan. [inaudible] i cannot tell you. all the things that he said during the campaign who his

advisers are and you have seen out trump has backed off from saying everyone must go versus after you selected saying two or three and we will focus on criminal aliens first. trump is that an orthodox nominee. it's harder for me to look and see what kind of plan he will push. that's why the cabinet nominees will be so critical. he will be clear and where he stands on immigration and the main integration agency. the a.g. will have considerable powers over immigration. that's why it'll be interesting to see who he picks for his homeland security leader.

it's very clear where he stands or is it going to be -- who has been not as hard line. >> i think we have time for one more question. [inaudible] >> the question is how do you start planning your day? >> we both just walk around the capital a lot. we are like professional stalkers. we walk around and talk to lawmakers. we both go to votes because

that's a great place check in with aids. one piece of advice that someone gave me when i was starting on the hill was not to stay in one spot too long. i will have been one spot and i will say i should walk rennie turned the corner and there's reporters talk to lawmakers about something i had even thought about. that is what's nice thick as you have your ideas but you're also in a place with other reporters and lawmakers. then i can be like oh i was right about that. i would say just keep on walking and the capital is a beautiful place to walk around. it could be worse. >> an important point especially for those of you who want to cover congress or cover a policy issue that requires you to be on capitol hill. i am obviously biased and i'm

sure you fill feel the same way but congress is by far the best in washington. the white house not the best sea. covering the agency is not the best trees covering congress primarily because obviously you have 535 animated crazy characters with their own stories in their own ambition but it's also the axis you get which is unparalleled. hanging around on the ohio quarter which is a second for the senate right outside the senate chamber and i hang out there because i've nothing else to do. i turn the corner and they catch harry reid going into his office. mr. reid i have a question for you on this topic. very few other washington do you get it principles like that.

[inaudible] >> covering health care is a great place. >> thank you so much. appreciate it, appreciate your time and thank you again [inaudible conversations] >> we are going to get going

with our next panel here. we are transitioning to the other end of pennsylvania avenue to talk about the executive authority in the oval office in the white house and what president-elect trump and president trump will be able to do with the power of the presidency, with regulatory power, with executive authority power with memorandum power which is something we'll talk about. we have four experts and reporters here. susan dudley is director of the red tory studies center at george washington university. tom national correspondent with the "washington post" and gregory cortez a correspondent for "usa today" and senior correspondent for "the daily beast." each one of them will give a five minute or less big picture overview of what the key issues that they see around this issue with the new president coming

into power and then i will have a handful of russians but i'm hoping we'll have a lot of lessons from the audience. this session goes until 3:20. the overview congress will be going on and then we left plenty of time for questions from the audience. susan dudley if you could maybe get started for us. big picture would expect to happen comes whirring and i? >> thanks for inviting me. i'm going to start by taking issue with what seung min kim said, congress is the best. >> in town. it does not come as executive branch because a lot of policy does take place in a lot of the action is in the executive branch. that's partly because congress passed a sweeping law that delegates authority to agencies. that means agencies like the department of labor or the

environmental protection agency. this means even without the support of congress presidents can achieve their policy goals through regulations. for example president obama issued far-reaching regulation related to climate change, energy, work place. president bush before him related to homeland security and other areas and president-elect trump has said he is coming to washington with a plan to make big cuts in regulations. in fact president-elect trump has said for everyone new regulation to old regulations are going to have to be eliminated. like thomas to sing to me i am talking to the media a lot lately and i keep getting this question, can i do that so that's what i thought i would talk to bow to my five minutes. what are the ways that president-elect trump can remove

regulation? unlike executive orders which presents can eliminate with the stroke of a pen a new president can write one and they can also repeal them. regulations, there is more per process. i'm going to lay out five different ways depending on the circumstances. so we will start with midnight regulations. you may not know but we are and what is known as the midnight period. going back to the 40s and probably earlier we have seen a big uptick in regulatory act 70 at the end of the so this is an administration working hard to issue regulations before january 20 at midnight. ..

the inauguration day. so, that's the first one. the second one is to regulations that have been issued over the last seven or eight months since about the end of may using simple majorities in both houses of congress. congress can pass a resolution disapproving the revelation.

it's the resolution of disapproval to land on president obama . desk he would veto it in fact he did veto five resolutions over the last few years. but when it lands on president trumps desk he will sign it and it will repeal the legislation. so that is the second using the congressional review act and i think that christina mentioned in passing. the third way there are several litigations ongoing. how the new justice department handles the litigation and defends the litigation will definitely affect the outcome. especially since supreme court have shown some sympathy to the argument that the executive branch has been over reaching

its constitutional authority, not just in this administration of previous administrations as well. so, for example, there was a department of labor will that was put on hold just before thanksgiving. the clean power plan and the epa and the corps of engineers were all rules that were on hold while they worked their way through the court and that's something that the next administration will have to deal with. now, related to that, one of the grounds for challenging them is they are exercising control over matters that constitutionally are the purview of the state. so that brings the states into the equation. we might see them playing an important role in the

administration with respect to regulation because the platform said that a proposed to shift responsibility from the environmental regulation and the federal bureaucracy to the states. so now i will come to the final way to remove regulation and that is the standard way to modify or overturn the regulation that didn't fit into any of the other categories the agency would have to go to the same notice and comment rulemaking process to put the regulation in place in the first place and that means doing a bit of a great impact analysis, the legal justification, the economic and scientific. so do that and then put out the regulation with that background. when you get that comment, response so you might need to change the regulation as a result and there is also the review into the process takes at least a year.

then at the end of the process, you have a regulation that either modified or eliminate the old one but then you have to docket saying that's why it was important and the new one that says we should overturn it and that is bound to be litigated so the final resolution of those i think would take years. gregory is the white house correspondent for the washington bureau and he's written quite a bit about the executive authority as practiced by president obama including some kind of twist on how he practiced that so that is kind of the overview of where you see things going.

>> i think it is timely and extraordinary because at this point of the transition we would be talking about the legislative agenda more than anything else. the traditional first 100 days and after all, those have also a mandate from the senate. it's more preferable than executive action because executive action can be rescinded by the future. there is reason to think president trump might not have to resolve early on accept for some of the issues that have the pent-up demand from republicans to undo. some of that will take an act of congress and some of it can be done by congress. when he was the candidate the

line was that he wanted to rescind all of the unconstitutional executive orders in the memorandum and they were signed by president obama. it's what is unconstitutional. clearly there are some executive actions that have been taken and the provisions have been struck down in the courts. i am thinking of some provisions of the immigration actions, the clean power plan. they wanted their way through the courts. the other thing he said is that he had a presidential memorandum in the formulations with the recognition that a lot of people in congress are relatively new to this realization that not all the executive authority comes from the executive order. so, maybe talk a little bit

about some of the vehicles for the terminology so you know sort of what they are and look for them in the first days of the trump administration. first is executive order and what we must think of end notes about. the numbers were up to 13,000. they instruct the branch to do some things and remain in effect until the future president rescinds them. most executive orders go on for years or decades without being rescinded by the future president. it's only a small substance of being controversial but they can do anything from, you know, the broad policy on federal contracting, antidiscrimination and the federal government, down to the executive order earlier this year that allowed the peace corps to change its logo.

and the only reason why president obama had to find the executive order is because president carter signed the order saying they can't change without the rule of the united states. so, that is one of the important things to know if you are going to rescind the executive order you have to do it by executive order. that was something that i discovered early on the. had president obama used executive action more than the predecessors and if you count the orders comes he had not. it has gone from the level of the presidential memorandum. it had the same force and effect as the executive order as a matter of fact all these things none of them are prescribed in

the constitution they are just the presidential memorandum are not numbered. they are published and sometimes they are not. they tend to be more regulatory so i would imagine for example deregulation and the idea to rescind i would expect that would come in the early days of the presidency for the presidential memorandum they tend to start regulatory actions. those are in the national security there've been 31 or 32 of those. half of them are secret we don't know what they say. the only reason we know there are 32 of them is because they were not. they will skip a bunch of numbers and so they know that we must have issued some at some point but we don't know what they are. then there's the humble proclamation.

president bush launched the war on terror with a proclamation so those are important to look out for as well. it goes from the mexico city policy that is famous and there's a whole bunch of policies. there is a set of executive actions each president comes in and we send something and then goes back to the old republican playbook of executive orders and then those that had been in effect in previous administrations. the only thought that thoughtso leave with you is that this famous line in the atlantic that's been often repeated the

press always took donald trump literally does not seriously but the voters took him seriously but not literally. i think as he transitions it is incumbent upon us as journalists to cover him both seriously and literally and it is as much attention to what he does through executive actions as to what he says we ended up changing and he sends out mixed messages but we ought to take it literally since they are very important to keep an eye on. >> you wrote an article early on.

i was hoping maybe you could give me a sense of what you see coming. >> i cover national security from the congressional perspective. we find out over and over again and keep bumping into the executive authority with the white house is doing that trumps basically what congress is doing. so, i wrote an article about the kind of authority that the white house will soon be transferring to the trump white house. all sorts of extensions of power in the national security space. so we are talking about the authority to kill overseas without a trial. that happened during the obama administration and we are talking about the records and wiretapping. we are talking about waging war overseas without congressional authorization acongressionalautg

right now with the obama administration relying on the al qaeda authorization with the use of military force, not a new one that authorizes them to fight a war against isis. so we have all sorts of expansion and not much of that has been covered or plaintiff to buy all that many sources and i think that we will start to see a lot more coverage about the same authorities. it's the vast majority of not sounding the alarm on the national security issues that have been. congress have chosen not to

pass. it could have, but it's not been able to reach an agreement on how long that will be and who would be targeted in such a war. the actors that play and whether it could be waged. right now i think a lot of people are of the belief that the war against al qaeda to include a isis can be found anywhere. the point is to say they will now be used even further in the new administration. other powers that the white house has included things like security clearances and creating

a top-secret document is an extension of the executive power over hiding information from the public that they believe to be necessary and heading for the purpose of national security. if you put them through a security background check they would have a hard time getting a security clearance because they have associations with groups in europe and the charge of domestic abuse from a decade and a half ago. they would work right next to the president but at the end of the day if they say he doesn't

pass the minimum standard required of the president of the united states could just say i'm going to override that because is it for something to be top-secret if the extension of the white house that leave that it would endanger american lives. so that's how powerful they are on the national security issues. another way the white house can use the power is to mix top secret information with unclassified information and store that in a place where it's difficult to get. i had a place the other day about the documents related to the nuclear deal. so we are talking about the letters between the ministers and we are talking assessments and the details of the cash

payments to iran in exchange for the release. things like that all these documents are in the public interest and they are unclassified but what happened is they provided mixed in with top-secret documents and they held on capitol hill and special occasion for sensitive compartmentalized information. and they get blocked out with documents from that. the public can't see the information so that's another way that the white house and the presidency can use the power arguably for good and arguably forbade.

we have seen what they believe they can do legally. and often times, it is in any way that it expands its power. when you investigate all the ways the white house is likely. >> we had an investigator for the "washington post." you were telling me the scope of that empire re-examines what we think of the power you might be using in the white house. can you explain that a little bit?

i attend events like this and most recovered money and politics but i'd been assigned to cover the transitions of presidents going back to ronald reagan. it creates a special role and opportunitiepool andopportunitin addition to the legal mechanisms greg was talking about in the memoranda of the executive orders, the executive orders and decisions that will move through the regulatory apparatus are wonderfully visible for the press and there is now something else going on during the transition that we haven't seen before. chris mentioned a moment ago.

that is the arrival in town is the president elect and a president elected is approaching the presidency and some of the traditions of the presidency not just the powers granted in the constitution and by statute and the traditions of the executive orders, but it's also approaching the traditions of this moment is the transfer of power. part of this comes because we have a president unlike anyone before who isn't just a businessman there've been presidents who've been in business of courts and the government thrives it was written to be in the citizens democracy but this particular president has his holdings all over the world. he has shown during the transition a willingness to discuss business interests

during the transition. it's an extraordinary and again in different power for the president. donald trump said he would have an announcement and explain how he is separating himself from this extraordinary business unlike that of any others that have so many entanglements with the foreign businesses and governments. we saw this just i it just in tt couple of days the different use of transition power that we have seen before, not entirely unprecedented quite extraordinary where the president elect used his executive power to convince a company not to expand as it had intended.

but we get to the extraordinary challenge that we face. if we have it president who is going to ignore it as a certain extent or not abide by some of the traditions and by the traditions i was talking about joe and jimmy carter came to town in 1976 and was one of those that lead the transition n of the domestic was the chief was in charge of assuring that if they sold any financial interest or removed from any financial interest which might intersect with the things that gregory was describing the president is likely to do, he -- as many of you know jimmy carter was in the business and moved his holdings into the blind trust that was administered by a family attorney. he went further than that and it was carter that insisted that jimmy carter would not engage in

the discussion of the peanuts policy while he was president. and because one of his most staunch backers and important constituents as the governor of georgia have been the coca-cola company, and because the federal issue which most affected code is the sugar policy, he said they found the domestic policy chief and others that dealt with the sugar busines business by ng to touch it. this is not an isolated case. lyndon johnson moved the radio stations in a blind trust. george w. bush and george h. bush also took extraordinary plans to assure the public that their actions would be in the public interest and that there would be no infringement on the private interest or private holdings so that's not happening in this administration so far. maybe we will get a different announcement on december 15.

but my thoughts would be we have a president elect is already beginning to use the power and nonorthodox ways. because it is a matter of tradition, he said correctly the walls of the conflict of interest don't govern the president said he can do what he wants. what we are relying on is a sin line of the presidential tradition going back to the beginning of the republic. if it is preached, and i'm not saying that it will be but my thought has been we have a special obligation to track the extraordinary behavior in the executive branch of the chief executive unlike any seen before. >> i have a few questions here when you are ready to raise your

hand. can you give me a brief scope of the empire around the world and then the secondary question if they constrain what they do in the u.s., is there any notion of what's going on overseas or would they be totally immune to those? >> the business holdings are vast. we do not understand them and hired away. one of the things that i would refer you to because this is one of our jobs and something my panelists know very well is the disclosure form. the president of the united states isn't bound by the conflict of interest nor is the vice president. but he is bound by the transparency requirement, so donald trump has issued this i think this is 96 pages of very

fine print. what you'll find here is 560 private partnerships. sometimes they will say llc. they extend across to the range of human activities. some of the most obvious and the most consistent overseas.

and ther if there are 18 golf cs around the world. everyone was recalled because donald trump is concerned from some of the wonderful links they developed from the scotland versus. when he met with nigel, the head of what some think is the up and coming party in the british parliament he mentioned the wind mills so here are some asserting the interest in his first discussion.

there are of course hotels all around the world and most of the hotels. they are not quite franchises. the few agreements we looked at in the profound economic state. they receive the fees that they've been able to book a coupllook at acouple of the licg agreements they get the percentage of each sale and in some cases that also manages the hotel and so the percentage is from gift shops and other thin things.

they are the towers that are being built around the world and another is discussed during the transition and built in india. there are two trump towers that are under construction and half a dozen others that are under construction. as all of us know from our own experiences and building the skyscraper is part of the government enterprise because of the permitting that is required. there is a huge role for the government. ..

>> do we have a sense of how many obama error regulations could be part of it? >> yes, the congressional review was a bill passed in 1996. it gives congress 60 legislative days or session days to review after regulation is published to send a resolution of disapproval to the president.

that 60 days as you know is 60 legislative days turns into more when a company time there at home, weekends and et cetera. so the crs has estimated its around may 30 that any regulation issued since may 30 would be subject to disapproval by congress. i should back up. so any role issued after that point that doesn't get the full 60 days in this congress, the clock starts over again in the next congress. so 15 days into the next congress it starts over against that means the new congress has another seven months or so to decide which of the regulations to vote to disapprove. how many are there? likely were talking hundreds.

at least over 100, probably over probably over 200 regulations would be subject to disapproval. how many congress would actually overturn, it's going to take time to do that. even though their expedited procedures in the senate only needs a simple majority, it still could take ten hours per regulation. certainly don't think any where close to all of the regulations, probably less than a dozen. in the night can remember your question. in his other question is, it happened once, why once, why haven't we seen a more. the one time it happened was very similar circumstances to what we are now. the ergonomics regulation published at the very end of the clinton administration. so the new congress was able to take a look at it, they sent a resolution of disapproval it landed on george w. bush's desk and he signed it. the reason i think we didn't see being used in the transition from bush 43 to obama was

because any role disapproved using this procedure the agency cannot issue anything that substantially. [inaudible] it's a sledgehammer. so imagine the obama administration and i was involved in that, i was part of the team pushing things out the door, although trust me i was really trying not to push them out the door. i suspect the regulation issued at the end of the bush administration, the obama obama team would have liked to tweak and modify but not eliminated so they could then write something else. i suspect that's why it's only been used once. >> so i have some questions will start with katie. >> the question is what avenue

takes, is there really only one legislative to be repealed or can it go through any kind that you outline and then can the general public, will be the recourse been in that situation where people were question and whether that be appropriate channel to undo regulation does that make sense? >> yes. four of the five options i mention apply a more limited circumstances. so i think these are water discharge regulations under the clean water act. there might actually be one that would be in this window that could be overturned by congress, but i think most of them will be things in place that the epa

would have to go through notice and comment role making. there really is a lot of opportunity for the public to get involved. if agencies don't take the public comment into account and final regulation, courts can overturn it and call it arbitrary and capricious. so it's important for them to talk about transparency, there is transparency in the rulemaking process and the public has an opportunity to weigh in before the decision is final. [inaudible] chevron, it probably would not it's a court decision that said that when things are complicated there several steps to but the

bottom line is courts tend to defer to agencies interpretations of their legislation. so chevron could well get involved if there are litigation over the two, say trump chose to overturn or write a new regulation which again will take more than a year to change that regulation, courts will look at that and it will be complicated. which docket do defer to. >> so we have quite a few questions, we'll go to first, you second, you second, and then i'll go over to the side of the room, and if your questions directed at one of the four panelists please directed specifically are generally address it. i need to restate the question so i'll get back in the habit of doing the. >> can you elaborate more, assume he will state what he did before but taking control of his

businesses over to his children but also talk to us about potential conflict of interest there, we were releasing that gray area where it trump said down and he was at the meeting with japanese prime minister yet his kids are running the business, a what type of conflict of interest that could present and is there anything to hold him accountable or system ricky gray area for the next four years? >> so the question was about what conflict of interest would be inherent in turning his business over to his kids. there anyway any way to work around that? >> all of this is sort of a new world that ran in addition to the conversation you mentioned that ibaka was on the line with the president of argentina where they announced two days after the conversation where a long

sold trump tower in buenos aires was moving head. she was was on the line with the japanese prime minister as well, what role her and her husband jared will play and eric trump and donald junior will play in the administration and advising the president so forth, is a really big question, we we don't really have the answers to it. to some ethics lawyers the guiding principle goes back to the now famous clause in the constitution with a funny name, which prohibits the president from accepting gifts and favors from a foreign leader. so, if argentina's president president were to give a green

light to a long stalled tower for the trump family where humanist children would benefit, is that an emollient? there's ethnic lawyers from both across the ideological perspective who think yes there is a constitutional issue here. maybe that the president is not bound by the traditional conflict of interest or give prohibitions, he have easily is bound by the constitution that could set up a constitutional crisis at some point. remember though, the ways of which you might raise the constitutional questions are limited so there's two things i

should mention there's the emollients clause which provides a very specific prohibition of certain activities by the chief executive and there's also in congress a few years ago in 2010 or 2009 passed the stock act which is focused on members of congress and conflicts of interest, it also required that the president and vice president recovered by this law. it doesn't specifically restrict, i don't think they're covered by the conflict of interest portions of it but they are required to report transactions involving equities to the office of governments within 45 days of any transaction. so there will be one additional area of disclosure and an opportunity to watch these

transactions. of course i neglected to to mention the stock portfolio of the trump organization and it is not insignificant. tens of millions of dollars in stock, and some of them in industries that could be affected by some of the regulations and executive orders were talking about today. >> lotto readers are concerned about the obama's executive actions and minorities, the first is the dock executive action for those, and second is the third set of initiatives interpreting civil rights law.

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> for the executive orders, he can resend them as quickly, he can resend them by signing something. now, the regulations and some of those they are talking about our regulations that have been issued by the department of labor, those will go through the longer process that we talked about. did you want to add more? >> i think that's it. ted cruz had aligned during his campaign that you lived by the pen and you die by the pen, and

executive actions can be rescind by future president. in president. in this case executive orders he talked about with one dealing with non- discrimination against lgbt people in federal contracting, that is something that could be rescinded. i'm not in a presumed that trump is going to do any of this. you said something stirring the campaign that he loves the lgbt people and halos the hispanic people and who knows what exactly his going to do. but one thing that president obama has done is raise the bar on these kind of things. so with with many of these executive orders presidential memorandum and other actions every time a president takes one of these, they set a new status quo. as an example of this in the transition from president clinton to president bush were president clinton and his midnight era passes arsenic rule. in dramatic ruled the amount of

arsenic allowed in the water. and bush's new epa chief came in and so their science behind it, that's not the right level, were going to rescind that. it can proceed publicly, not us going back to the status quo anti- but, that bush was trying to dramatically increase the amount of arsenic allowable in the drinking water even though the original regulation hadn't been implemented. the only protection i think that you have is that there'll be, they have to be done conspicuously. so if he signed such an executive order, you'll be very clear what he is doing and he will be changing the new status code and there is a political cost of that. and that's not insignificant. can he do a? absolutely.

>> he didn't really going to great detail on how he was going to do some of these things, to to think that he's going to be interested in when he becomes president going through more the same fine levels on executive action or do you think is going to stay with the broader things like immigration that he talked about? >> i think the only gauge that we have is based on -- so has he been a detail oriented businessman? from the reporting that's out there, he can very much micromanage issues. but it seems to happen sporadically and without a discernible pattern. if i had to make a guess guess who focus on the big things and then

something may set him off. maybe he'll be out at 530 in the morning watching a fox news segment about burning the flag and will be the most important thing to him that morning. we see that happen already. there was an ongoing national conversation about flagburning until one morning the president-elect tweeted about it so my prediction would be probably big themes. but sometime people people micromanaging on issues that we have not really thought of. >> as anybody thought about it too was talking the obama administration has really brought more power to the presidency and national security , are there any indications that the current administration is trying to shrink things down a little bit ahead of the new administration? or do they feel comfortable with

the power that they have or somewhere in between? >> the current outgoing administration, are they comfortable with where things are they trying to reign in some of their authorities a little bit before the new guy comes in? >> i think there's a philosophical way to look at that ideologically and then the legal authority perspective. during the course of the campaign the trump campaign has said it wants to in some ways move away from from nato. it wants to negotiate trade agreements, it wants to reduce the role that americans are playing in wars overseas so from a philosophical perspective you might argue that they're going to draw back a little bit, from a legal perspective the president's authority has been

increasing for years and years. i am not sure president-elect trump has thought very much about the need for a new authorization of military force, i'm not sure that it's crossed his head. i'm sure it's crust hillary clinton said, is a major theme of keynes senate career so i know they thought about it. but i've never heard president-elect trump one say that the president needs to be more constrained, that congress needs to be more involved in the conduct of war and military action. so so there's no reason for me to think that from a legal authorities perspective the president will want to reign that in. >> just briefly with respect regulation, think were seen actually more of a reach rather than less. example of that is epa just last

week issued for 30 day comment which is very short, very significant regulatory action on fuel economy of vehicles. it did that without going through the internal review process that it's done for all regulation. that's not the kind of thing i would think they would want the next president to be able to do. yet they're anxious to get it out before the end of the administration and were willing to do that and take dramatic action. >> i will go to the back in a second. but can you give the journalist in the room a little bit about the regulatory centers and what type of research you do and what resources do you have? >> that's a great question. george washington university regulation center as part of the school of public policy and public administration, we have a

weekly newsletter that said digestible the things going on in the regulatory world. email us and would and without approach on that. it's not just what were working but what all the other think tanks and academic institutions who focus like me with a laser beam on regulatory issues, we write working papers, we filed comments on individual regulations and we teach. so we love teaching our students but we also will be happy to do more things like this and talk about how regulation works. >> with trump appointing a variety of individuals in his transition team starting to appoint or nominate his captain, there's been discussion about

lack of expertise or specific expertise in different policy areas, wonder if you think that may empower people who were heading these agencies more than for example the obama administration? like a lot of the directors came from the white house, but in a trump administration to see that changing and having agencies have a stronger foothold in the maybe that may not be a strength of the white house? >> recently had a conversation with paul white with nyu professor who studies changes of administration and the nature of cabinet. one of the things that distinguishes this transition from others is the level of preparation.

so they are scrambling, it seems to find cabinet nominees. one of the questions is what about the subcabinet position? under the george w. bush white house there is a lot of emphasis, the white house played a hand on role in reviewing appointments for deputy secretaries of systems and chiefs of staff even. so that the white house would have more the idea of having the cabinet secretary and white house ability to monitor and also have consistent policy and the agency. obama obama has continued that, one of the concerns was that this may give cabinet secretary unusual power to select the junior personnel

whose appointment would normally be reviewed or initiated by the white house. >> i have no inside information so i don't know. >> will go to shannon. >> i have a follow-up question on the, [inaudible] pressure from provider groups and research groups. >> sows a puzzle of nih would be held over? >> there are holdovers in any administration is usually a small subset. some are statutory, there are people like the fbi director who have a term that transcends partisan administrations.

there usually some holdover. there's nola branch extended by appointing prominent democrats or republicans to the cabinet in the opposite party. i'm not aware of the specifics of what the policy differences might be, whether those came up. >> this is mainly a question for tom. you alluded earlier about what are the steps, are they congressional or from another branch or there could be taken to the trump administration accountable. >> the question is other stuff that could be held accountable on the financial conflict? >> there is been a very interested in that question. went to a bunch of the lawyers

and advisors who had led or worked on this area for previous transition. there is a range of responses, jimmy carter's advisor said in addition to the blind trust approach there is some which is only a halfhearted subscriber which suggests the trump empire is really too vast to consolidate quickly into a blind trust. it may not be fair to the children trump said he doesn't want to do it. so they suggested they suggested the idea of a federal monitor, somebody who would oversee a real watchdog and have access to confidential and proprietary information and would occasionally make reports to the office of government ethics or something like that. i think eisenstadt worked with

monitors before private corporate settings and thought that was unlikely even though were hearing the number of people talk about the idea. his conclusion, and also the conclusion i hear at the end of conversation with every other ethics lawyer is what it will depend on is a free and robust press. it's up to us. in some ways except for the constitutional prohibition that i mentioned earlier, this is an extralegal activity were there may not be specific legal remedies but there are remedies the public realm and in the response of public opinion to some of these actions. >> this might be the last one we might have time for one more. >> is curious in terms of regulatory affairs how much

influence, you talk about what the agency has an secretaries and things like that they get appointed but there are career politicians,. [inaudible] i'm curious how much the career civil servants. [inaudible] >> basically what level of power to civil service have. >> i think it's a next line point about regulation. regulation does, it's developed by these agencies that are mostly career civil service

people who have been working across administrations. i think they do have a lot of influence. they they develop the docket, do the analysis, and heads of agencies are reluctant to do something to propose an action that goes against the docket that has been developed. that that is not to say the career civil servants, they also might have particular goals in mind so the dockets may reflect that. i think that's_point, you have the silver sermon and it's not easy to just come in as the head of a new agency and they were gonna shake things up and do things different. >> will go if you promise to keep your questions for 20 seconds. >> you mentioned taking trump. [inaudible]

i'm thinking of the drawback to that and after people turn to him and didn't pay attention,. [inaudible] obviously there's a practical line to draw. >> i think world struggling with that. he has the ability to make news in a very visceral way. it has nothing to do with public policy at all. but but it's something everybody can relate to. so whatever else he did in the transition that day got lost amid the national conversation in the same thing happened with the flagburning. it is an open question about whether this is intentional, whether there is a head fake going on here, that hours of the

tweets in the tweet storms, i would not presume to tell any journalists not to cover those. frankly when the president of the the united states says that he wants to deport -- in violation of the first amendment, not to mention immigration close, that's something we need to pay attention to you can completely ignore it. the point. when i was making was that in contrast to a tweet, if the president signs an executive order that says flag burner should be deported, then then will be there in black and white and very legalese and will be able see what is the mechanism for doing this, something that could be challenged. that's where think we need to dig him because his power two months from now his powers not to come from a twitter account, is going to come from the signature of the president of the united states.

>> with that we have to close the panel down. thank you very much. [applause] press foundation. this is one hour and ten minutes. >> let's get going on third panel of the afternoon, this one goes until 430. i'm going to introduce our three guests, we'll talk about press relations to train the incoming administration and the press corps and what things will look

like, what we expect things will look like, each of the three guests will give a brief five minutes or less overview of what the main issues they see coming up, i have some questions i think what plenty of questions from the audience. i three panelists are lucy douglas the dean at the philip university of maryland, before coming here she was a couple of decades that the freedom of the past and previous to that and before that also reporter and editor at the pioneer press, jeff mason on the far end to is a correspondent for writers and currently president of the white house correspondent association and the interactions with the incoming administration. kevin goldberg an attorney, but

most importantly, he is the president of the chairman of the board of the national press foundation. welcome to all three of you. so i thought we would get started with jeff, if you could maybe just give a sense of where things stand between the correspondent association and the administration? >> the correspondent association started having communications both at the trump and clinton campaign as early as last spring where we just wanted to get the relationship started to explain what our expectations were in terms of press pool, neither hillary clinton nor donald trump had a full protective pool as a candidate in a protective pool for those who are not completely familiar is a group of 13 journalists including wires, print, tv, photography, still photographers and radio who

follow the president or a candidate of the president-elect, were wherever he or she goes medically as being in a motorcade, in a plane, for travel so, as you know don't know, after president-elect trump was elected he did not have a pool in place because they did not have one and placed her in his candidacy which was a problem then that got amplified after his election. we have in the last few weeks made progress on getting that pool structures solidified. he came to washington without a pool, he got bad press for that the correspondence association way donna. i waited and on behalf of the correspondents association, we also waited when he went out for dinner in new york a couple weeks ago without bringing a

press pool, i think they learn from that, from the negative attention and i think they also learned from as no doubt you just learn when you're putting together an administration from scratch about what some of the aspects are that important, we've been in touch with them and are in talks with them to do that. the pool is not going to be fully formed or protective until they get to the white house because they refused to allow journalists on his plane which we object to and we have made those objections clear. then there may clear back to us that is not going to change. once he is here then there will be the traditional structure of the pool flying in air force one and that is not something that i'm even putting up as a?, because we because we just assumed that will be respected.

they have told us they do intend to respect the traditions of the white house pool when they come and we right now are taking them at their word for that as well. i've been using the words cautious optimism. obviously there were lots of things that happened during the course of the trump campaign that should give reporters and media organization cause for concern, we have not had a chance to address all of those with the incoming administration. we are sort of prioritizing the list of what is important to us and the pool is at the top of the list so once we get that piece of business locked in, i think will address other issues as well. it is going to be a challenge, no question about that and there are a lot of unanswered questions we could explore a little bit today. a lot of what we have waiting

for us our notes. but i am not -- do not belong to the doomsday camp, some of the rhetoric that even people like respected former white house press secretary's are throwing out, dialogue, i don't think it is in the interests of the incoming administration to declare war on the press or to blow up the rest room or blow up the white house press corps. if they do the correspondents association will be ready and i can assure you we are preparing for worst-case and best case scenarios. at this point, so far the people we are working with on the trump side have been working with us and we want to maintain and develop that relationship going

forward. >> thank you. outside the day to day coverage of the white house the issues of transparency and access go far beyond that. can you tell me what you see as the most central issue coming with the new administration? >> thank you for inviting me. welcome to the college of journalism downtown -- a chance to look around, thrilled that you are here. i thought i would talk about two things. one that i am really anxious about and one that, oh, thank god. when you deal with media access, other than following the

presidential round, covering all of that, dealing with criminal justice matters and everything, jeff sessions, be afraid, be very afraid. kevin and i have watched him for a very long time and my eyes popped out of my head, up for attorney general. the record is terrible, his attitude towards the media is irrationally bad, nasty, for example, went out of his way six years ago to shred efforts to have a federal shield law with the obama administration, record

supporting. on the senate judiciary committee, watching him and the judiciary committee meetings and the way would get angry when there was an issue involving the media, really a wonder to behold. the other issue that came up, trying to get amendments, he put a hold on it twice. and actually the bright spot i wanted to mention to you, we were able with the help of a lot of your employers and colleagues and nonprofits and other good government folks we were able to get some amendments and try to follow along as i explain this.

since 1970, the attorney general, whoever the incoming attorney general is when there is a change in party, they send out a memo interpreting the freedom of information act, when you have the opportunity to make a discretionary release, i want consider these things when you release it. when bill clinton took office janet reno sent a memo, you have a chance to make a discretionary release, release it unless you can see the harm. george bush and john ashcroft came in and flipped it and said if you can come up with a reason particularly privacy, would hold something under discretionary

relief, fold it. obama came in and on day one of his presidency, essentially to the clinton standard, all of the agencies are required to abide by the attorney general guideline on how to follow the freedom of information act. and the career people would go back and forth like a yo-yo. legislation, bipartisan legislation was introduced over the last several years, and finally signed by the president in the spring, that makes that obama/holder discretionary relief standard lost so that ashcroft cannot come in and just say no, we are flipping it. it sounds like it is deep in the

weeds and difficult to follow and more than a little strange. but it is really, really important and their were some other improvements made like the office of government information services, the national archives, has a little bit more power and other things to talk about, if you like it. there also was eric holder memo. the obama administration, remember, all that great dealing with media issues and obama went after more journalists and so-called whistleblowers then any president in history and sucked journalists in with these folks they were charging with espionage. in the summer of 2013 after the media really went crazy over

orders for some records from the ap and calling james rosen from fox alleging he was a co-conspirator so they can get a warrant and get around the privacy protection act, the media pushed back and holder came back with a memo that was tinkered with, leave it. they tinkered with the memo a couple times, but what we have got from holder is essentially a guideline that says we won't do that anymore and we are not going to go after the media for doing their job. again, a really important, a lot written about it. what you need to understand is that is a guideline, not a statute and jeff sessions could come in on day one and revoke the whole thing.

a lot of people spent a lot of time working on this. out the window. i would not be shocked at all. that is exactly what he did. >> thank you very much. kevin, give me a sense you are talking about, what is your biggest worry for this administration? >> all of it. right where lucy was ending, our job as attorneys is largely to think of the worst-case scenario and work back there. i love the optimism, i have some fears, let's be clear, a lot of these fears are because you did something really relevant, there are certain precedents in place, some are negative too that were started in this administration.

and be allowed, built upon, i fear, by the next administration. a lot of discussion with attorneys for media groups and trade associations and to understand my background i don't spend full-time running the affairs of the national press foundation. i am a volunteer board member who happens to be chairman of the board right now. i'm a media attorney and represent the society of news editors and association of news media. we do a lot of policy work including working on the foia bill and white house correspondents association three years ago on a letter that complained to president obama about the lack of access reporters were getting to white house events. that is a precedent the incoming president will want to take

advantage of, restricting access, controlling the flow of information and its administration, one way he will take that, the access will become much more -- won't say pay to play but preferential. it will become access journalism more than accountability journalism and the problem in all these areas is you don't have a lot of good law to push back. that is my fear, there's not a lot of legal precedent when the president says we are going to have a meeting with the japanese prime minister, and a handout photo we want you to see, and the handout photo and controls in the room because there are only so many people we can fit in. if we get that, maybe breitbart, not the washington post, remains

to be seen. it is difficult to push back on a legal sense, one of the leaders when this happened at the state level here in maryland and they are working for cnn, or others when a reporter from the baltimore sun, we -- not be led into any events we don't have to let you into and we will not answer your phone calls. we will not give you anything else and they went to court and lost. that is most recent in this area regarding coverage of executive official and that can scare people. why should it scare people? people don't want to go to this place, end up with propaganda, being given out, what they want

you to see. i can get you kanye or trump, i am worried about access and retaliation. on the legal side, you do have grounds to push back, foia would be number one, there are a lot of foia laws, used in other areas. my mentor, and former boss, said dick schmidt, the greatest country that is the greatest thing the country produced without the first amendment but independent federal judiciary to uphold the first amendment and we put a reliance in court, the fear is media organizations don't have the money or time, and the law is there. and don't have ability to press that law. that -- you mentioned possible

prosecution of journalism, another thing i was worried about was the president-elect might consider nondisclosure agreement for government employees, standard with intelligence agencies, intelligence and defense agencies, and information to you as reporters and the public and that would be an unbelievable way to control information if you want to and not sure that is something to be happy about. the anti-slap law, federal anti-slap law, frivolous lawsuits kicked out of court. the president elect likes life -- libel lawsuits. there is ample evidence that maybe he does for his friends do or millionaires who want to bankroll attacks on publications

are emboldened to do so which brings me to my last point, what bothers me is cultural change we may see. in prior years, were completely off and running and i put my hope and faith that you are right that they will respect the presidential pool. i put my faith in the fact the first amendment will stand up to all of this but what i think you will start to see is a culture shift where it is okay. we are seeing it already. it is okay to disregard what they say, okay to sue them, embrace and physically threaten them. this all becomes -- the word is we heard, normalized. that is what i fear most, the we have a massive culture change.

i heard people about various things that happened in government over the last eight years and i won't say this administration has been great. they came in, the current one, came in with this unbelievable statement we will be the most transparent administration in history. one thing they wish they could take back. that line would be in the top 10. it was an unattainable goal to meet and they wish they never said it and they feel anyway and a lot of regards, there were a lot of things being done i fear for. efforts to harness technology to put information to the public is very proactive, like the 18 f office and gsa, technology think tank doing a lot of things, that was a real positive. i don't know if it is going well. the office of government information services is an independent overseer of foia. a way to counterbalance the time, the justice department,

what is their future? what is the future of the open government partnership which created a metric for our participation and ability to lead on the world stage as the country committed to transparency, all these things were created in the last eight years and were great. extensions of them or improvements on them or other ideas that are similar and what i heard about all those things that makes me worry for them, not that they are going away, they will still be in existence and i want them to be because they created a culture in government that i know people can't classify, can't see but people told me matters throughout the agency and that is something you will see. >> thanks. quick definition. you said the 18 f office, what is that? >> and office of innovation

located at 18th and f street. they built really cool stuff for thegovernment. all the technology and information, it is really cool but it goes unnoticed by a lot of people. that is something i would love to see continued. you talk about -- someone asked me what a new president would mean for foia. when i saw his attorney general pick, i got really scared. >> questions in a few minutes. a little more about the foia reform legislation. you talked about it a little bit. how does that get through congress? a press friendly piece of legislation got through congress. >> there are quite a few members of congress on both sides of the

aisle, foia truly is a bipartisan effort when it gets down to it to charles grassley is a big proponent of transparency. he uses those transparency laws himself. when he is chairing a committee like the judiciary, he can push those things, that way he's always a big supporter. darrell i thought, really big supporter, their motivation was to get information about obama to the public. they wanted transparency about what the democrats were doing. there was bipartisan support to get it done. they did a few other things as part of it. kevin was pretty intricately involved in it. i talk about the presumption of

exposure and strengthening the foi office. they made foia a little more friendly by creating a portal. you can argue this would be full implementation of the foia amendment of 1996 if they were to pull this off but they are allowing requesters to ask for documents in one central place, you don't have to be an expert on foia and sit down and go who wouldn't have that record and it should be a lot more friendly. and new reporting requirements for the agency and what they have to report on what their activities are every year, the most controversial part of the amendment will be keeping a log.

they are supposed to be taking the most frequently requested foia request and once they fulfill them, they will be making them sequester them and make them available to other people so next time somebody asks for that, don't have to reinvent the wheel but the other thing they are going to do is publicly identify the requester and the question will be are we going to come up with a little bit of a delay so they get their stories done? because there has been some reporter push back on that. anybody who has time to scan the records to find out who has been requesting what, on balance, this is a good thing to reveal this information. >> the whole project.

>> the foia is fulfilled, that is automatically posted in electronic -- >> theoretically. >> it would be available through the portal if anybody else who came later without having to file a request. if you are a reporter you were worried by your self. >> the identity of the requester and the information posted. >> it happened in the last eight years. >> is this lawfully into effect? >> signed by the president. we know from other times foia has been amended it takes time. but yes. to unwind this, you would have to go back to congress and change the law. >> i know this makes foia look

more robust. will it have the impact of filling the request faster? >> no. no. unless you are asking for something someone else asked for. last time we amended foia, to improve that process, the sheer volume of what the agencies respond to and the cost of it, no. has morphed into this gigantic being, to wrestle it to the ground. i do not anticipate what takes three years to get will only take six months, you are still looking at three years. >> we have a bunch of questions but i will turn the mic over, we

will go to you next. >> using social media and youto to talk to people in ways other presidents haven't. i haven't seen it in a harmful way, still has a lot of use but eventually going to try to bypass that? >> i think that trend started before donald trump and he is using it particularly effectively and using it a lot. i think the obama white house also made use of social media as a way to bypass traditional press but they didn't cut out threat in terms of not doing press conferences or other

access needs. the media has to adapt to social media. that is going to happen more with the incoming president for sure. i do think if that pendulum swings all the way towards a trump administration or president trump, using twitter or social media completely bypassing the press consistently, we as a news organization and members of the white house correspondents association in particular will have to have a discussion about our strategy because right now we are reporting every single tweet as we have a responsibility to do that because that is how the president-elect is communicating. we don't have the avenue he is communicating with. if we don't get progress in our

24 access to him and members of his administration, and other parts of his new white house, we will have to have a strategy we have to deal with the change making the media this floor and discrediting everything they said regardless what it was if he didn't like it, people like marty baron, we can always do our job but how else can we fight against that kind of thing, against him discrediting everything you say, it resonated with them, evidence to support everything, the washington post -- >> i wish i had an easy answer to that question. i think at least part of the answer to that question is reporters have a responsibility to tell accurate stories and put in accurate and full context. you are seeing that from many

publications. the day the president-elect talked about millions of fraudulent voters having taken part in the election. many headlines said -- sites millions without evidence. that is important and critical and factual. journalists have a responsibility to do that. the onus will be honest to continue doing that if that style of rhetoric continues when he is in the white house. >> an interesting thought on that. gleaned in prepping for this in another meeting i was having to discuss all these issues, i read a part of articles on coverage of the campaign. somewhere related to legal and some related to how do you push back and one of these articles, i can't remember who said it, said visuals will be more important than anything else. i am thinking that is the access

question. wasn't the one thing during the campaign that tripped him up the most the video? his own words. that is why the access matters you can't stop him tweeting, no one wants to stop him, that would be a first amendment violation to say you cannot tweet. what i think has to happen, what will get more groundswell media, fact over narrative, would be source documents, foia helps a lot. source documents, source video, not he said she said back and forth, as strong as the government is, putting everything out there. that is where controlling the access of the video and the photos and things will overcome.

>> talk about the issue of the handout and we have an issue with that, with the white house where the obama white house was relying the do much on putting out additional photos instead of allowing the pool and still photographers, we were successfully got the practice to change. the way you do that is by having community in the press corps and the decision not to use the photo. we tried that with the photo from the trump meeting and it worked partially. the washington press corps, the white house press corps was respectful of the decision not to use it. but we didn't do it, a good enough job getting the message across to our colleagues because the press in japan -- photos,

once it gets out it is out so everyone can use it. the way i would wrap up the issue is the media and news organizations we have some power and our power is we stay unified. we won't use those handout photos or this has happened with the obama administration too, if the white house as we let in just a few people from the pool, the whole pool says we are not going in which we don't accept it if our colleagues, we don't accept it if we don't have a camera person, that sort of unity is very powerful. that is one of my goals. with a goal in july before knowing who had won the election, press corps unity and access to key criteria.

>> go here. >> kevin talked about obama saying they want to be transparent in how they came to regret those words. as a healthcare reporter we found access to federal agencies really tightening and insisting more and more if you're going to interview somebody, our organization when we report a story like that, mentioned in the story a reminder there but i am wondering if you can talk about that? >> to increase. when it was really prevalent, science was involved. the climate change people and

healthcare people, and the way they were sitting on you guys, going to a lot more innocuous and things that were so unbelievably routine in the past, they will try to do something like that, the solution was a good one, every time they do it, they are not able to talk to the number one guy in the world, without having a public relations person putting everything he said. or staring him down. so and so was glared at by the public relations -- we have to do more of that, more, particularly these days with fake news and all that, explain our process am of the one thing

we hopefully have as journalists is credibility and one way to get credibility is to be more transparent about where you got the information versus these guys sitting in their basements making stuff up. hillary clinton had martian parents or something. a good word of advice would be i know it takes up space and i know it takes up time, but mentioned that stuff. for one thing, it says you were in the room with this person. >> this is not something that started under obama. it has been going on for years, it intensified again and won't go down, something you need to go down with, it is difficult, we represent the a&e when we did this letter, the access issue, literally 50 groups total send this letter that resulted in a meeting with jay carney and we talked a wiley and there was a

follow-up with the white house leading the way, and petered out after a while. they met -- they were. i was part of a small delegation representing fpga and environmental journalists about that particular issue, meeting with josh earnest, nothing really happened, they took the meeting, we listened and talked, a lot of talk a little action and that is the standard for an administration. they can say they listen but the reality is nothing changes. there is a not a lot you can do to change it. there is one thing you can do. >> the whole nondisclosure agreement, federal employees are theoretically going to be signed which only intelligence agency

employees in the past, if that happens, routine stuff that will shut down access to a bunch of agencies. >> i just wondered do you think the purpose off the record of meetings with the president-elect or the president, how do you think that will play? >> the only off the record meeting i can think of is the one with the tv networks. it is funny you mentioned that because when i first saw that meeting i was frustrated because of what i shared about press corps unity and i thought here we go. the tv crews are going in, we

are not all on one page. reporting of the results of that meeting made me feel that is fine. maybe we didn't need to be in on that because it was not a meeting about access, at least that wasn't the main thrust of the meeting. it was more an opportunity, sounds like i was in the room but more of an opportunity for the president-elect against broadcast coverage he did not find favorable. to answer your question i would say i think the way the new york times handled their meeting was terrific. having some off the record time with any principal recovering can sometimes be valuable as

long as it is done -- as long as there is a chance for an on the record piece. the 2008 campaign, that being a topic we were discussing on the obama press corps about whether we owe k with him coming back to chat with reporters, that was only okay if he was also doing a press conference where we could ask on the record questions. the same principle applies here. will we have some off the record meetings with his staff as we are working on asset issues and working on preparing the way for white house coverage? that needs -- they need to know when they are sitting down with us we are negotiating -- i won't take everything i learned in

that meeting and go out and write a critical statement, that doesn't help me. your question i don't think was about that, it was more specifically having off the record meetings with the president-elect. there needs to be balanced. of the two examples i can think of in the last couple weeks, the television exec and anchors and new york times, new york times example is the one to follow. >> back to this side of the room, start with james. >> you said it is an example, first time covering the trump principal, the people who do that, how to kind of go about normalizing the routine, the way they respect things like the lid that we got used to. for example, we are done for the

day but turned out that is not done for the day and come back and they warned them and in the afternoon they tell me there is a lid on the day and i see a couple extra hours and i don't trust it at all, and if they come back and we trust their word, that is a way to normalize it. the term loses all meeting, what is the responsible way to normalize the routine without walking over access. if we don't respect them they won't respected and this is a split and i'm wondering what you think. >> anyone not familiar with the term lid, anyone not familiar with that term? that is the term we use at the end of the day when the white house -- i will use the white house as an example, the

president is not going to any movements on or off campus that the press would cover. to be more specific no event on campus, he is not leaving because if he were the pool would cover him but what it basically means, you are free to go and your question on the trump site at trump tower in particular, should we or should we not respected when they call because there have been a handful of examples they called the lid and something had to happen. >> using terms that established administrations use in the same way -- >> anything besides the term? >> it is a good example how they use the things for the future when it comes to nothing to see here and they leave and so on. >> on that specific example, i am not concerned.

i'm encouraged by reporters not necessarily taking their word for it about a lid. i don't say that to be critical of the trump folks. part of it is genuinely they are still figuring it out, figuring out how we were, what their responsibilities are to the press. i know the one time he went out for dinner in new york and did notbring a pool, hicks had given a lid to the press and everyone rightfully freaked out when they heard he had gone out for dinner and she had known he was going out for dinner so i am not there, don't know what the individual conversations were but i take her at her word, communication internally, it is a good thing. but when we get to the -- when they get to the white house and the press corps is there,

calling a lid right now doesn't mean all reporters go home. it just means in many cases still photographers go home because they don't have anything else to photograph but the rest of us hanging around anyway. maybe some of the folks who might accept a lid as standard at the beginning of the trump administration, stay a little longer afterwards in case it happens probably. that would probably be wise. i don't think -- i am not ready to extrapolate the experience, very unusual experience of covering the transition at trump tower and applying all those, what will happen at the white house because it is just a totally different environment. that said i am not naïve and i don't think any of us should be naïve about the risks and

respecting traditions and vocabulary and terms like that. part of it will mean we have 2 be vigilant but in fairness we have to be sure they get a chance to get it and explain what the standards are and the practices and principles and we are working on that. >> i was wondering, the president's strategy, the idea of nondisclosure agreements from government officials calling late and going out. is there precedent in other administrations with these ideas in the past? >> i can't think back to when bill clinton signed what would have been a us version of britain official secrets act and

only last-minute intervention by newspapers through john podesta made him realize this is a really bad idea. i don't think it was intentional. he was ready to sign it and threw it. seemed like a good idea. what do you know more practically? >> in terms of other presidents. it is the pool. that happened. it hasn't happened a lot hasn't been apples for apples comparison because they had a pool to ditch. we don't entirely have with the trump folks. we are mostly there but not all the way. i can think of two times

president obama and it was very unusual. i think there was one time and had a sitdown with my colleagues, i a colleague of mine said it happened once in hawaii. in washington he went out to get a sandwich, and a poor choice by someone lower down, not sure. it is always from the press

point of view egregious, and there wasn't a systematic which the pool under this administration. there was an alarming decrease -- for some it's with the president which is not entirely something the white house -- was a longer answer, there is not a widespread problem a trump administration. >> number 16 statement about ditching the press pool, breaking with decades of

precedent. what is the history to go into effect and how long is that there? >> the press pool had various iterations for decades. everyone can remember there was a pool with john f. kennedy, it wasn't the same number of journalists we have now and communications, fascinating stories about the two wire reporters, keeping ap from getting the news out that is not a press for unity issue we have anymore because -- it dates back then. i can't give you details, specific rundown of details,

maybe somebody else can. >> we are talking 75 or 80 years in some form or another. >> a former fellow -- two questions. i wanted to let you know, from kanye to trump in a minute. as we rattle off, libel lawsuits because we know the president-elect wants to open up libel laws, the possibility of that happening, to attack what we do and if you could just, you touched on it as well, give us your prescription for this era of fake news and bald statements. tweet about illegal votes because we wrote the story saying the president-elect cites

evidence but just yesterday, the incoming chief of staff sent him on that point so we are writing the story but how much good is sinking in when we are combating things like that and fake news issue. >> i will say i think it is a red herring. other than to say give some credibility to others, can't do this himself, he can't criminalize flagburning himself. i feel like alan iversen here, are we really talking about

flagburning? this is insane. i don't see anything about it. you did a lot more with libel laws in the past than i ever did -- you have a much better sense of that. >> he can't do anything. as he said to the new york times somebody pointeded out i could be in trouble myself because of things i said in the past. yes. so libel is a state tort, state action. even when you have a libel case in federal court you are still relying on state statute and state common-law. you would have to influence half of the local court denizens in the country to make any impact on this whatsoever. i am not worried about the libel laws. people raised the malice

standard issue. that is a standard created in 1964 in the new york times versus sullivan case where for the first time they applied federal constitutional law to a libel case and in the instance of a public official and later a public figure, they will have to -- the plaintiff will have to prove the statement was made knowing it was false or with reckless disregard whether it is true or false. i imagine mister trump as a litigant find that annoying. you would have to sort of in 4 years to pull off something, for the sake of argument four years have a sea change in the way libel law is operated throughout the entire country, doesn't work that way.

it just doesn't. he can talk about it all he wants but it shows ignorance. be change i should do better by doing this. we were making progress on a proposal useful for people who mentioned it earlier, the defense that used by a person who speaks out in a matter of public concern and retaliation, they can have other things and generally these laws, 30 states around the country may or may not apply in federal court allow the defendant to accelerate the judicial process and get your own damages which is unusual under us law. winning defendant's do not get their attorneys fees paid for very often and this would allow that to happen. a great thing for people who are

sued just to shut them up. not sure you would sign that by conference. >> i am pretty confident he would not. if it had gone to obama, probably would have. but 30 states have these statutes so what it would do is give those protections to the other 20 states and allow them to get rid of the cases early. californiaprobably functioning really strong statute. it works really well. >> there were two others that she had. >> these statements coming at

times. >> that is another one i wish i had. i talked about this earlier today. there is a responsibility from producers of news, journalists, consumers of news and public officials to be clear about what is actual news and what is not and we saw over the weekend potential consequences and ramifications of a fake news story being taken as seriously as this was. i don't know the answer. and social media companies, facebook included are taking it more seriously and that is good. i encourage -- i had an opportunity to speak to some students and teachers recently and encourage both sides to

inform yourself about what our actual sources of news and what aren't clearly that is an issue and it needs to be addressed and i encourage people to look closely at sources even within stories, to read and think critically. journalists have a responsibility there but the responsibility has to be shared by public officials. >> following that, last week stanford released a study that showed 80% of high school seniors were not able to identify true stories versus false stories, true information versus false information. they don't have the tools to do that. one thing we have to do as a society is have a massive education campaign. and figure out how to teach

media literacy to everybody. there is some foundation with other nonprofits that have been working on this. in maryland we teach 400 students a year. we have a popular media literacy class but there are ways to learn how to read something. the problem with anyone under the age of 30 is they are more likely than an old fossil like me to believe things they see on a screen. there are ways you can learn how to read something on the screen, look at the url, talk to a fact checker. they have a way of doing fact checking, they describe it as they read things horizontally whereas most people read the story vertically, they will go right through it but a fact checker goes and looks at it holistic lee and we have to teach people how to do that

themselves. >> kevin was going to talk about kanye for 60 seconds. let's go to chris and michael. >> there are a lot of parallels between entertainers and sports with one key difference. the interest of what we have seen the last we 10 years is a change in the reliance on those you are covering with regard to meeting you, bypass you now. politicians can bypass you, government officials can bypass you, entertainers can bypass you. so others that work very hard on making sure access via the credentials you get can ensure you don't give up too much. that is what it is about. you go to a concert like the kanye concert you have to get credentialed and those credentials say what you are allowed to cover and when you have to turn off your phones, your video when you are allowed

to take bowling balls, or the two songs, you follow police. he went on a rant that went off the stage. only for one reason, because there were people there, whether or not there are people or a rant happens you have a lawsuit. that matters. what happens if trump come in the moment the white house press pool and photographers walk out of the room turns around and goes off message to the prime minister of japan pete souza or whatever his successor is going to show a picture of the president doing that, talking down to the japanese prime minister? i don't know but i doubt it. that is why it matters. that is the case you make about why access matters, kanye and trump.