that says we should overturn it and the courts are bound. that is bound to be litigated. so the final resolution of those removal of those rules, i think could take years. and i'll stop there. >> okay. so i think i'll go to gregory next and just a bit of information. gregory is the second of our two former paul miller's on the panels today. gregly is white house correspondent at usa today washington pure row and he's written quite a bit about executive authority as practiced by president obama and including some kind of twists on how you practice that. i was hopefully you could give me an overview of the way we see things going. >> subject for panel. and it's timely. and i think it's also extraordinary usually at this point in transition we'd be talking about the president's legislative agenda more than anything else. the traditional first hundred days is a first hundred legislative days, and afterall trump does have also a mandate from the senate and the house,

both being in republican hands. he doesn't have a supermajority in the senate, but he does have a republican congress. and so a lot that he would want to accomplish as far as his positive agenda, he can do by legislation. which is obviously much more preferable than executive action because executive action can always be rescinded by a future president. so there's reason to think that president trump might not have to result earlien to a lot of executive authority, except for some of the issues that i think susan raised. there's sort of this pent-up demand from republicans to just undo everything that president obama did. some of that's going to take an act of congress, some can be done by executive action. and president-elect trump, when he was candidate talked -- one of the lines in his stump speeches was that he wanted to rescind all of the unconstitutional executive orders in presidential memoranda that were signed by president obama. i think there's two things

interesting about that formulati formulation. one is what's unconstitutional? clearly there are some executive action that president obama has taken that have been provisions of them have been struck down in the courts. i'm thinking of some provisions of his immigration actions. his clean power plan, and those are going to make their way through the courts. the other thing that trump said was he add, presidential memoranda to that formulation. and so it's of recognition, i think a lot of people in congress are relatively new this realization that not all executive authority comes from an executive order. i want to talk a little bit about some of the vehicles for executive action. some of the terminology so you know sort of what they are and how to look for them in the first days of a trump administration. the first is an executive order. that's what i think we most think of and know about when we

talk about executive authority. they are numbered. we're up to the 13,000 since they started counting these. they instruct the executive branch to do something. they're binding, they have the force of law only on the executive branch, they may be in effect for the future assistant. most executive orders go on for years or decades without ever being resinted by a future president. they can do everything from, you know, set broad policy on federal contracting, anti-discrimination in the federal government. down to an executive order that allowed the peace doerp change his logo. the only salesperson president carter signed you an executive order that the peace corps can't change without the approval of the president of the united states. so that's one important thing to know about executive orders.

if you're going to rescind an executive order, you have to do it by executive order. and you can see what they are. there's a second kind called the presidential memorandum. and that was something frankly i discovered early on in covering the white house. at the time there was a big debate about had president obama's used executive and if you count the orders, he had not. he was relatively restrained in executive orders. the use ha h gone through the roof. historically high level of presidential memoranda. they have the same force and effect as a executive order. as a matter of fact, all of these things, no matter what you call them and ordered from president is an order of the president. there are just different terps. presidential memoranda are not measured. if they're published in the federal register, there's more weight and more regulatory. i would imagine for example, susan talked about this

regulation, deregulation idea that trump has to rescind two regulations for every new regulation. i would expect that that direction would come in the early days in of the trump presidency in the presidential memorandum. we start to regulatory actions. real quick, there's presidential policy directives. those are in the natural security sphere. there've been 31 or 32 of those under president obama. they are numbered. and every once in a while, they'll issue a new ppd and skipped a bunch of numbers. they must have issued some ppds at some point, we don't know what they are. and also the humble proclamation which usually sort of a ceremonial kind of thing, but can't have power. president george w. bush launched the war on terror with a proclamation. so those are important to look out for as well. and those are also published in

the federal registry. there's a whole set that go back and forth from one administration to the other. the mexico city policy is one that's sort of famous. there's a whole bunch of policies that -- there's a set of executive actions that each new president comes in and rescinds some from the previous generation and then goes back to the old. in this case, the republican playbook of executive orders and presidential memoranda and actions that had been in effect during previous republican administrations. so, with that -- the only other thought i think i wanted to leave with you is that i keep thinking of this famous line that was the atlantic.ca a few months ago and it's been often repeated that the press always took donald trump literally, but not seriously. but trump voters took him seriously, but not literally. and so i think as we, you know, trump transitions from the president-elect to the future

president. i think it's incumbent upon us frajly as journalists to cover him both seriously and literally. and i think you do that by paying as much attention to what he does through executive actions. as to what he says in a tweet. i think we end up chasing our tails on some of these tweets sometimes. he often sends out mixed messages, but when he takes an executive action, that'll have a force of law and we ought to take it literally. he will need to mean what he says. they're very important to keep an eye on. >> thank you. >> tim, tim from the daily beast, you wrote an article earlier this year -- i'm sorry, just a few weeks ago, obama's imperial presidency is now trumps. i was hoping you could give me a sense of, you know, what you see coming and what you -- you know, what was the thrust of that article there. >> sure. i cover national security mostly from a congressional perspective and not at the white house. but what you find out over and over again is keep bumping into

executive authority. what the white house is doing that trump's basically what congress is doing. so i wrote an article about the kinds of authorities that the white house, the obama white house will soon be transferring to the trump white house. all sofrts expansions of power in the national security span. we're talking things like the authority to kill an american citizen overseas without a trial. that happened during the obama administration. we're talking about secret courts on wiretapper. we're talking about waging war overseas without congressional authorization. this is happening right now with the obama administration relying on the al qaeda authorization for the use of military force. not a new one that authorizes them to fight a war against isis. so, we have all sofrts expansion over the last eight years and

not of that has been -- it hasn't been covered or pointed to by all that many sources. and i think we'll start to see a lot more coverage about the same authorities being used under a trump administration. with the exception of aclu and, you know, certain news outlets, the vast majority of -- of the price has not sounded an alarm on national security issues that have happened under the obama administration. the obama administration and the white house in general, the executive has enormous power over the national security and in many ways, it's been seeded to them by congress. congress has chosen not to pass an authorization of the use of military force to declare war. it could have, but it has not been able to reach an agreement on how long that will be. who would be -- who would be targeted in such a war. the actors at play, whether

there are geographical limits on where that war can be waged. right now i think a lot of people are of the belief that war against al qaeda and related terrorist groups to include isis, even though isis wasn't around in 2001, to include isis can be fought anywhere around the world, at any time. using lethal means. which is not spelled out in the letter of law. i guess the point is to say that the obama administration has sent all of these massive precedents that will now be used and expanded further by a administration. other powers that the white house has over national security include things like security clearances and top secret documents. creating a top secret document is an extension of the executives power over hiding information from the public that they believe to be necessary to be hidden for the purposes of

national security. so i'll give you a couple of example ls. i did a story a couple weeks ago on steve bannon who under normal circumstances if you put him through a security background check and he was working at dhs or something like that. he would have a very hard time getting a security clearance. why? because he has associations with far right groups in you were. because he has a charge of domestic abuse from a decade, decade and a half ago, this is a man who under normal circumstances would find it very difficult to work right next to the president. but, he has an ace in the hole. at the end of the day if the doj say this guy's not qualified, he doesn't pass our minimum standard requirement. the president of the united states can say, i'm going to override that and i'm going give that to him. because the -- what does it mean for something to be top secret? it's the extension of the white

house's belief that that document should not be shown to the public because it would endanger american's lives and american interests. so that's like another example of how powerful the white house is on national security issues. another way that the white house can use that power is to mix top secret information with unclassified information. and store that in a place where it's very difficult to get. so, i have a story today that's about documents related to the iran nuclear deal. so we're talking letters between foreign ministers. we're talking assessments of the iranian nuclear research and development program. we're talking about the details of behind a $1.7 billion cash payments are on in exchange for hostages. things like that. all of these documents are in the public interest and they're unclassified, but what's

happened is that the obama administration has provided them to congress, mixed in with top secret documents and held and capitol hill in a special location on capitol hill called the skiff. which is for sensitive compartmentalized information. and because it's in there, you can't walk out with documents from that, from the skiff. and the public can't see unclassified nflgs that's in the public interest to know. so that's another way that the white house and the presidency can use it's power arguably for good, arguably for bad. and on the issue of transparency here at these documents, i would argue for bad. i guess the bottom line of what i'm trying to say is over the next over the past eight years, we've seen a mass after i increase about what the white house can do legally. oftentimes it uses it's lawyers

to interpret a law in a new way this expands it's power. and we should expect and cover and investigate all the ways. >> i have this investigative reporter for the washington post who's job bird dogging trump, financial empires, finances around the world. and, tom you were telling me that, you know, the scope of that, of that empire is -- will cause us to reexam what we think of the power that he might be using in the white house. can you maybe explain that label the? >> yes chris, thanks so much, and thanks for inviting me to be here and great to be here with this great panel and with all of you. i was tended paul miller and press foundation events like this throughout my career. mostly money and politics. as part of that, i've been assigned to cover the transitions of presidents going

back to ronald reagan's first term. when i first got to town, jimmy carter was the president. and i have to tell you that this transition strikes me as different from any we have covered before. and i think it creates a special role and an opportunity for journalists, in part because in addition to the legal mechanisms that greg was talking about memoranda executive orders. the executive orders and decisions that will move through the ombs regulatory apparatus and that wonderfully visible to the press. there is now something else going on during this transition that we have not seen before and chris mentioned it a moment ago. and that's the arrival in town of president-elect and his transition team. president-elect who is approaching the presidency and some of the traditions of the presidency, not just the the

powers granted but in the constitution and by statute and the traditions of executive orders, but it's also approaching trat digs in the cannon of this moment of transfer of power differently from other presidents. part of this comes because we have a president unlike any we've had before. who is not just a businessman, we haven't had presidents who have been in business, of course, and the government thrives and meant to be sort of a citizen's democracy. but this particular president has business holdings all over the world. and he has shown during the transition willingness to discuss, if not pursue some of those business interests during the transition. and differed place of power for a president. he'll have an nounsment and explain how he is separating

himself from this extraordinary business unlike that of any other presidents who has had so many entanglements of foreign businesses and also i would argue foreign governments. we saw just in the last couple of days a different use of transition power than we have seen before. not entirely unprecedented, but quite extraordinary where the president-elect used his executive power to convince a private company not to expand as it had intended in mexico. so, let me just get briefly to the extraordinary challenge that i think we face. if we have a president who is -- who is going to ignore to a certain extent or not abide by some of the traditions and by the traditions that i was

talking about doing, jimmy carter came to town in 1976, stew who was one of those who led the transition, domestic policy chief was in charge of ensuring that the president sold any financial interests or moved into a briend trust. any financial interests which might intersect with the things that gregory was just describing that an incoming president is likely to do. so they moved. as many of you know, jimmy carter was in the peanut business, moved his holdings into a blind trust that was administered by a family attorney. he went further than that. he insisted -- it was carter who insisted. they wrote an agreement, jimmy carter would not engage in discussion of peanut policy while he was president. and because one of his most staunch backers and most important constituents as governor of georgia had been the coca-cola company and because the federal issue because which

and the domestic policy chief and others to deal with sugar business and said i'm not going to touch it. this is not an isolated case. lyndon johnson moved the radio stations that were in his wife's name into a blind trust. george w. bush and george h.w. bush also took extraordinary pains to ensure the nabl their actions would be in the public interest and there would be no infringement on private interests or private holdings. so that's not happening in this administration, at least not so far. maybe we'll get a different announcement on december 15, but, my font would be that -- thought would be that we have a president-elect that's already using executive powers in unorthodoxed ways. the accountability for some of these things are not because it's a matter of tradition. president-elect trump has said,

correctly, that the laws of conflict of interest and the gift statutes don't govern the president. in fact he can do what he wants. what we're relying son a very thin line here of president cannon and tradition. i'm going back to the beginning of the republic. if it is breached and i'm not saying it will be, we don't know what's announced on the 156th, but my thought has been that we have a special obligation as journalists to try to track the sort of extraordinary behavior in the executive branch of a chief executive unlike any we've seen before. >> let me ask a quick follow-up. i have a few questions here, but i want many questions from you. when you guys are ready, raise your hands and i'll call on you, tom, could you give me a brief sense of i mean what is the scope of his empire around the world? and then secondary question, is ian if some conflict of interest or some rules kind of constrain

what he can do in the u.s., is there any notion that what's going on with his business holdings overseas will be kind of totally immune to those kind of restraints? >> so the business holdings are vast. we don't understand them entirely. one of the things i'd refer you all to because i think this is going to be one of our jobs is something that i know on my panel igss know very well. the opposite of government ethics disclosure form. because the president of the united states is not bound by the conflict of interest for gift rules, nor is the vice president, but he is require -- he is bound by the transparency requirement. so donald trump has issued this, i think this is 96 pages, right? of holdings, it's very fine print. you'll need super glasses, magnifying glasses. and what you'll find in here are 560 llcs. private partnerships, many of them registered in delaware,

some registered overseas. very difficult to penetrate, but some of them, give us a sense of where the trump holdings lie. so, we see about 20 countries listed here. sometimes it was just let's say djt llc and then in parens, saudi. we don't know much about this particular llc, but we know that there is at least an expressed trump interest in doing some kind of business in saudi arabia. so we have these vast holdings and they extend to across -- sort of the range of human activities in some ways since it's donald trump, some of the most obvious and maybe the most kint overseas are golf courses. next we have -- and there are 18 trump golf courses around the world. some of -- one of them came into the news, chris, and as everyone will recall, recently because

donald trump is concerned about the viewing from his golf course. from some of the wonderful links that they developed in scotland. he's concerned that the view will be marred by a british plan to erect a windmill farm off the north coast. and when he met post-election whose the head of the up and coming party in the british parliament. he mentioned distaste for windmills. so here is the president at least in the eyes of some people, asserting his personal and his first discussion with an overseas official. so, i mentioned golf courses, then of course there are hotels all around the world. most of donald trump's hotels are now branded. he doesn't own many of them

anymore. most are -- they're not quite franchises, but the trump sells his name and it's his uncertain quality standards, but there is a very -- what we think -- the few agreements we've looked at profound economic stake in this, in these hotels because not only does the trump organization receive up front fees for use of the name. we'd look at a couple of the licensing agreements. he also gets a percentage of each sale. in some cases the trump organization also manages the hotel and so their percentages from the -- and income from gift shops and other things. because, and let's see the last thing on the list of course are real estate. are the towers that are being built around the world. another -- there are towers that were discussed again during the transition. being built in india. there are two trump towers that are now under construction and

have a dozen others that are under discussion. and as all of us know from our own experiences with real estate zoning and so forth in this country, building a skyscraper is in part a government enterprise because of the permitting that's required environmental test and so forth. there is a huge roll for government and so the question is, and this is sort of the argument that the press has a role to play. what is appropriate for the pursue personal interests while in office. and a related question, if these things aren't fully disclosed how do we know about them and watched on role that i'd argue anyway is sort of upon us in a way that we haven't faced other administrations into office. >> susan's a question i'll turn to you -- susan, you mentioned

the congressional review act. this is something that came about during the the house, and it's only been used before. and do we have any sense of how many how do they actually count the scope of it, the scope of days, do we have a sense of how many obama could be part of it and wrapped into it. >> yes, it was -- the congressional review act was a bill passed in 1996. and it gives congress 60 legislative days. or session days. review after a regulation is published. to send a resolution to this proovl to the president. that of 0 days as you all know is a 60 legislative days turns into a lot more when you count the time they are at home. the crs around may 30th.

by congress and i should back up. and in this congress, the clock starts over again in the next congress. so, 15 days in the next congress, the clock starts over again. so that means the new congress has another seven months or so to decide to vote to disapprove. likely we're talking or maybe not -- at least and probably over 200 regulations would be subject to disapproval. overturned. it's going to take time to do that. and the majority, it still could

take ten hours per regulation. certainly they were close to all the regulations. answer the questions, chris, and his other question was, it happened once, so the one time it happened was very similar circumstances to what we are now. published at the very appointment administration. and landed on george w. bush's desk when he signed it. the reason i think we didn't see it being used and the transition and bush xliii to obama was that it's any rule disapproved using this procedure. the agency so it's a sledge hammer.

i was involved in that period, i was part of the team and was really trying not to push him out the door. but i suspect that the regulation definitely at the end of the bush administration. the obama tale would like to have tweaked and modify ied i suspect that's why it's that way. >> so do i have some questions out here? we'll go back and start with katie. >> my question is really is there one avenue the regulation of the water that you get in pds permits. there was a path to be appealed.

to undo that regulation and what do they do to voice that? dhauds make sense? >> yes. four of the five option i mentioned apply in more limited circumstances. i think these are water discharge regulations under the clean water act. there must be one that was in this window that could be overturned by congress. i think most will be thinged that and on that rule making. and that's -- there really is a lot of opportunity for the public to get involved there. and if agencies and call it ash

twrar. the public on regulations and it is important. before we talked about transparency and it is transparency in the rule making process. before the decision is final. >> they'll to want undo that pretty quickly in order to do that. >> it probably wouldn't have played that well. of their own legislative. so, chevron could well get involved if there were litigation over the two. say trump chose to write a new regulation. the regulation.

courts will look at you -- which docket do you refer to because they were both done. >> okay. so we've got quite a few questions here. we'll go with you first. and if your question is directed at one of the four panelists, please direct it specifically and address it. i need to restate the question so i'll get back in the habit of doing that. so you can go here. >> the president-elect will have his press conference on the 15th. i assume, you know, he will state what he stated before that he's going to turn control of his businesses over to his children, but also talk to us about potential conflict of interest there because we've already seen kind of that gray area and blurred lines and just today, ivanka trump sat down with al gore, she was at that meeting with the japanese prime minister, yet if his kids are

running the business, a, what type of conflict of interest that could present, and b, is there anything to hold them to account or is this just going to be a murky gray area for the next four years? >> okay. so the question is, the question is about, you know, what sort of conflict of interest will be innernt he's turning his business over to his kids. is there. any kind of way to work around that? tom. >> well, all of this is is the sort of new world that we're in. in addition to the conversation, ivanka trump was on the line when donald trump talked to the president of argentina. where they announced two days after the conversation that a long stalled trump tower is now moving ahead. and ivanka trump was on the line with the japanese prime minister as well. what role ivanka and her husband jared will play and eric trump

and donald jr. will play in an administration, advising their president and so forth. is a really big question. we don't really have the answers to it. to some ethics lawyers, the sort of guiding principle goes back to -- now famous clause in the constitution with a funny name. which prohibits the president from accepting gifts, favors. from a foreign leader. so if the -- if argentina's president was to give a green light to a long-stalled tower for the trump family, for which the president or his children would benefit is that right? there are some ethics lawyers from both across the ideological

perspective who think, yes, there is a constitutional issue here. and it may be while the president is not bound by our traditional conflict of interest or gift prohibitions he obviously is bound by the constitution and that could set up a constitutional crisis at some point. remember though that the ways or the ways in which you might raise those constitutional questions are also are limited and so those are the -- so it's really, there are two things i should mention. there's the clause which provides a very specific prohibition on certain activities by the chief executive. and then there's also from congress a few years ago. 2010, 2009, passed the stock act

which is primarily focussed on members of congress and conflicts of interest. it also required that the president and vice president be covered 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 and to this -- again the office of government ethics, oge.gov within 45 days of any transaction. and so there will be one additional area of sort of disclosure and an opportunity to watch these transactions and chris, i neglected to mention the stock portfolio of the trump organization and donald trump is not insignificant. tens of millions of dollars in stocks. some of them in industries that could be affected by some of the

regulations. an executive orders we were talking about today. >> so in the white shirt over here. >> my name's chris johnson. i think a lot of our readers are concerned about you roll back of president obama's executive actions that you're protecting minority groups. and the first of these is the dhaka exec tv action for those who will not bring back the second. the executive order president obama signed for prohibiting the people. it's kind of a broader set of initiatives interpreting civil rights law pa that would bring discrimination. first talk to the conflict into that and the last two how easy it would be for them to be compromised by and sin earthing that into regulation. >> very basically, how easily

could president trump undo some civil rights protections? >> and greg might be able to weigh in on this too. for the executive orders, he can rescind them as quickly -- yeah, he did rescind them by signing something. by signing. now, the regulations in some of those that you're talk abouting are 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 on these? >> i think that's it. ted cruz had a line during his campaign that he lived by the pen, executive actions can be rescinded by the future person. in this case, the executive orders you talked about. the one dealing with nondiscrimination against lgbt people in federal contracting. that's something that could be rescinded. now it's also -- i'm not going to presume that trump is going to do any of this. he's said some things during the

campaign that, you know, he loves the lgbt people and he loves the hispanic people and who knows what exactly he's going to do. but one thing that president obama i think has done is raised the bar on these kinds of things. and so with many of these executive orders, presidential memoranda and other generic executive actions. every time a president takes one of these. they set a new status quo. there's an example of this in the transition from president clinton to president bush where he passed this arsenic rule. dramatically lowered amount of arsenic allowed in the water. bushes knew cabinet came in and said there's no science behind that. that's not the right level. we're going to rescind that. it got perceived publicly not as going back to the status quo, but that he -- that bush was

trying to dramatically increase the amount of arsenic allowable in the drinking water. even though the original regulation hadn't ian been implemented yet. so the only sort of protection i think that you have there is that there will be, these things all have to be done consecutively. and if president trump signs such an executive order. it'll be very clear what he's doing. and this he will be changing the new status quo. and there's a political cost to that. that's not insignificant. but, can he do it? absolutely. >> didn't really have a tend city go into great detail how he's going to accomplish these things. didn't seem to care for some of the more day-to-day operations in the presidency. do you think he's going to be interested in when he becomes president going to some of the more fine level on actions.

of themes like immigration that he's talking about? to whoever wants to answer it. >> i think the only gauge that we have and so has he been a detailed oriented businessman? from the reporting that's out there. he can very much micromanage issues. but it seems to happen spatically and without -- without really disearnable pattern.

keep micromanaging on issues that we haven't really gone on. >> let's go to ben. >> sort of thought about it. when tim was talking and obviously the president of the obama administration really brought more power to the presidency specifically and national security. i guess are there any indications that the current administration is trying to string things down a little bit ahead of a administration or comfortable with the time they exceeded or somewhere in between. >> are they comfortable where things are? and the guy comes in.

i guess tim, or whoever. >> i think there's a philosophical way to look at that. i'd logically and there's like a legal authority perspective, right? so during the course of the campaign, and the city wants to in some ways move away from nato who wants to renegotiate and wants to reduce the role that americans are playing in wars overseas. from a if i have soft call perspective, you might argue from a legal perspective, you know, the president's authority has been increasing for years and years and years. i'm not sure if president-elect trump has thought very much about the need for a new authorization of military force. i'm not sure it's crossed his head. i'm sure that it's crossed hin's head. she's talked about it.

it crossed -- it was a major theme of tim kaine's senate career. so i know they thought about it. i've never heard president-elect trump once say that the presidency needs to be more constrained. that, that congress needs to be more involved in the conduct of war and military action. so there's no reason for me to think that from a legal authority's perspective, the president will want to reign that in. the president-elect will want to reign that in. >> just briefly, with respect to regulation, i think we're seeing actually more of, you know, more of a reach rather than less. an example of that is epa just last week issued for a 30-day comment which is very short of very significant regulatory action on fuel economy for vehicles. it did that without going through the internal review process that is done for all

regulations. that's not the kind of thing i would think they would want the an ex president to be able to do and yet i think they're anxious to get out before the end of the administration. they were willing to take process wise, quite dramatic actions. >> i'm going to go to you in the back still in the second, but susan, while i have you here, could you maybe just give the journalist in the room a little bit about the irregular la toir study center. what kind of research do you do and what's the resources do you have for journalists. >> well thank you, chris, that's a great question. it's the george washington regulatory center of public policy and public administration. we have a date, a weekly news letter that's a digest on all the things that are going on in the regulatory world. so just e-mail us and we'd love to put you on that. so that's not just what we're working on, 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 file comments on individual regulations. and of course we teach. so we love to -- i mean we love teaching our students, but we also would be happy to do more things like this and just talk about how regulation works. >> okay. still have a question? okay. >> so with trump appointing a variety of individuals to his transition team and starting to appoint or nominate his cabinet there's ban lot of discussion about his lack of expertise or a specific expertise in different policy areas and i wonder if you think that may empower people who are actually heading these agencies more than the epa

policy agenda for climate action plan came from the white house, but in the trump administration, do you see that changing and having agencies have a stronger foothold since maybe that may not be a strength of the white house? >> i've had one conversation recently with paul white who is a nyu professor who studies changes of administration and the nature of cabinets. one of the things that, that one of the other things that distinguishes this transition from others is sort of the level of preparation. so they're scrambling, it seems to find cabinet no, ma'am niece. one of the questions is what about the subcabinet positions? under the george w. bush white house i think where you serve, there was a lot of emphasis, the white house played a very hands

on role as i understand it in reviewing appointments for deputy secretaries assistance and chiefs of staff even. so that the white house would have more, it was one of the things, is that right that carl rove introduced, having the cabinet secretary and white house ability to monitor and also have consistent policy in the agencies was a big deal. obama has continued that one of the concern was this may give cabinet secretary power to select the junior, the junior personnel whose appointments would normally either be reviewed or initiated by the white house. >> yeah, i have no inside information. so i don't know. >> so we'll go to shannon and then to you there. shannon. >> i just have a follow-up question on that. is there -- what chance do you see for anyone? what chance do you see of

president-elect trump keeping around the head of the fbi and dr. collins the head of the mah. there's pressure from certain provider groups to keep both of these people around. is that a possibility? >> they would be held over? >> there are holdovers. in any administration. it's usually a small subset. some are statutory. there are people like the fbi director who have a term that transsends partisan administrations. there are usually some holdover -- there's an olive branch extended by pointing democrats or republicans to a opposite party, i'm not, you know, aware enough of the specifics of what the policy

differences might be. whether those would be among them. >> so the blue checkered shirt. >> this is map lay question for you tom. what are some of the tangible steps whether they're congressional for another branch or nbo could be taken and held accountable on financial conflicts of interest. >> there are things steps taken to hold them accountable in financial conflicts. >> so there's been some -- very interested in that question. and went to a bunch of the lawyers and advisors who had led or worked oen this area for previous transitions. and there's a range of responses -- stewart who was jimmy carter's advisor said, you know, in addition to the sort of

blind trust approach, there are some which he is only a halfhearted subscriber. it would suggest that trump empire is really too vast to consolidate quickly into a blind trust. just the idea of a federal monitor. somebody who would and the watchdog and have access to confidential information would occasionally make reports to the office of government. that's the conclusion i hear at the end of conversation is and

this is in system ways except for the constitutional prohibition that i mentioned earlier. this is a kind of extralegal activity where there may not be in the public realm and in the response of public opinion to some of these actions. >> this might be the last one. we may have time for one more. >> how priest things and things like that. we talk a lot about the agency heads and secretaries and assistance and things like that that get appointed, but obviously there are career civil servants that are in the agencies all the time. and i cover the labor department which tends to be one of the more partisan ones and you can see a lot happen under elaine

choa and tom perez and a lot happened this year. and i'm curious how much the career coming through that and difficult to get in. and what can they do when they disagree? >> what's, what level of power do the civil service have to and i think it's an excellent point about regulation. and it's developed by these agencies that are mostly career civil service people who and across the administration. and i think they do have a lot of influence. because they do, they develop the docket, they do the analysis. and heads of agencies are reluctant to do something.

goals in mind so the dockets may reflect that. and the head of the new agencies. shake things up and do things totally different because you have there are all kinds of reason why is you can't. >> the question to 20 seconds and the sans 60 seconds. >> i'm thinking of the comments made after people just turned to his response to hamilton and didn't pay attention to the trump university settlement or other things that day. obviously there's a practical line to draw.

>> i think we are all struggling with that. because he has the ability to make news. in a very sort of visceral way. ts. >> you know, whatever else he did in the transition. it's an open question about whether this is an intentional. how are the tweet and not to cover those. and frankly when the president of the united states says that he wants to deport the flag

burners. if the president signs an executive order that says that flag burners should be deported, then it's going to be there black and white. then it's going to be black and white and very legal ways and what is the mechanism for doing this. it's something that could be challenged. and that's where i think we need to take him and power, you know, two months and the power is not going to come from the twitter account. >> i think we're going to have to close this panel now. i want to thank you very much. very illuminating. so we are going to roll this panel off and bring the next three guests on. and we'll get started with that one in just a couple minutes.

let's get going on the third panel of the afternoon. this one is going from now until 4:30. again, i'm going to introduce my three guests. we're talking about press relations between the incoming administration and the press corps. and what things will look like. what we suspect things will look like. each of the three guests will give a kind of a brief five minute or less overview of what the main issues they see coming are. i have some questions and i think we'll have plenty of questions from the audience. our three panelists are lucie douglas who is the dean at the phillip meryl college of journalism. before coming to maryland a couple years ago, she was a couple decades at report's committee for freedom of the press. and she was -- okay, previously, and before that, also a reporter

and editor at the st. louis -- i'm sorry, the st. paul pioneer press. jeff mason on the far end correspondent for reuters and currently president of the white house correspondent who was here to talk about the correspondent association and his interactions with the incoming administration. and kevin goldberg an attorney at -- but most importantly, he is the president of the chairman of the board, i'm sorry, chairman of the board of the national press foundation. welcome to all three of you. so i thought we'd get started with jeff. i mean jeff, give a sense of where things stand between the association and the administration. incoming administration. >> so the correspondents association started having communications, both with the trump and the clinton campaign as early as last spring. where we just wanted to get the relationship started and explain

what our expectations were in terms of the press pool. neither hillary clinton nor donald trump had a full protective pool as a candidate. and a protective pool for those of you who aren't completely familiar with that is a group of journalists, 13 journalists, including wires, print, tv, photography, still photographers and radio who follow the president or a candidate or the president-elect whenever he or she goes. and that includes being in the motorcade, that includes being on the plane for travel. so, as you no doubt know, after president-elect trump was elected, he did not have a pool in place because they did not have one in place during his candidacy. which was a problem then that just got amplified after his election. we have in the last few weeks made some progress on getting

that pool structure solidified. he came to washington without a pool, he got some pretty bad press for that. and the correspondent's association weighed in on that, i weighed in on that on behalf of the correspondent's association. we also weighed in when he went out for dinner in new york a couple weeks ago without bringing a press pool. and i think they learned from that. i think they learned from the negative attention, and i think they also just 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 are important. so we have 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 refuse to allow journalists on his plane. which we object to. and we've made those objections clear. but they have made clear back to us that that's not going to

change. so, once he's here, then there will be the traditional structure of the pool flying in air force one, and that's not something that i'm even putting up as a question mark because we just assumed that that will be respected. and they have told us that they do intend to respect trat digs 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 organizations cause for concern. we haven't had a chance to address all of those with the incoming administration. we're sort of having a prioritized list of what's important to us. and the pool, it's been at the top of that list. so once we get that core piece

of white house press corps business locked in, i think we'll be able to address some of the other issues as well. i do think that there's going to be a challenge. there's no question about that. and i think that there are a lot of unanswered questions which we can certainly explore a little bit today. but a lot of -- a lot of what we have waiting for us are unknowns. but i am not -- i am not one of the -- i do not belong to the doomsday camp. despite some of the rhetoric that even people like respected former white house press secretaries are throwing out into the dialogue. i don't think it's in the interest of an incoming administration to declare war completely on the press. or to blow up the press room or the white house press corps. if they do, the correspondent's association will be ready.

i can assure you that we are preparing for worse case and base case scenarios. but, at this point, i am -- so far the people who we're working with on the trump side have been working with us in good faith and we want to maintain and develop that relationship going forward. >> so lucie, outside of the -- like the day-to-day coverage of the white house, the issues of transparencies go further beyond that, can you tell me what you see as the most pivotal issues coming down, coming in with the administration? >> sure. first of all -- thank you for inviting me. and welcome to the phillip meryl college of journalism's downtown, downtown bureau. i hope you had a chance to look around we're thrilled that you're here. i thought i'd talk about two

things. one that i'm really really anxious about and one that i've got kind of a oh thank god attitude toward. when you're a reporter or dealing with media access involving the feds, other than following the president around in the white house and covering all of that, when you deal with the agencies and when you deal with criminal justice matters and everything. jeff sessions, be afraid, be very afraid. kevin and i have both watched him far very long time. and my eyes popped out of my head when you see he was up for attorney general. his record as far as transperson si goes is terrible. his attitude toward the media is

irrationally bad. he's nasty, and he -- for example, went out of his way, i guess it was six years ago to really try to shred efforts to pass a federal shield law which the obama administration and eric holder actually on record supporting. but he was on the senate judiciary committee, and watching him judiciary committee meetings and watching the way he would just get angry when there was an issue involving the media. there was ral wonder to behold. the other issue that came up when we were trying to get amendments to foi ya last year. he put a hold on it, what, twice? >> those are the ones we know of. >> and foia, which is the bright

spot i wanted to mention to you. federal foia, we were able with the help of a lot of your employers and your colleague and non-profits and other good government folks. try to follow along with me as i explain this. since 1970, with the attorney general whoever the incoming attorney general when there is a hang in presidents or parties. so, they send out a memo interpreting the freedom of information act. saying when you have the opportunity to make a discretionary release, i want you to consider it these things when you release it. so for example, when bill clinton took office, janet reno sent out a memo that said, if you have the opportunity to make

a discretionary release, release it unless you can see if there is a foreseeable harm. george bush and john ashcroft came in and they flipped it. and they basically said if you can come up with a reason particularly of privacy or national security reason to withhold something under a discretionary release withhold it. obama came in and on day one of his presidency said, went back to essentially to the clinton standard, so all of the agencies are required were required to abide by the attorney general guideline on how to follow federal freedom of information act. and the career people would kind golf back and forth like a yoyo. well, legislation, bipartisan legislation was introduced and finally passed and signed by the

president in the spring. that makes that obama holder discretionary release standard the foreseeable harm one law. so that ashcroft cannot come in and just say no, we're flipping it it. that sounds like it's really, really deep in the weeds. and kind of difficult to follow and more than a little bit wonky. but it's really, really important. and there were some other improvements made to foi a. and a little bit more power and some other things we can talk about if you'd like to. there also was a eric holder memo, the obama administration remember wasn't all that great when it came to dealing with media issues.

and obama went after more journalists and more so-called whistle blowers than any president in history and sucked journalists in with these folks that they were charging with espionage. but in the summer of 2013, after the media really really, really went crazy over these orders for phone records from the ap. and calling james rosen from fox, i think it was, alleging that he was a co-conspirator so they could get a warrant and get around the privacy protection act. so the media pushed back and holder came back with a memo that's been tinkered with -- just leave it, kevin, that's fine. they tinkered with the memo a couple of times, but what we've got from holder is essentially a guideline that says we're not going to do that anymore.

and we're not going to go after the media for doing their job. again, a really, really important -- there's ban lot written about it. but what you need to understand is, that's a guideline, that's not a statute, and jeff sessions could come in on day one and revoke the whole thing. and a lot of people have spent a lot of time working on this thing. it will just go out the window. and i would not be shocked at all if that's exactly what he did. >> so thank you very much. so kevin, give me a sense -- we were talking ahead of time, you know, what's your biggest kind of worry or fear going into this administration? >> all of this. you know, i mean, it's funny because right where lucie was ending, i'm thinking you know, our job as attorneys is largely think of the worst case scenario that could happen maybe we're

back from there. and i love your optimism, jeff. i have some fears as because i've seen a lot of things. and let's be clear. a lot of these fears are actually because -- you did say something else that was relevant that i 100% agree with. there's precedence in place. and a lot of negative too. that were started in this administration. the current administration and will be allowed to, you know -- will be built upon fear by the next administration. so -- i've done a lot of discussion with attorneys for media groups and trade associations, and just sort of so you understand my background a little bit, i don't just spend full-time running the affairs of the national press foundation. we have an unbelievable staff that does that. i'm a volunteer board member who happens to be the chairman of the board right now. and in my day life i'm a media attorney, and i recommend the association of alternative news media. you do policy work including

working on the foia bill. including the correspondent's association on a letter that complained basically to president obama about the lack of access that reporters and photographers were getting to white house events. right, and that is a precedent that i think is something the incoming president is really going to want to take advantage of. restricting access, controlling the flow of information, and though it wasn't as i think apparent in the current administration one way he's going to take that is that i fear that access will become much more -- i'm not going to say pay to play, but preferential, it will become access journalism more than accountability journalism. and the problem in all these areas is that you don't have a lot of good law to push back with. so this is my big fear is that's there's not a lot of legal precedent when the president says we're going to have a

meeting with the japanese prime minister, and what you'll get is the hand out photo that we want you to see. but you won't see anything other than when we left you in the room and when you have that hand out photo. and worse yet, we're going to perhaps control who can be in the room, there are only so many people question fit in there. and who's going to get that. maybe now it's breitbart, maybe not the washington post. it remains to be seen. all of these have precedents that are very difficult to push back on in a legal sense because lucie remembers, you were with the reporters committee when this. ed at the state level here in maryland and maybe folks who are working for cns or others remember when a reporter and the columnist were officially told, you will not be led into any event. we don't have to let you into. and we will not answer your phone calls. we will answer your foia request because the law mandates it, but we will not give you anything else. and they went to court and they lost. okay. and that's the precedent that is

most recent in this area regarding coverage of an executive official. and that should scare people. okay. and why should it scare people? because what you end up with and i know people don't to want go to this place, but i'll go there, you end up with pop gran da. you really, honestly do. you end up with a photo being given out that is what they want you to see. and i could -- if someone wants to ask the question later i could get you from kanye to trump in one move on that. so i'm worried about access and i'm worried about retaliation and blackballing. on the legal side where you do have precedent and maybe you do have ground to pushback. foia would be number one. there's oofbl great body of foia law and other first amendment law to use in other areas as my mentor and former boss and lucie knows him once said, dick schmitt said the greatest thing was not necessarily the first amendment, but independent federal judiciary to uphold the

first amendment. we're going to put our reliance in courts. my fear there if you know, media organizations don't have the money or the time to pursue foia cases in court like they used to. so there we have the law is there, but we m not have the ability to press that law. and that's just foia law, you know, you did mention leaks investigations, you did mention the possible prosecution of journal itselves as co-conspirators. another thing i'm worried about was an early statement by the president that -- the president-elect, sorry, that he might consider nondisclosure agreements for all government employees which has been standard within intelligence agencies, but not the defense. and i'm sorry, intelligence and defense agencies, but not others. and of course what that cuts off is the flow of information to you as reporters, and then to the public. and i think that would be, that would be, you know, an unbelievable way to control information if you want to. i'm not sure it's something we should be happy about. we had talked about things like the anti-slap law.

federal anti-slap law. if you're not familiar with that, it's a way to get frivolous lawsuits kicked out of court. and i don't know, does the president -- this president-elect like frivolous libel lawsuits? there's ample evidence to say maybe he does or that his friends do or millionaires who to want barng roll attacks on provocation likes gawker would be more emboldened to do so. and that brings me to the last point which is what really bothers me is the cultural change we may see. things that in prior years were completely off limits. i put my hope and faith that you were right and they will respect the presidential pool. i put my hope and fate in the fact that the first amendment will stand up to all of this. but what i think you're going start to see is sort of a culture shift where it's okay to go after -- we're seeing it

already. it's okay to go after the media. it's okay to disregard it's okay to sue them. it's embraced threaten them. this all becomes the word is we've heard so much is normalized. and that's what i fear most is that we have a massive culture change. i've heard from people about various things that have happened in government over the past eight years. and i'm not going to they administration has been great. they came in the current one we will be the most transparent administration in history. and i've always said, if they have one thing they wish they could take back, i think that line would be in the top ten. i think it was an unattainable, uni attainable goal to meet and they wish many a time they never said it. they failed it any way. and there were a lot of things being done that i really fear for. efforts to harness technology to put information out to the public in a very proactive manner. look at something like the 18 f

office and gsa. which is basically a technology think tank to do a lot of great things. that was a real positive, okay. and i don't know if it's going well, i don't know if it's staying. you mentioned the office of government offices which is an overseer of foia. to the justice department. what will their future independence be? which created a metric for our participation and our ability to lead on the world stage as a -- as a country committed to transparency. and all of these things were created in the last year, eight years, and they were great, i don't know if you'll see extensions of them or improvements on them over the next -- or other areas that are similar. and what i've heard about all of those things and seen about all of those things that makes me worry for them. i'm not saying they're going away. if every belief that they will

still be in exist tans and i want them to be because they have created a culture within government that i know people can't quantify, can't see, but people have told me it matters throughout agencies. and that's really something that you will see, i fear you'll see a flip on. >> the 18 f office and gsa, what's that? >> the general service administration is located at 18th and f streets. so, they basically build really cool stuff for the government to harness technology and put information out. and it's db i think it's really cool what they do there. and when it comes on notice by a lot of people. something i would love to see continue. but you talked about someone asked me what the new president would mean, i don't know if he cares. when i saw that attorney general pick was, i got really scared.

>> all go to questions in a few minutes. let me ask lucie about the foia reform legislation. i mean, you talked about it a little bit, how did that actually get through congress. i mean a press-friendly piece of legislation got through congress. >> look, there are quite a few members of congress on both sides of the aisle, foia truly is a bipartisan effort when it gets right down to it, charles grassley is a big proponent of transparency. he uses those transparency laws himself. when he is chairing a committee like judiciary, he can push those things, pat leahy, always a big supporter. darrell issa, big supporter, of course their motivation was to get information about obama out to the public.

they wanted transparency about what the to get it done they did a few other things as part of it and kevin was pretty integrally involved in it. so i talked about about the prujs prujs of disclosure and strengthening the onlybudsman office. but, they made foia is little bit more friendly by creating a portal that hopefully they'll be creating a portal. of course, you can also argue that this is, you know, would be the full implementation of the foia amendments of 1996 if they were to pull this off. but, they are going to be allowing requesters to ask far document in one central place so you don't have to be an expert on foia and sit down and go oh

my god, who would have that record. and it should be a lot more friendly, and it's also got new reporting requirements and for the agencies and what they have to report on what your activities have been every year. and probably the most controversial part of the amendments will be keeping a log -- they're supposed to be now taking the most frequently requested foia requests and once they fulfill them, and they will be making them sort of supposed to sort of sequester them and make them available to other people so that the next time somebody asks for that stuff so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. the other thing they're going to do, is publicly identify who the requests are. and the question will be, are we going come up with a little bit of a delay so that reporters can get their stories done? because there has been some

reporter pushback on that. i think anybody who has the time to go and scam all the records to fine out whose been requesting what, that's, you know -- i think on balance this is a good thing to reveal this information. >> this is a release to one is a release to all project. >> you don't have to look it up. >> if i as a reporter put in the foia, that is automatically posted in an electronic. >> reporter: theoretically. >> that's the way it would work, it would be available through this portal and anybody else could start there without filing a request for the same information and save everybody time. you're a reporter,over worry is you'll get screwed, by yourself. >> the identity of the requester and the information is supposed to be posted. >> okay. >> and is this -- >> it all happened within the last eight years that are good. >> and is this lawfully into effect now? >> it's signed by the president.

and we know from other times that foia has been amended, it takes time. >> uh-huh. >> but, yeah, i mean, to unwind this, you would have to go back and get congress to actually change the law. >> i know that this makes foia look more robust. will it practically have the impact of making them fulfill our requests faster? >> no. >> okay. >> no. unless you're asking for something somebody else has already asked for. the last time we amended foia there were some things done to really hopefully improve that process. but, when it comes to just the sheer volume of what some of these agencies have to respond to, and the cost of it, no. you know, federal foia has

morphed into this gigantic being and it's really difficult to wrestle it to the ground. so i do not anticipate that what used to take you three years to get wres witle to the ground. i think you're still looking at three years. >> i'm going to turn the mike over and we will start with kate. and then we will go to you next. >> -- of using social media, youtube to talk to people in ways other presidents haven't. personally right now i haven't seen it as a harp awayment you still have a lot of needs with the press with that. do you think you will eventually use that to bypass what he uses the press for? >> yes. >> i think that was a trend that is started before donald trump, and he is using it particularly

effectively and using it a lot. i think that the obama white house also made use of social media as a way to bypass the traditional press. but they didn't cut out the press in terms of not doing press conferences, not meeting some of our other access needs. i think the media has to adapt a little bit to social media, and i think we have. but that's going to happen more with the incoming president for sure. i do think that if that pendulum swings all the way towards a trump administration the or a president trump only using twitter or social media and completely bypassing the press consistently, we as news

organizations will have to have a discussion about our strategy for that. because right now we are all reporting every single tweet. and right now i think we have a responsibility to do that because that is how the president-elect is communicating. that's the avenue that he is communicating with. if we don't get progress in our push for access to him and to members of his administration and other parts of his new white house, then we will have to have the strategy for how to deal with that. >> (inaudible). -- making the media his lure and crediting everything he he say regardless of what it if he didn't like it. how else do we fight against that thing? >> against? >> discrediting everything we say even if there is no basis for that.

>> 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 to put in accurate and full context. and i think you're seeing that at least from many publications the day that the president-elect talked about millions of fraudulent vote issers having taken part in the action. that is important and critical and factual context. and i think journalists have a responsibility to do that. the onus will be on us to continue doing that if that style of rhetoric continues while he is in the white house. #. >> i have an interesting thought on that which is gleaned from --

in prepping for this i was having to discuss all of these issues with other media attorneys. i read a lot of articles on coverage of the campaign. and some related to legal. some related to how you push back. one line in one of these articles, i can't remember, said it said visuals will be more important than anything else. and i'm thinking to myself, that goes back to the access question again. what was the one thing during the campaign that literally tripped him up most? the video. his own words. and so i think that's why the access matters. you can't stop him from tweeting. nobody wants to stop him from tweeting. that would be a first amendment violation to say you absolutely cannot tweet. but what i think has to happen, you know, what's going to obviously get more ground swell for the media in right and in facts over narrative will be

source documents. again, foia helps a lot. source documents, source video. not he said, she said, back and forth. as strong as the coverage is. it's putting everything out there right in front of even. and i think that's all the access in the video and the photos and things is going to be really difficult. >> you talked about the issue of the meeting and handouts. we had an issue with that with this white house where the obama white house was relying too much on putting out official photos instead of allowing the pool in or in particular still photographers. and we were successfully got that practice to change. and the way you do that is through having some unity in the press corps. we tried that with the ave photo

from the trump meeting. and it worked partially. the washington press corpwas respectful not to use it. but we didn't do it a good enough job of getting that message across to our colleagues in japan. because the press there is more custom than using those photos. once it gets out it's out. so everyone can use it. but i guess the way i would wrap up that issue is the media and our news organizations, we do have some power there. and our power is in if we stay unified saying, you know, we won't use those handout photos. or&this has happened with the obama administration too. if the white house says we'll let in just a few people from the pool, if the whole pool says, then we're not going in.

we don't accept it if your colleagues from print can't go in or we don't have a camera person. that unity is important. that was a goal we set in july before knowing who had won the election. that push for access would be two key criteria for the following year. >> -- kevin talked about obama saying they wanted to be very transparent in how they may have come to regret those words. as a health care reporter we have access to the federal agencies, especially hhs really tightening. and then insisting more and more if you're going to interview somebody a reminder there and our organization when we report a story our policy is to mention in the story there was a minor

there. but i'm wondering if you can talk about what you're anticipating. >> i'm anticipating that to increase. and some of the agencies, particularly anything where i think it really was prevalent is anywhere science was involved, climate change people, the health care people. they were a really sophisticated in the way they were sitting on you guys. i would anticipate this going to the a lot more innocuous enter is views, things that were so unroutine in the past they are going to try to pull something. and i think your solution was a really good one. every time they do it, say we were not able to talk to the number one guy in the world on climate change without having a public relations person there vetting everything he said. >> or staring him down.

>> or just staring him down. >> when asked this question so-and-so was glared at by the public relations. i think we have to do more of that. particularly in these days when it is basic fake news and all of that. we have to do more explaining our process. the one thing we have as journalists is credibility. and we need to be more transparent about where you got these information versus the guys sitting in their basements making stuff up. and hillary clinton had martian parents or something. i think a good word of advice would be i know it takes up space and i know it takes up time, but mention that stuff. for one thing it says, yeah, you were actually in the room with

this person. >> this is not something that started under obama. it is something you need to be aware. literally like 50 groups in total sent this letter. it resulted in a meeting with jay carney. there was supposed to be follow-up. and there was with the correspondent association leading the way. well, on this issue i went and met -- >> (inaudible). >> yeah, they were. and a year ago, december 2015, i was with a small delegation with environmental journalists about that particular area. nothing really happened. they meeting. they listened. we talked. it was a lot of talk and little

action. and i think that's pretty standard for administrations. they can say they listened. but in reality nothing really changes. and there's not a lot we can do to change. but what you're doing is one thing you can do. >> the whole nondisclosure agreement that federal employees are theoretically going to be asked to sign which only intelligence agency employees had to do in the past. if that happens for just routine stuff, that will shut down access to a whole bunch of agencies you guys are used to covering. >> what do you think the purpose is of off-the-record meetings with the president-elect? how do you think that will play into this coverage? >> the only off-the-record meeting i can think that was publicized is the one with the

tv networks, right? it's funny you mention that one. when i first saw that meeting was happening, i was frustrated because of what i just shared with you about press corp unity. i thought, okay, here we go. the tv crews are going right in and we're not all on one page. the reporting of the results of that meeting made me feel like, uh, that's fine. maybe we didn't need to be in on that one. because it was not a meeting about access. or at least that wasn't the main thrust of the meeting. it sounds like it was more an opportunity. it sounds like. i wasn't in the room, obviously, but it sounds more like an opportunity for the president-elect event against broadcast coverage that he did not find favorable.

but to answer your question, i i would say i think the way "new york times" handled their meeting was terrific. and, you know, having some off-the-record time with any principal that you're covering can sometimes be valuable. as long as it is done in -- as long as there's also a chance for an on-the-record piece. i can remember even in the 2008 campaign that being a topic sometimes when we were discussing on the obama press corp about whether we were okay with him coming on the back of the plane and chatting with reporters. that was okay if he was also doing some press conferences where we could ask on-the-record

questions. and i think that same principle applies here. will we have some off-the-record meetings with his staff as we're working on access issues and working on preparing the way for white house coverage? yeah. that needs to be -- they need to know when they're sitting down with us we are also negotiating in good faith and i'm not going to take everything i learn in that meeting and go out and write a really critical statement. that doesn't help me either. but your question i don't think was that about that. i think your question was more off the record with the president-elect. the two example i can think of in the past couple weeks, television executives, anchors and the "new york times". the "new york times" i think is the one to follow. >> we will start with james and then right next to james.

vera. >> -- i just got back from my first time covering the press poll. there is a split in how to do that and how to go about normalizing the routine when it is consistent in the way they respond to things. for example, on saturday they say in the morning we're done for the day. but it turns out they're not done for the day and people have to come back. yesterday in the afternoon they tell me there is a lid on the day. and i stay a couple extra hours because i don't trust that at all. some people in the pool tell me we need to start trusting that. that's a way to normalize it. and if they call it late and we're still there before six hours the term loses all meaning. so i guess my question is what's responsible way to normalize this routine of covering him

while not letting them walk all of press access. some people felt that way and some didn't. i wonder what you think. >> for anyone who is not familiar with the term lid? anybody not familiar with that term? that is the term we use at the end of the day when the white house, in this case i'll use the white house as an example. the president is not going to do any other movements on or off campus that the press would cover. which to be more specific, no event on campus that would be open press and he's not leaving. because if he were, then the pool would cover. so a lid means you're free to go. and your question is on the trump side at trump tower in particular. should we or should we not respect it when they call a lid because there have been a handful examples where they call a lid and thing something has

happened. >> (inaudible) -- regular administration, established administrations use and yet they don't treat them the same way. and so is should is we? i think it is is a good example how to use things in the future. nothing to see here. and then we all leave. and then something happens. >> well, on that specific example, i'm not concerned -- in fact, i'm encouraged by reporters not necessarily taking their word for it about a lid. and i don't say that to be critical of the trump folks. i think part of it is genuinely they're still figuring it out. figuring out how we work, what their responsibilities are to the press. i know that the one time that he went out for dinner in new york and did not bring a pool, hope hicks had given a lid to the press. and then everyone rightfully sort of freaked out when they

heard he had been out for dinner. and she had known he was going out for dinner. i'm not there. i don't know what the individual conversations were. but if she saided she didn't know, i take her at her word. that was poor communication internally. they did fix it next time. and that's a good thing. but when they get to the white house and the press corp is there calling a lid right now doesn't mean all the reporters go home. it just means -- in many cases, it means still photographers go home because they probably don't have anything else to photograph. but the rest of us still hang around anyway, because we are still doing our jobs. and will maybe some of the folks who might accept the lid as standard at the beginning of the trump administration stay a little bit longer afterwards in case this happens some more? probably i would say that would probably be wise. but i don't think -- i'm not

ready to extrapolate the experience, the very unusual experience of covering this transition at trump tower and applying all those lessons to what will happen at the white house.

>> so you can see, we're having technical problems. we're working on those trying to get you back to this event as soon as possible here on c-span3.

. >> so what we are going to do is we will go ahead and record the event and get it on here on the c-span networks later and move on with the rest of our schedule today. >> tonight we will hear the president debates. that's live from the university of maryland university college at 8:00 eastern. >> abigail fillmore was the first first lady to work outside the home teaching in a private school. maimy eisenhower hair style in love of pink created fashion sensations. it was marketeds a color and

stores sold clip-on bangs. and nancy reagan as a young actress saw her name on the black list of suspected communist sympathizers in the 1940s. she appealed to ronald reagan for help. she later became his wife. these are featured in c-span book "first ladies." the lives of 45 american iconic women. it makes a great book fort holidays. giving readers a look into the personal lives of every first lady in american history and how their legacy resonate today. first ladies in paperback published by public affairs is now available at your favorite book seller and also as an ebook. . u.s. border patrol chief mark morgan and carla pro vest testified before the senate homeland security committee

about efforts to improve border security and other priorities of their agency. wisconsin senator ron johnson chaired the hearing.

the committee is called to order. i want to welcome the witnesses. certainly thank you for your testimony and your time here today. the chief and the deputy chief of the u.s. border patrol. definitely interested in what you had to say. i decided to hold this hearing actually before the election as we were monitoring the renewed crisis. i don't mean the crisis ever went away. but certainly we haven't seen publicity about the unaccompanied children coming in from south america which is at 2014 levels. it is just not being publicized.

you of course are having to deal with it. so we want to kind of highlight that. based on the election, i'm also encouraged by the fact that we'll have incoming administration that will be dedicated to securing the border, which we must do. so i want to get your initial observations of where you think we are at in terms of border security and some initial thoughts what we need to do to secure the border. i don't want to take a lot of time. we have a couple charts just laying out the problem. the first is a history from 2009 lieu the last fiscal year of the number of unaccompanied children coming from guatemala, honduras and el salvador. we were at pretty low levels. somewhere around 3,000, 4,000 unaccompanied children's level.

then 10,000. 51,700. back down in 2015. but we are up to 50,000 in 2016. and the starting months of 2017 do not look encouraging either. it's a real problem. it's not the only problem. because our second chart shows in addition to the incentives we create in our law for unaccompanied children coming in, so do the family members. my concern is that we're not publicizing it because the border patrol has been so humane and so effective at apprehending, processing, and dispersing. we have dispersed to all points in the u.s. we've actually got a chart here for members to see where the

12 -- it's really about 130,000 unaccompanied children have been dispersed around the nation. they have been relocated to your states. that's the kind of information you've got. i asked unanimous consent that my written statement be entered into the record. i want to thank senator ayotte for her dedicated service on this committee. we will definitely miss you in your participation here and the committee and the senate is and we wish you well in the next chapter of your life and your next career. thank for your service. with that, i would like to turn it of to ranking member senator carler. >> a couple of our colleagues. he just stepped down from the department of homeland security. i remind you just on the heels

of what the gentleman said about kelly, right after world war ii this won with a lot of help from us. winston churchill was the prime minister of the country. then lost reelection. he was not re-elected. and the one reporter said at the time for you, mr. churchill, is this the end? and he replied famously. this is not the end. this is not beginning of the end. this is the end of the beginning. for you, my friend, this is the end of the beginning. all right. that's all i have to say. no i have more to say than that. i want to start this morning by thanking you, mr. chairman, for bringing this together and our witnesses for joining us