ambassador dermer: for over 67 years, america has stood by israel's side in countless ways. ambassador dermer: for over 67 years, america has stood by israel's side in countless ways. from airlifts to loan guarantee s to help stabilize the economy to vetoes of and that israel resolutions -- of anti-israel resolutions at the united nations. america and israel have had serious disagreements but we have weathered all of those disagreements to grow closer and closer decade after decade. i am confident that the security challenges america and israel will face and the innovation america and israel will create together will pull our countries even closer together in the years and decades ahead. ladies and gentlemen, as israel

celebrates it's independence, we give thanks for what we have overcome and how far we have come. we also give thanks to the american people, to their representatives in congress, and presidents from harry truman to barack obama, for all of the help you have given us along the way. [applause] ambassador dermer: we give thanks for all america has done to make israel stronger, safer and more prosperous. for support that has enabled israel both to defend itself by itself against any threat and to forge historic peace agreements with

egypt and jordan. as we celebrate israel's independence in the capital of this great nation, imf confident as ever that despite all of the challenges -- i am as confident as ever that despite all of the challenges, israel's best day is still ahead. [applause] vice president biden: i asked, am i up? i think so. hello, mr. ambassador. my name is joe biden. [applause] vice president biden: everybody knows i love israel. i was thinking as ron was saying that he does not know what it is like in catholic families, whether we argue as much as

allegedly occurs in jewish families. two of my three children married jews. [laughter] vice president biden: and you want to see what happens then. as a matter of fact, my daughter, the dream of every irish catholic father is for his daughter to marry a jewish surgeon. [laughter] vice president biden: and she did. i want you to know, i think the only time on record in the state of delaware at the oldest catholic church in the state, or the second oldest, 1842, we signed it in the catholic rectory. [laughter] vice president biden: not a joke, i think that is a first. we had a hopa on the altar. we have a catholic priest, father murphy, and a rabbi. and it was hard getting a rabbi, by the way. [laughter]

vice president biden: i had to go up to montgomery county to find one. [laughter] vice president biden: montgomery county, pennsylvania. the reason he came was because of his mother-in-law. [laughter] vice president biden: and, you know, my daughter asked me daddy, what do you want played at the wedding? and i said maybe they could be "on eagle's wings." the rabbi, a wonderful guy presided over 75% of the wedding. the vows were administered by the catholic priest. and as the wedding party was departing, down the aisle, they played the hora. i figured it out, the way to end arguments is to marry. [laughter]

vice president biden: the fact of the matter is that 77 years ago at midnight, may 14, 1948 against all odds, in the wake of serious tragedy, defiant in the face of overwhelming overwhelming military numbers massed on its borders, the modern state was born. what you did next -- [applause] vice president biden: what you did next was no less. you were blessed with one of the greatest generations of founding fathers and mothers of any nation in the history of the world. ben-gurion, sharon, perez, the old-fashioned israel into a vibrant democracy -- all fashioned israel into a vibrant

democracy. you defended your homeland and became the most powerful military in the entire region. and all of these years later, all of these years later, things have changed. but the danger still exists. the people of israel still love -- live in a dangerous neighborhood. just to be an israeli still demands uncommon courage. much has changed but two things have remained absolutely the same. the courage of your people and the commitment of mine. [applause] vice president biden: so today

we celebrate your independence and our friendship which was born just 11 minutes after israel's founding. president obama and i are proud to carry forward the unbroken line of american leaders who have honored america's secret promise to protect the homeland of the jewish people. it is no secret that like other administrations before us we have had our differences. i have been here for a long time, for eight presidents. i have witnessed disagreements between administrations. it is only natural for two democracies like ours. as ron said, we are like family. we have a lot to say to one another. sometimes we can drive each other crazy but we love each other and we protect each other. [applause] vice president biden: i know many of you personally.

as many of you have heard me before, we would have to invent one because ron is right, you protect our interests as we protect yours. so let's get something straight -- [applause] vice president biden: in this moment of some disagreement occasionally, between our two governments, i want to set the record straight on one thing. no president has ever done anything more to support israeli security and president obama. just a fact. [applause] vice president biden: each time a rocket has rained down from gaza, president obama stands up before the world and defends israel's right to defend itself. under president obama, with the united states congress, america has provided $20 billion in military assistance to israel

and cutting-edge weaponry needed to maintain a qualitative advantage against any potential opponent. you all know the stories of the ira and dome. -- iron dome. would you might not know is that next year we will deliver to israel the joint strike fighter. the only country in the middle east with a fifth-generation aircraft. no other. the israeli military and israeli intelligence community will continue to tell you we continue to discuss what needs to be done to strengthen israel so she can maintain that ed. -- edge. [applause] vice president biden: our commitment is not in political or national interests, it is

personal. it is personal for me and it is personal for the president. you have heard me say this, many of my friends, before, but it bears repeating on this day. it began at my father's dinner table. my father is a righteous christian. we would have discussions and occasionally eat. my father, my father talked about how he could not understand why there was a debate among americans or why there was a debate among american jews about whether or not we should recognize israel. why should there be any debate about why we had not been more -- not done more? i learned from my father about the concentration camps. the first thing i did with my children, but each of them

turned 15, i took them to europe and flew them directly to dock o -- dachau and made them spend the day with me. i have done the same things with my grandchildren. my grandchild finnigan met with a survivor of all twits -- auschwitz and dachau who was proud to welcome the vice president and his granddaughter. all you have to do to understand is to stand on the golan and look down. i remember the first time i did that as a young senator. all that you have to do is wander throughout israel. all you have to do is take that helicopter ride the entire length of the fence. all you have to do is just look at the map. all you have to do is set foot and you understand. i have had the great privilege of knowing every israeli prime minister since golda meier and more than just casually.

i have worked with many of you in this room for up to 40 years. you know me. you raised me. you educated me. and i know you. so believe me when i tell you, it is not only personal to me, it is personal to president obama as well. the president was raised with memories of his great uncle who marched with patton's army to liberate jewish prisoners from you can walled -- buchenwald. he grew up hearing about the six-day war. i remember sitting in front of golda meier's desk as she

flipped maps up and down, chain-smoking. [laughter] vice president biden: talking about losses in the six-day war. sitting next to her military attache at the time. barack as a young senator, he heard about it, he read about it. as senator, barack obama went to see with his own eyes the lives of the families that live under threats, which he helped protect as commander-in-chief. as president he stored in jerusalem and declared to the whole world "those who would hear to the ideology of rejecting israel's right to exist, they might as well reject the earth needs them or the sky above -- beneath them or the sky above because israel is not going anywhere.

so long as the united states of america is there, israel will not be alone there go he means it. -- alone." he means it. that is my president. the need for israel to have the right and the capacity and the capability to defend itself. at the same time he says that we have israel's back and you can count on that. the same commitment is fundamental to our strategy for the entire middle east. and we get into the controversial pieces. iran. remember, this is the president for the first time in american history muted the declared policy of the united states to use all of the instruments of our power to prevent -- not contain, prevent -- iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon.

he stated that all options are on the table and then he made sure of what did not exist before. he made sure that we spent the time and money and research to develop the capacity required to act against their capacity to develop a weapon if ever needed. all of the skepticism of the many that we work with in the u.s. congress, european allies russia, china, to put in place the toughest sanctions on a regime in modern history. we also knew the cost of not negotiating. midway through the last administration, the u.s. government refused to directly engage and insisted at the same time that iran dismantle its entire program. the result?\ by the time president bush left

offic, iran had dramatically advanced its movement towards acquiring nuclear weapons. so we have taken a different approach. combined an unprecedented pressure with direct diplomacy to find an enduring solution. negotiations began and we have come a long way. you have seen the parameters that were before. it is a framework, only a framework, not a final deal. a good deal of work lies ahead to see if iran will enshrine the commitments that went into the framework as a part of the final deal. if they do, each of iran's pals to a bomb would be meaningfully blocked -- paths would be meaningfully blocked. breakout time to create a weapon's worth of bomb grade material would go from 2-3 months which it is today to over

a year. to ensure at least one year breakout for a decade. four years after that the breakout time would continue to be much longer than today. we would prevent the iraq reactor from being a source for plutonium for nuclear weapons. we will put into place the toughest transparency requirements providing the best checks against a secret path to the bomb. this is not a grand bargain between the united states and iran. it is a nuclear bargain between britain, france, russia, china, germany, the eu, america, and iran. it is based on a hard-hitting hardheaded, uncompromising assessment of what is required to protect ourselves, israel and the region of the world. if the final deal on the table does not meet the president's requirements, we simply will not sign it. the final deal must effectively

cut off iran's pathway to a bomb. if it doesn't, no deal. the final deal must ensure a breakout timeline for at least one year for a decade. a final deal must include sanction relief calibrated against iran taking meaningful steps to constrain the program. if it doesn't, no deal. a final deal must provide a verifiable insurance to the international community to ensure that iran's program is peaceful going forward. if it doesn't, no deal. if iran sheets at any -- iran sheets at any time and does for a nuclear weapon, every option we have to respond today remains on the table and more. i have been involved in arms control agreements since i was a kid in the senate at 30 years of age. every major agreement. towards the end i was deeply

involved, negotiating when brezhnev was still around, leaving a delegation of the senators. just like arms talks with the soviet union, another regime we fundamentally disagreed with another regime that was unacceptable, another regime whose proxies were forcibly making trouble and we forcibly countered around the world, we negotiated to reduce the nuclear threat to prevent a nuclear war and it kept us safer. that is what we are attempting to do today. we also continue to agree with israel's leaders going back decades. to sharon, whose funeral i had the honor of eulogizing. that the two state solution is the solution to the future of israel. the united states stands ready to help israel decide, if they decide how to get there and if they want our help getting

their. -- getting there. i will always remember my friend and mentor and holocaust driver who worked with me before he became chairman of the affairs committee once said. he said "the veneer of civilization is paper thin. we are its guardians and can never rest." that is why we must never retreat from fighting every scourge of anti-semitism as we find it. you see, in too many places, would legitimate criticism crosses over -- when legitimate

criticism crosses over into bigotry, when an explicitly anti-semitic attack takes place at a kosher grocery store, assaults on religious jews on the streets of european capitals. some of you may remember how harshly i was criticized as chairman of the foreign relations community when i held hearings on anti-semitism in europe. the committee when i held hearings on an estimate is them in europe. -- committee when i held hearings on anti-semitism in europe. whenever it rears its head, we have to stop it. enough is enough. we have to fight it everywhere we find it. i will conclude, and my friends kid me and ron may as well, telling my story about meeting golda meier. it had a profound impact on me. one of the most consequential meetings in my life. i have met every major world

leader in the last 36 or 37 years in a literal sense. what i remember -- but i remember meeting for close to an hour with her as she went through what went over the six-day war and the price that was paid. and i just had come from egypt. there was me go to egypt and go to the suez canal. -- they let me go to egypt and go to the suez canal. i thought they were getting ready to attack again. and everyone, including my military and the israeli military, thought i was crazy. driving from cairo all the way up the suez, you could see great plumes of dust and sand.

it seemed isolated. turns out it was maneuvers taking place in the desert. and i was really worried. and we went through and she painted a bleak, bleak picture. scared the hell out of me, quite frankly. about the odds. all of a sudden, she looked at me and she said, would you like a photograph? and i said, yes, ma'am. and those double-blind doors opened up into the hallway, looks like a foyer. we walked out and the press was standing there. we did not say anything, we just stood side-by-side. she thought i looked worried and she spoke to me, and she said "senator, you look so worried." i said, my god, madam prime minister.

the picture you paint. she said "don't worry." i thought he only said this to me. she said "we have a secret weapon in our conflict with the arabs. you see, we have no place else to go." i was criticized in the national press a couple of weeks ago when i said that in fact every jew in the world needs there to be an israel. it was characterized by the conservatives as saying i was implied jews were not safe in america. they do not get it. they don't get it. israel, israel is absolutely essential. absolutely essential. for the security of jews around

the world. and that is why you have never farmed out your security. you have accepted all of the help we can give. the most admirable thing is that you have never asked us to fight for you. but i promise you, if you are attacked, we would fight for you. [applause] the truth of the matter is -- the truth of the matter is we need you. the world needs you. imagine what it would say about humanity and the future of the 21st century for israel not sustained, fiber, and free. -- vibrant, and free. we will never stop working to

make sure that jews boys have somewhere to go. he will never stop working to make sure that israel has in edge, and whomever the next president is, it will be the same. because the american people are committed, the american people understand. so i say happy birthday, israel. happy independence day. may god bless you and may god bless and protect the united states of america. thank you all very much. [applause]

>> that concludes our meeting. happy independence day, thank you for being here. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> on the next washington journal, john lott. and ted alcorn on a new study that shows support for gun rights has increased. then, colleen eubanks discusses child-support enforcement association in the u.s. and gregory korte will discuss president's use of executive action.

join in on the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" live at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> here are some future programs for this weekend on the c-span network. saturday, the white house correspondents annual dinner you'd live coverage at 6 p.m. eastern with red carpet arrivals and entertainment. sunday night on "q&a" judith miller on her time in prison for not revealing a source of her reports before and during the iraqi invasion. on c-span 2, then apple us festival -- the annapolis book festival. sundin at 10:30 p.m., c-span --

sunday night at 10:30 p.m., "first ladies" book. explore the lives of our first ladies. on american history tv, lectures in history. sunday afternoon, 40 years after the fall of saigon, veterans talk about their work experiences. get the complete schedule on c-span.org. >> homeland security secretary jeh johnson said that the number -- discussing dhs. that is followed by the federal

ceremony for outgoing attorney general eric holder. >> homeland security secretary jeh johnson said that the number of people being apprehended at the southern united states border is down more than 25% from last year. he made the statement at a news conference. this is 35 minutes. secretary johnson: good afternoon, everybody. i am here with some of our senior leaders, our deputy secretary, our director, our deputy commissioner.

mark hatfield of tsa who is our acting deputy administrator, and our undersecretary of cyber security, and our chief financial officer. he is very pleased to be a new nominee. i want to take the opportunity to come out here and talk about a couple things. you all should have received the statement we just issued on order security. i wanted to touch on a couple things for taking questions. i thought this was an occasion to talk about a couple things.

first, as some of you know, on tuesday, i addressed the rsa conference in san francisco. the rsa conference is the largest conference on cyber security in the country. there were 3000-4000 people in the room and the moscone he center on tuesday. the overarching message of my address to the cyber security community is the we need to build a stronger partnership work well together, because cyber security requires a partnership between the government and the private sector. i announced reparation for the opening of an office in silicon valley. i trust many of you here read the secretary of defense's remarks on cyber security delivered yesterday.

and we are encouraged by the activity in the congress on cyber security legislation particularly the passage yesterday by the house of two cyber security bills, with strong bipartisan support. i refer you to the administration's statement of administration position that was issued concerning both bills. they are generally supportive of cyber security legislation. we have some concerns about the bills that were passed, we are supportive of legislation that encourages greater information sharing between the private sector and government. we are also supportive of limits on civil and criminal liability

for those who share cyber threat indicators with the department of homeland security, which is our national integration center. we are greatly encouraged by the activity in congress to pass legislation this year. that is a good thing. on monday, i announced the measures that tsa is directing to enhance airport security. in reaction to arrests that occurred in december of those suspected of participating and and illegal gun running operation from atlanta to new york through the use of commercial aircraft, and the on board overhead luggage compartments. we were concerned about that. i directed to study by our aviation security advisory committee and that committee has come back with its recommendations, which i understand are now public.

i want to commend that committee for working so quickly to address a former ability in our aviation and airport security. we are supportive of the recommendations and endorse them. we are directing a couple of things. as i announced on monday continuous random and unpredictable screening of airline and airport employees as they arrived at her ports into sterile areas. reducing access points to stare while areas at airports. that will obviously take time to bring about, but this is something that we need to move in the direction of. recurring criminal background checks for airline employees also.

and a new rule that employees who work in sterile areas, if they intend to travel on commercial aircraft, must pass through our tsa checkpoints for screening before they can on the aircraft. this week was also the one year anniversary of our unity of effort and initiative, which i directed on april 22, 2014. more centralized decision-making and the department, particularly in the areas of acquisition and budget decisions, consistent with the unity of efforts initiative, we have realigned seven major headquarter's functions greater efficiency and effectiveness for the american people and the taxpayer. we have put in motion are acquisition innovation initiative. we have put in motion our joint requirements ross s, concerning

acquisition, and perhaps the most significant think we have done, is our southern border campaign strategy, which many of you should be familiar with, which became operational on february six this year with the appointed of our tax force. the southern border campaign strategy is now operational. devoted on a dhs wide aces to water security. -- access to security. i am pleased that we continue to fill the vacancies in senior-level positions and the department of homeland security with the confirmation of russ last week to be our undersecretary.

we have now had 12 said a confirmed presidential appointments in the last 15-16 months. this morning, i swore in our new assistant secretary for health affairs, who took the job in february. over the last 15-60 months, we have had 12 confirmed presidential appointments, two senior-level positions in the department, as long as three new assistant secretaries. the health affairs, public affairs, and legislative affairs. i expect that we will announce the president's nominee for tsa administrator soon. the main purpose for my visit here, which i want to talk to you about, is what you see reflected in a statement, which we have handed out. concerning border security. this is an effort on our part within a part -- within the department to be more transparent about our border security numbers, our numbers of comprehension. i want to be more transparent when it comes to the numbers.

at the six month mark, midway through the fiscal year, we want to provide you with a report on apprehensions on the southern border. thus far, through march 2015 there have been 151,000 -- 151,805 apprehensions at the border. what is significant about that is that that number is down considerably from where it was this time last year. it is 28% less than the number last year. the number this year of apprehensions is also lower than it was in 2013, as well as 2012 rate it is down considerably in all categories. total apprehensions, unaccompanied children, family units, and single adults.

the month of april, if we project out, looks pretty much the same. apprehensions at a significantly reduced level. this is all despite the improving economy in the united states, which typically operates as a factor for illegal migration. why are we seeing these numbers? first of all, i believe it is due to the nations investment over the last number of years in order security. our border patrol has now more personnel, more equipment, more technology than at any point in our history. our nation's investment over the last several years and border security is paying off. the spike and illegal migration

into the rio grande valley, a number of additional resources on the southern border, which are still in place. we engaged in an aggressive public messaging campaign south of the border and in this country about the hazards of the journey from central america into the united states. and to correct the misimpression that the coyotes were putting out free passes -- permisos. we believe that has resonated in central america. for example, some of our messaging in spanish at bus stops in guatemala city. it is widespread, with operation coyote, which is a joint operation, which we announced last year with the department of justice, we have cracked down on the smuggling organizations, the coyotes, and we haven't working in a concerted and consistent fashion with our friends to the south, particularly in the

central american governments the president, the vice president, and i, and a number of others, have been engaged in this, working with over central american friends to deal with the situation of illegal migration into this country. having said all of that notwithstanding the lower numbers, we are not -- and i want to emphasize -- we are not declaring mission accomplished. we believe there is more we can and should do when it comes to strengthening border security. that is why in our budget submission, we have made requests for additional technology, additional resources. we believe that surveillance technology is the wave of the

future, is the wave of the risk-based approach to border security for the future, and that is reflected in our budget. the southern border campaign strategy, whichever for to a moment ago, which became operational on february 6, is also part of what we believe should be border security for the future, a more strategic comprehensive approach to border security, utilizing the relevant components of our department in a coordinated way, and not through stone pipes. the president's executive actions also stress border security. we have prioritized for removal those apprehended at the border and those who are recent illegal arrivals into this country after january 1, 2014. these are things that were announced as part of the

president's executive actions, which i signed into implementation in the department on november 20, 2014. we continue to stress that our executive actions do have a component to strengthen border security. that is the future. we have done a lot, we will continue to do so. i want to report those numbers today, and i am happy to take questions. reporter: deportations are also up in mexico, you have any worries that asylum-seekers are getting turned away in mexico and being stranded in their own countries? secretary johnson: i know that mexico is also focused on border security on their southern border. they have taken steps in the last months and years to strengthen their own border as well as do a number of things in terms of guest-worker programs

from central america into the southern part of mexico. i suspect the numbers that we see from mexico reflect those new efforts. reporter: in the last several years, the department has talked about the drop in removals being a sign of changing dynamics at the border. the numbers are down significantly. where does that impact -- what are you doing in the middle of the country in terms of domestic enforcement of immigration law? secretary johnson: you are correct that the removal numbers midyear are down at this pace from where they were last year. i think that that is due to a couple things. i think our new policies are in transition, so i hesitate to predict what the removal return number is going to look like at the end of the year.

i do believe that the lower removal numbers at this point in the fiscal year are also due to a couple of things. one, the lower apprehensions that i have talked about, the lower number of apprehensions. the spike any legal migration that we saw last year peaked -- you can literally pinpoint the day -- june 10, 2014. it declined sharply into the month of july. particularly the numbers of the kids have stayed at a lower level. i think that the lower removal numbers are reflecting lower apprehension numbers that we are seeing this year as well as the last part of last year. in addition, i also think that the lower removal numbers are due to the changing character of the migrants who are coming across the border. not so much migrants from the

contiguous countries, we are also dealing with migrants from non-contiguous countries central america, who are asserting claims of credible fear. as you know, asylum claims can be time-consuming. i believe the lower numbers are due to the changing nature of the migrant population crossing the border illegally. the last thing i will say about the lower removal numbers is secure communities. secure communities, which we ended on november 20, had become legally and politically controversial. to the point where, depending on how you count, something like 100 jurisdictions across the country had passed laws,

ordinances signed executive actions that limited or outright prohibited their law enforcement's ability to cooperate with our immigration enforcement personnel. in a transferring somebody in their jails over to us for removal. so that had become a huge barrier to our interior enforcement. it was getting to be a bigger and bigger problem, in terms of our ability to get at the criminals. we want to get at the criminals. that is part of the president's executive action, to more sharply -- sharply focus on the criminals. we ended the secure communities program, which was a real inhibitor to our ability to conduct interior enforcement and replaced it with irony enforcement programs, which is a different program, which i think deals with the legal -- legal and political controversy and replaced detainers with request for notification.

we are seeking the transfer of a criminal based upon a conviction for a fine list -- a defined list of crimes. i and the senior leaders of the department are now out literally on a road show, talking to mayors and governors about the new program, about lowering the limitations that have been placed on their law enforcement's ability to cooperate with us. the new enforcement program -- we are out there working with local law enforcement, governors, mayors, telling them about the new program, because we want to more effectively work with them. on interior enforcement. yes, sir. on the end. good afternoon.

reporter: i want to ask you, what support is the united states dividing to mexico to patrol the south border, and what plans are to reinforce that control. second, i would like to ask -- mexico has signed an agreement to allow united states agents -- custom agents, to carry weapons as protection. his there any reciprocity in this agreement? will let agents be allowed to carry weapons? secretary johnson: when i talked to our mexican friends in the mexican government on a range of issues, including our shared order security interests including lawful trade and travel, and, so, the mexicans and we are concerned about border security, but they are also concerned about public safety, about fighting transnational crime.

we have had those conversations, as well. and doing things like preclearance or having our customs folks on another side of the border, whether it is mexico or canada, whether it is preclearance, let's put a departure in europe, it is in my is something that should be the wave of the future, because it leads to greater efficiency in lawful trade and travel. it also leads to an enhanced border security, homeland security, because we are pushing our homeland security out a little beyond our borders are we have had conversations with a number of countries, not just mexico, by doing that, i signed with my canadian counterpart, an agreement on comprehensive preclearance at the airports, at the rail ports, and land ports which will be a framework for establishing preclearance across the board with that particular

country. i wanted -- i want to do more of that thing. we have had a range of discussions with the mexican government about that and other things. reporter: but the agreement to allow u.s. agents to carry protection for themselves. secretary johnson: there are a number of things that have to happen when it comes to agents across borders. we have had those discussions, but it continues to be a work in progress. reporter: the first lady of honduras says that her country is still -- the numbers they have been seeing this year are lower think last year.

she points to the fact that the reason for this is because mexico is finally enforcing more vigorous immigration laws. you said the investment that the united states has been doing is finally paying off. i wonder, how much of the credit on those reductions goes to your neighbors in the south? secretary johnson: i believe that a large part of the reason for it -- and i said this in my prepared remarks -- a large part of the reason for the decrease in but are seeing on our southern border and what we are seeing happening in migration from the south is also because of the efforts of the government in honduras, guatemala, and el salvador. for example, the first lady of

guatemala was very active in a public awareness campaign to encourage young people to stay home. and i suspect the same thing is true in honduras. i think we saw last summer all three governments step up their own public messaging campaign and we know that the message seems to have gotten through from the north to central america, that the misinformation at the coyotes are putting out about permisos in this country has been corrected, and that people now believe that it is harder to cross our southern border illegally, and therefore, they ought to be careful about investing the money it takes to smuggle somebody, to smuggle a child or family member, and to

the southern part of our country. you know, sometimes it is 6000 -- $8,000 -- but over the try to -- whatever they tried to charge. that people risk a failed investment. because people are being apprehended at a greater rate. i believe that a large part of the reason for the lower numbers is simply that the misinformation from last summer has been corrected, and word has gotten out that it is now harder than it used to be to cross our southern border, because of the additional resources, the additional technology, the additional surveillance, and the additional people. and all of the things we have done in the last year. reporter: immigrant advocacy groups are concerned. they claim that i.c.e. and agents are not following the new priorities that were announced

last november. how confident are you that that is happening, is it really taking time? secretary johnson: i and people in the front row and people in the audience have personally gone out to workforce engagements to educate the immigration enforcement workforce on the new policies. i believe that the new policy, the new prosecutorial policy is clearer than the old guidance that was an objective of mine when i wrote it, to make it clearer, to make the lines clearer. but it also adds within it opportunities for the exercise of discretion. i believe that training and educating the workforce on a new policy is critical. i know that for my department of

defense days when i participated in a number of personnel policy changes their, over the four years i was there. and i know from personal experience that change does not always happen overnight. but i also know that, if there are miss impressions in the workforce, it is the responsibility of the senior leaders here in the room to correct the misimpressions. i have heard the same thing from various groups and organizations. we are doing our best to identify misimpressions that may exist in our workforce. i believe the policy is clearer that used to be. there is less room for misunderstanding. reporter: there is a concern secretary, that once a decision

is reached in ordinance, and appeals court, how quickly, if it is in favor of the president's decision, executive action, are you ready to move -- secretary johnson: i wouldn't want to predict on how quickly judges will reach a decision. even when i was practicing law i always hesitated to reject when judges would reach a decision. we will evaluate whatever the next decision of the courts is, and, and respond accordingly. i know that president obama and i are both very committed to fixing our broken immigration system. we issued a number of executive actions on november 20 something like nine of them across the board -- i talked about the emphasis on border security, for example. in the memo that i issued on the increased emphasis on border

security, the realignment of prosecutorial discretion, which was not the subject of the litigation. we will evaluate whatever decision comes out of the circuit, and we both evaluate the next steps. we are still very determined to do what we can within our existing legal authority to fix the immigration system, and reform it in many respects. we have 40 done that. we did a lot of that on of over 20, which is moving forward. when it comes to the deferred action program, we will take a close look at what the next court decision is and move from there. reporter: we are still talking about apprehension numbers as a yardstick for judging total flow. five years ago, you had operational control and scrapped that yardstick and it was supposed to be replaced in 2012.

is a replacement for operational control or some other yardstick for border security, is that -- will we see that soon? [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] can we, should we measure more precisely total attempts to cross the border? can we measure the denominator more effectively and the numerator more effectively? i have asked for greater

transparancy and i have asked my folks to assess. we are doing that right now ways in which we can measure with greater assurance total attempts including turnbacks "get-aways" as the border patrol likes to refer to them. there an effort to establish border security metrics that was in the "secure our borders first act" of 2015, in congress, and the effort at border metrics was something and is something that i am drawn to. greater clarity, greater transparancy. there are a number of other things about that bill that i strongly object to but i thought that that was a good feature of it and so i've asked my own folks to look at the same thing. it is a work in progress right now. i do want to come to a greater

public understanding of how we should measure our effectiveness on the border. so we're doing that work right now. last question. yes, sir, right here. reporter: thank you, mr. secretary. i wonder if you could comment on the report last week that mexican intel officials found evidence of alleged isis or terror training camps on the southwest side of mexico. also, more broadly speaking, how concerned is your department with terrorists coming across from the mexican side of the united states? >> well, we are always focused on that ponlt. i don't have anything to confirm or really comment in any intelligent way on the reports

that you cite. we are on the sharp lookout for potential terrorists crossing our border one way or another. it is something we can keep an hie on . -- keep an eye on. when it comes to counter-terrorism, counter-terrorists, i am very concerned about those that may already be in the country that may be directed toward violence, inspired by what they see on the internet. as i have said many times, i think we have moved into a new phase into the global terrorist threat and we have moved in a new phase of how we must respond to that threat. it is no longer one centralized organization that trains terrorist operatives, that dispatches them overseas to commit some terrorist act. it is -- there is an effort by

groups to recruit via social media in their own home lpped. we are more concerned about the independent actor, the so-called "lone-wolf" that may be drawn to an act of violence by something they see or read. that has to be a concern. we are also concerned about the relatively new phenomenon of foreign fighters. so we are concerned about someone who leaves their home country, whether it is here or europe and goes to iraq for extremist purposes, leaves that part of the world, comes back to their home country, and is inspired or indoctrinated to commit an act of violence in their home country or in the united states. whether it is a -- the day they arrive or the year after they arrive.

so one of the things i want to see us work toward is the visa waiver program. it is a good program that should not be scrapped by any means. there are a lot of countries in the visa waiver program that have the foreign fighter issue. so i want to see if there are greater security assurances we can get as part of that program from countries for which we do not require a visa. that most often is by air. when you talk about visa waiver countries, you are talking about air travel. so that's one of the things that we're very focused on. ok, thanks a lot, everybody. have a good weekend.

>> on this weekend's "newsmakers" the top democrat on the banking committee sherrod brown. he talks about the financial sector and the future of the dodd-frank law. watch the interview sunday at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> in 2003 "new york times" reporter judith miller wrote several articles on the lead up to the -- on the link to iraq. sunday on q & a she talks about her time in jail as well as her new book. "the story, a reporter's journal." judith miller: i was in jail because of i refused to reveal a

source whom i did not think would want his eye dent ilt revealed. as you know, in our business, protecting a source and the life blood of journalism. i routinely spoke to people with classified information, and they asked me -- if they did not trust me to protect them, my sources would dry up and eventually i would be writing just what the government wanted me to write. so i felt this was an issue of principle, and i didn't have much choice. >> sunday night on c-span's "q & a." announcer: the white house correspondents dinner is tomorrow night. ahead of that, the correspondents association hosted a discussion today with reporters about their experiences covering the presidency. they spoke about the access they received as members of the

press, the use of social media and how they decide which stories to cover. this was cohosted by "national journal." it's an hour. >> everybody else is going back to work. this is a great group, thank you all for coming to be part of this conversation. this is our annual scholarship panel. we have our scholarship winners sitting in front. they will have a chance to ask questions as we go along. i hope this will be viable for everybody you if you've been covering the white house for 10-20 years, there is always something to learn from your colleagues who do it well. these are the four white house correspondents among the winners of our whca's excellence

in performance of journalism award this year. i will introduce them to you by name. and then it will tell some stories. i'm cohosting this with carol lee. she is a white house correspondent for the wall street journal. she breaks a lot of news at the white house. she does foreign, she does domestic. we chased her all the time. it is great to have her perspective on this panel. to my left is josh lederman. jim avila works for abc news s he now covers the white house for abc news. scott horthly is a member of the whca board. let's give them a hand. [applause]

i really love the range of winners that we have this year, because when you put these people together and look at the way they cover the beat, they really show a diverse approach to covering the white house. each has a diverse way of doing their job. i want toll start well josh who did classic report aring on the secret service. has anybody heard of a fence jumper? do you know what a fence jumper is? that's a person that climbs over the wall of the white house 0, and physically gets attacked before they make it across the lawn. one day, that was not the case, and josh letterman was standing his post at the booth. what you pick up from there? josh: most of the correspondents had already left for the evening.

the news was basically over. there were a handful of us from the television networks that were still in the building. we started to hear a commotion outside of the press briefing room, and a few of us ran outside to see what was going on. we could see that there was something going on. those of us that spent any amount of time athe white house -- amount of time at the white house force forceknow that lockdowns at the white house are relatively routine. even fence jumpers happens three or four times a year. it's an event, but not a particularly remarkable one. there seemed to be something -- a level of alarm that the secret service was displaying the suggested that this may have been a little bit something out of the ordinary. i headed into the press area of the white house, which is at the entrance to the west wing, for those of you who spend a lot of

-- who haven't spent a lot of time there, to figure out what was going on. they said everything was fine. at that moment, secret service agents stormed in from the west wing with these really large like, semiautomatic weapons. they are tactical teams on the grounds of the white house, but it was the first time i had ever seen one of those in shooting position inside the actual west wing. they immediately pulled those of us in the press offices down into the west wing and into the basement. it ended up that i was down in the basement with most of the

white house officials -- obama's senior advisers were also being evacuated to the basement, and shortly thereafter outside into this middle ground between the entrance to the west wing and the eisenhower executive office building. this is another indication that something was happening that might have been a little bit different than the usual fence jumpers that hop over and the dogs nab him, and it's kind of game over. the fact that they had evacuated most of the white house. in my years, i had not remembered any time that there had been an evacuation of the white house. you could tell from the way they were making sure that any foreign nationals have been in the building were escorted out

to the street, just from the general behavior, that there was something more to this story than the usual fence jumper. >> you posted something just before midnight. how did you start "the wire" reporting? josh: it came from a uniformed secret service agent that was not supposed to talk to press, but was in the fray of people running around and basically told us that there was somebody who hopped the fence and that's what we were dealing with. so, from my phone i filed a quick story that hit the wire around 8:00 or 8:30. but the secret service really went on lockdown, they would not talk to anybody. they were scrambling people to come down to the headquarters to deal with this. they were getting their ducks in

a row before they were talking to anybody. around 10:00, they kicked us out of the white house, as they do in the evenings, i relocated to my apartment and we continue to just hammer all of our sources to figure out what exactly had gone on around midnight, we found out that there had been a fence jumper. not only that, but he had actually made it inside the white house, which was an unprecedented security breach that raised all kinds of questions about whether the security protocols they have to respond to fence jumpers is really adequate. we knew this is going to be a big story, so we popped out an alert around midnight. from there, we started building a breaking story, trying to wrap in both the details of what happened in this incident, and the broader implications from the secret service. cristi: you did some reporting by twitter that night, right?

josh: this was late on friday evening, and there was nobody around. the flurry of reaction you would start getting unsolicited on a thursday afternoon or something from members of congress and interest groups that want quotes for stories, for all of us fleet or drunk or at parties or doing something else. but i happened to notice a tweet from someone who was the incoming chairman of the house oversight panel with jurisdiction over these issues. saying something about how alarming it was. i made contact with him through force -- twitter, only to find out that he was on a plane flying home to his district and that he was not landing until 3:00 or 4:00 washington dc time. i was able to get him to agree to do an e-mail interview over his -- using his in-flight wireless while he was on the flight. through that process, we learned that there had been a series of

other security breaches that he had been investigating for more than one year to be able to get that reaction. >> reporting in the digital age. [laughter] christi: i want to pause on that story right now, and i want to make this comment for the younger journalists in the room. this speaks volumes about the importance of beat reporting. if the reporters had not been there, the secret service would have said there was nothing to worry about. if josh had not been there at a regular basis and understood the rhythm of the white house and realized that something important was happening and sort of be able to pinpoint where it was happening, that's all part of the beat reporters' tool kit. let's talk to some been the -- let's talk to somebody who had done so they totally different.

when the warnings broke between the white house and cuba, he reported at the white house and then he got on a plane. tell us that story. >> this is about the release of allen gross, who was in prison in cuba for five years. it was a combination of sources. sources in cuba. i have been covering cuba since 1976. so i had sources there. i had sources there that i worked. i worked them as well as working the white house sources as well as some sources in town that represented allen gross. i first started getting interested in the story because i wanted to interview allen gross. that was the impetus of it. he was in prison. i thought i wanted to go back to cuba and it would be a good way to do it by going back to cuba to try to get an interview with

him. i started making inquiries to the cuban government. they said -- we don't think this is going to happen. allen says he is going to die at the end of the year. by starving himself to death. we are not going to give him any interviews. that was the start. i found out who his attorney was, and we started working with him, wondering if we could get in there to see him or get video. we started getting hints from sources that something was in the works. neither cuba nor the united states wanted this man to die in prison. there was the issue that -- there were 5 cubans in the united states, imprisoned. two of them had been released. three of them were still in prison. the cubans wanted a prisoner exchange. the united states did not want to do an exchange. they were debating about it. they were talking about it.

i started working the white house, my white house sources. and trying to find out what stage they were in. at first, i remember a very high up source in the national security council telling me that something was percolating. and that was about two months before the release. it is interesting where this happened. i will say that one of the things that we are getting away from -- the networks, some magazines and newspapers -- we are getting away from traveling with the president all of the time. we keep pushing back to our bosses about, at least at the network level, that there may not be a huge story that we are breaking when we are with the president, but we have unusual access to the people who normally do not return your calls when you're in washington.

when you are in china, or in burma, or in hawaii for two weeks with the president, there is a lot of time to talk informally with people who are your sources. it was on one of these trips that a very high up person told me -- before the end of the year. we focused on that. all of this time we were not ing to any -- doing any stories about it. this was all groundwork. only an occasional piece about how allen gross was and what his physical condition was. generally, we were not doing a story about it every day. we actually nailed down the week it was going to happen. i nailed it down from a source not at the white house. i went to the white house and i said -- i am about to report this.

is that going to -- and this is an interesting question for you guys to talk about as students. we went to the white house and i said, this is what i have, i know it is going to happen this week before he goes on vacation. if i report this, is that going to jeopardize allen gross's life, because he had threatened to kill himself if he did not get released. they said -- we will get back to you. to their credit, they did. they said ok, you have it. it will happen on that day. here's the deal. if you wait, you can report it first, and then we will verify it with everyone else immediately afterwards. as soon as he is wheels up and out of cuban airspace and therefore safe. my producer and i flew to miami

and waited for a call from josh earnest. i was in front of a live camera, i got the call from josh earnest, and we went with the story, and broke it on good morning america. part of the deal also was that our anchor david muir would get an interview with president obama about -- not just about prisoner exchange, but about the new era of relations between our two countries. david muir was able to sit down with president obama and talk to him about that. and i went on from miami to cuba and reported on the evening news about the reaction in cuba. carol lee: i would highlight one point that he made in all of that. that was an incredible story. he did not get his very solid information from inside the white house. that is most often the case. the best stuff comes, so often not from them. so often, you get good things from somewhere else and then you go to them. if they want to play ball, which they clearly did with you, then they will.

if not, you have a choice to make to do your own story, either way. my question for you is -- did they make his life a threatened case to you? or, did they say -- no, but it you wait, we will do this. jim avila: the case they made was that if we were to -- in general, what the white house was concerned about was inflaming miami before it happened. and in some way, that would cause some kind of incident that would stop the negotiations and therefore indirectly put allen gross's life in jeopardy. because he had threatened his own life at the end of the year. this was december 17. we were getting close to the end of the year. they did not make that case that strongly.

they said -- this could foul up the negotiations. they made it clear that there was no one right now who is anywhere as close to the story as you are. it will not break somewhere else. if you are patient, you will have a much better story, we will not jeopardize the man's life. we decided that we had a pretty good, clean kill and we might as well stay with that. christi parsons: how do you develop a source like that who will tell you at the critical moment that things are percolating? and have enough knowledge about that person's workings that you can trust them and read them correctly? jim avila: part of it is who they are. this person was involved with the negotiations. he would know that. if you know that someone had

this kind of direct access -- he was not a third-party or someone in the press office. this was an individual who was directly involved. and how do we get to know them? just like i said. by being there, and going on these trips. i have to say also, each one of us works for distinguished organizations. it is not necessarily the reporter, in general, it is also because of our audience and our readership. we work for an organization that has some influence itself. everyone on this panel has influential viewers, we have massive viewers as opposed to less influential folks that listen to npr. we have 10 million viewers. when they want to talk, they

want to talk to us. that is one of the ways. christi parsons: i want to go now to scott horsley. everyone here listens to npr, right? i love his reports because i know when i hear his voice, i tune in, because he has chosen something complicated and he will explain it to me in a way that makes sense. his concept of pension smoothing by comparing it to pension smoothie? he puts it in a blender with the audience. anyway. scott, could you talk about how you approach the story, how you choose your stories? scott: you try to get good sources. what we do in radio is that we do not have the advantage of pictures. we try to bring sound into the story. either it be a blender of the smoothie or something else.

sound is the one thing that the white house thinks, not at all about. i don't know how many times we have been on the road with the president, and they will have choreographed a beautiful picture of the golden hour. he is standing in front of a colonial building in cartagena and the sun is sinking at the right angle. it is gorgeous. just then, the children's choir comes out as we are walking away. [laughter] well, that would've been nice. or on the campaign trail, the president loved to visit factories and they would always shut the factory down, the assembly line, or whatever it was, so he could go through and take a tour. there would be no sound. just an industrial hum. i told someone that it would be nice to hear what the factory sounded like.

they took us to a spaghetti sauce bottling plant. i learned a lesson about why they shut down the assembly line. they were crowded around to get their picture taken with the president. it reminded me of a lucille ball moment. [laughter] part of the trick is to get a sound that makes the story come alive. the first thing the president did was go to the bob marley museum. they didn't let the full press pool into the museum, only still photographers. there were some great pictures of the president looking at the old albums.

it was especially frustrating to me, because we could hear faintly, strains of "one love" playing, which would've been a nice sound for our radio story. on arrival in kingston, but we didn't get it. christi parsons: scott e-mailed me -- whenever there is a problem with access, the members of the pool start e-mailing to each other. he told me that the soundtrack of this huge conflagration in kingston was, "one love" by bob marley. what mix are you looking for at the white house? are you looking for a particular mix in your beat reporting? scott: we try to report the news of the day. there was a time when npr saw itself as sort of a

supplementary news source. we thought all of our listeners were getting the breaking news in their papers and we would be something different, next day analysis. the old joke in our business is did the news a day late and call it analysis. for better or worse, for many people, we are not a secondary resource anymore. we are a primary resource. we feel compelled to keep up with the same day news. oftentimes, what differentiates us is our explanatory journalism or our context. you mentioned josh's experience, after two and a half years, you can say, ok, this is unusual. peter can say, with greater perspective, this is unprecedented. or this is not at all unprecedented. one of the things that we try to bring is some sense of context and history.

some sense, when the president is being pressed to respond to ferguson, that this has been something that has dogged the president since skip gates. to bring some of that history to bear. christi: that's a good transition to peter baker from the new york times who has covered three presidents in three different eras. in fact, in the last year, he has written about the obama white house, the clinton candidacy, and the bush family's effort to build a dynasty. talk to us a little bit about the changes you have seen. how does covering this administration compared to the others you have covered. peter baker: scott is right, in some ways, there is nothing new under the sun. every white house comes into office thinking, we have reinvented the wheel, and we will do it differently than everyone else before. we are hot stuff because we won a national campaign. and they are, they have done something extraordinary.

which is convince the majority, or at least enough people to give them their votes to send them into power. so they come in and they are really, really certain they will do something that has never been done before. particularly in the first year or two. you hear a lot of -- "first times," or "never befores." and mark knows and a lot of the guys scully, dave jackson, very few things have never been done before. the modalities are different, we are doing twitter and meerkat. all these things. i don't know what a meerkat is. [laughter] christi: it is a little animal. >> some aspects of it are different.

there are differences in modalities and tactics but not in broader themes. as you watch the obama white house's struggle with its second term, it feels pretty familiar to anyone that watched bill clinton struggle with his second term or george bush. obviously katrina is not the same thing as a broken web site, and syria is not the same thing as impeachment. so each of these are different but a lot of the broad strokes a lot of the currents of politics and governance are familiar. as scott said, it is great to keep that in mind when we do our reporting and help our readers and viewers and listeners understand that perspective of what is going on. that is what makes the job fun in a lot of ways. christi: --

>> you have the perspective that many of us have, which is, how do you maintain, what other people envy, which is fresh eyes and a new take. how do you work that into your reporting? peter baker: i do struggle. we have done this before. someone else manages to take whatever it is and find a fresh aspect of it. and bring new eyes to it. and i kick myself for being too fuddy-duddy. we all have partners. i have two great partners. make share and kelly davis. they are seasoned and veterans and they also bring a freshness to it. that helps to have perspective and to bring different strengths to a team like that. and then, i read about it in the wall street journal. and i feel like an idiot for not recognizing the great potential of the story. scott: one thing i was thinking about when i knew i was going to do this panel we get

the benefit of the print pool full reports. one print reporter is assigned each day. when christie or peter or carol do pool duty, all of these folks that have these experiences, they could easily phone it in. they never phone it in. their reports are so detailed, even on a completely throw away trip. you never know what is going to be throw away, six weeks later. you never know when some seemingly meaningless detail on a nothing venture to cleveland to give a speech that no one will care about two days later will take on new meaning later. because they pay attention every day and don't phone it in, they six months down the road when it is meaningful, they have that. christi parson: that is the concept of the pool. we spend a

lot of our time fighting for the access of the pool. when we can't get the whole press corps into something we send in 20 or 30 people to theto gather information, and their white house first responsibility is to share with the rest of us. they share our reporting with everyone else in america. before we write our own story. that is because it is a big responsibility, and we feel like the public has a right to know, and that is a public service that we perform. i want to ask the panel, peter i cannot help but notice the documentation you have over there. what are the biggest challenges for you in covering the white house and how do you overcome them?

peter: i have a study that is actually pretty useful. for anyone that has not read it or taken a look at it, there were 70 of us that responded this year. they asked a lot of questions. they asked some of us who have covered multiple administrations, to name the friendliest administration. 3% named barack obama as the most friendly. 65% the least friendly. that's probably because we are in the middle of it. we are currently frustrated with them and we have glossed over the frustrations that we had with bush and clinton. part of the adversarial relationship that goes with that. another finding, was -- how many times have you questioned the president? 63% of our colleagues said -- never. to me, that is a shame.

to me, the most telling one is -- how often have you interviewed someone from the white house who isn't paid to talk to you? -- 58% of our colleagues said -- never. in the last week. ok we're not all going to get a chance to interview him as often as we would like, but we ought to be able to speak with someone that was beyond the press conference. most of us have not been able to get past that and that tells us something about the nature of the white house. if you talk to your colleagues here who have done it longer than i have, you will see that you will hear that bush and other administrations had a lot more contact with a lot of senior people beyond the press office. i have seen that through many administrations how that has shrunk slowly but surely. with each passing one.

so what you do as a white house correspondent, have you to be what josh is, you have to be there all the time to recognize opportunities, to take that knowledge and translate it into stories at the right moment. you have to use sources outside of the white house's and then come back to the white house, as we did with cuba. and push them to answer our questions if they will not volunteer it. you have to be listening for sound. literally. you have to take all of those experiences and not count on our white house handing things over. carol lee: i wanted to ask a different question. one of the things that has come up a lot is with the ability for the white house to now go to twitter and facebook and interview others with youtube

stars and local news anchors at the white house. and a host of folks. if you look at the president's interviews, he largely does them mostly with people who are not in the white house covering him on a day to day basis. they are not as familiar with his policies and where he is going. they are parachuted in to do the interview and then parachuted out. it raises the question of -- does being a white house correspondent matter? why does it matter? if people can get information from elsewhere, what is the difference? jim avila: i think you need it all. i don't think it hurts to have outside people come in and ask questions. we are in a bubble. we have to recognize that. this is where we live. where we work. i know you do and most of us do we try to get out of that. i am lucky in that i have a partner as well. who does most of the day to day.

carl does most of the day-to-day. i go in and i try to work outside of the box. i can't blame the white house for wanting to get out of that room because when i do, when i go to denver or seattle, they are not talking about the same things that we are talking about. they are not focused on that. they are not focused on the intricacies that we are. where we see that most, is at the white house briefing. too often the quest, in my opinion, has been to get an argument going. to get some kind of conflict. there are very few questions or not enough questions that are actually asked to elicit information. the follow-ups have to often be more combative because the

information is not coming, but the original question is frequently designed to pick a fight rather than seek information. i think people outside the beltway, when i visit there, are tired of that. they are tired of the noise. they want the kinds of questions that sometimes we hear in local news, people come from out of town and they ask questions that we chuckle at. the viewers back in denver care about it. i think we need both, and we need the inside stuff on occasion. i think that they are wise to go outside of us. i do. scott horsley: you are right about some of the combativeness. that struck me during the v.a. hospital scandal for example.

the v.a. has been a mess for years. the american public generally would like to see the system work better than it does. there is no reason that it has to be a political scandal. the white house briefing room kind of lost interest in the story. to that extent, maybe the administration lost a little focus on it also. i do think there is something to what you say about the combative tone of washington media. i also think, when you talk about the challenges of the beat. my colleague used to say, if you get to a story and there are a bunch of other reporters there go find a different story. it is very good advice generally, but not always applicable to what we do. it is rare that you will really be in a whole different playing field then the dozens of your talented colleagues. josh lederman: when you do those are some of the most important moments. we are all intimately and painfully aware that we are no

longer the only game in town. there is no one up here from medium or tumblr or other ways that people are getting their information. that has also created some issues with outside media coming in or the white house completely bypassing the media and going to the people to their own social media channels. the access that we maintain as beat reporters at the white house is the accountability function. that is one that people who parachute in for a story are not in a good position to really do. one phrase that they have been using for a month, and suddenly

it disappeared. you notice it because you have been hearing it every day. it turns out that there is a policy change underneath that. the issue that you pressed deeper, and like jim, you break a major important story, or uncover some type of shenanigans that are not likely to be uncovered by someone who is coming in because the white house is trying to reach a different segment of the population. christi parson: i don't personally object to the white house running an offense. i think, it is up to them to craft their message and try to explain their policies and beliefs in a way that is persuasive. if they want to speak directly to the american public by whatever medium is available to them, i actually do not object to that at all. my concern is that they not go around the independent and adversarial press corps which is at the white house every day and has a situational awareness that you are talking about. i like the diversity of

voices. i like them all. more voices is better. we need information to work with. i feel like the beat reporters are at a critical part of that mix. we have about 20 minutes left to take some questions. i am looking out at the scholarship winners and i will start with you. >> you mentioned "medium." at comes up a lot. do you think, it has been a tipping point to the obama administration as far as getting information out. is that a president we will see going forward, or is that something specific to the administration? >> i cannot imagine the next administration will do anything next.

-- will do any less. it will have even more tools to sidestep this. christi parsons: that's part of the challenge of fighting, fighting something i haven't heard of yet. >> when we challenged him about this, he said every administration would do this if they had the tools we had. it's hard to argue with that. scott horsley: it's fine for them to find all of these other things. if they were doing that and not answering questions at a briefing, or not making the president available, which he has recently been very available force force as far as press conferences are concerned. there has been a unique rash of

press conferences lately. that would be an issue, i think. if they want to put an unfiltered message. first of all, audiences are smart enough to know that that is an unfiltered message. they really are. that's fine. if they did that and then the president didn't come out or josh didn't come out and sit in front of us, to me that would be an issue. i don't find it is issue as long as we continue to do that. there is an issue that they do not make people outside the press office available. that could be a problem. i would doubt that you have that problem. and i don't really have that problem. but i understand, smaller organizations or maybe smaller and fox news -- one they would deem as combative might have an

issue. that i don't. peter baker: we don't do that today. with the former chief of staff, at the end of his day, he called reporters. he tries from time to time to engage, i'm saying that the culture has changed. in the culture is that people are involved in a lot of these decision makings are less available, more separated from us by a paid staff that is paid -- >> i remember reading a piece in "the new yorker," he said he wandered down to the ennis see offices -- the nsc offices -- just wandering around the west wing --

he said, "i wantered down to the nsc offices." just wandering around the west wing. >> unlike congress, right? you can walk around congress and find sources will you talk to you for the most part. the white house, physically, you are not able to go very far. you are restricted to a very tiny space, basically good which is why -- >> vestibule -- peter: that's right. that's why the ones that spend the day there are heroes because it is incredibly cramped claustrophobic. you cannot walk the halls, you cannot say, hey guys, what is going on? it's so much more -- >> [indiscernible] >> it's a shame, because fewer non-scripted spontaneous conversations that would lead to understanding and clarity.

christi clop -- christi: do you have a question? >> yes. earlier in the discussion, you talk about the leverage that free reign journalists had over the white house where they can possibly produce a story through social media, but their twitter handle says, hey, what happened? what leverage where you speaking of that we have two tell our stories to the viewers so that we can reach tens of millions of viewers, but why not come to us? >> great question. >> i think him historically, we had more and leverage because any administration which ultimately was going to have to be responsible to voters -- even if they didn't like the press, they had to deal with us to get the message out. that is still true. i think the public still does distinguish what they read in the new york times from one comes out in the west wing's website. i hope they do.

it is less than they used to be. they have more avenues to distribute their message without us. in the old days, like or not, they kind of had to deal with us. christi parsons: i think what scott was saying is that the leverage is that it's hard to turn away. >> they don't like having it described as state-run media. scott horsley: when we went public with our complaints occasionally when they really tick us off, they do, that tends to get the president's attention and that trickles down -- christi parsons: when we are not

doing a publicly, we are there every day pushing and increasing anxiety, as we do. and that is often effective because of the leverage that we do have. >> there is now an army of paid staffers that, you know, they are there to get between you as a correspondent and those actually making policy. i read somewhere in the last 30 years, there has been a 300% increase in the number of pr people as number of journalists has gone down. i'm wondering, they create pseudo-events and try to set the agenda for the day, and that's their job. i'm wondering, how do you find something else unique their? jim: we pretty much ignore -- we ignore the staged event. he wants to announce something on trade so he goes to a port.

i can't remember the last time we did a story about whatever their agenda for the day is. all of the news doesn't really work that way. we go in case something unusual happens at that event. but we don't cover that event. what i try to do -- i can only speak for myself -- is focus on things that i'm interested in, that our viewers are interested in, and not worry about their agenda. about the white house agenda. and come from the outside in come with information that they cannot ignore, because they know that my 10 million viewers at 6:30 are going to see this information, they need to get their spin on it, they need to get the information out about that particular issue. that's -- i read a report,

that's my would say. " what they're doing is no different. >> what they are doing is no different. the guy with the gyro copter at the capital, that would not have led the abc news that night. everybody does stunts. scott horsley: one thing that is interesting is committee occasions and staffing in congress. it's either lee francis or francis lee, i can't remember. she has tracked the change and how many congressional staffers is messaging and communications as opposed to legislating or -- it's remarkable. but track the change in primary messaging as opposed to legislating. it is remarkable. >> i guess i don't have as big of a problem dealing with the press, if they are empowered. it really depends, particularly in the white house,

how the top staff, the senior advisers, the communications director, the press secretary, depending on who it is, decides to have people on the staff. and there is instances in which those folks are given a tremendous amount of leeway to share information, they are in the meetings, they understand what's going on. and it is worth talking to them. and there are times when it is not worth talking to them at all. they know nothing. if they do, they are not going to tell you because they are afraid of their own shadow, they are not empowered in any meaningful way, and so they are not useful in that sense. and the same goes for the hill. in fact, i can give you an example in the white house. his official title is strategic something communications director for the nsa. well, he is probably the closest foreign-policy advisor and longest standing foreign-policy advisor to the president has. there is something to be known he probably knows it.

oh no, yeah, -- >> they are knowledgeable and in the meetings. carol lee: not at all. increasingly, there is a sense that they are just there to block people from talking to us, as opposed to then having information and being facilitators or -- you know -- a lot of times, you will call a senior official that is not in the press staff they get a call back from the press staff, which is always, like -- that is a designed system, and i'm sure there are stars handed out. carol lee: the agencies in general. >> there were some chuckles this week when the president burned a whole lot of jet fuel to fly to the everglades to celebrate earth day [laughter]

the backdrop of the everglades got that story in every newspaper with a photograph of him on the walkway. over the swamp. that's how you get your message out. christi: also, you can go to the event that they put on, but you don't have to see what they want you to see. i think josh mentioned when they are changing the lexicon within the white house, it is reflective of the change of policy or viewpoints, and those are things that are hard to hide if you're paying attention. >> to your question about the tension between setting your own agenda, there is a story they want us to write every single day, but we all will get e-mails 6:00-8:00 and we are all supposed to get super excited and pop out these stories at 6:00 about a progress report on nothing, basically.

and, you know, we are in a unique position that we have to cover everything. because even if their progress really not that interesting to most of our readers, people in michigan do wondering about that stuff. we have conversations throughout the day, you know, every signal day about how much does this merit? this thing they are trying to make a big deal out of. and vice versa, what about the little thing that they kind of mentioned and try to brush under the rug? no, that's actually the news today. we are going to make a big deal out of that and we are going to kind of briefly dispense with this thing that they are try to focus on. so, we have to do both and set of making a choice between one or the other.