brian: who is the first person who tie you would journalism is all about? susan: you know, it was funny. there was a famous teacher at the high school i went to. tom lyons was the supervisor of the newspaper at andover. he was also george w. bush's favorite teacher in high school. many years later he was still around, a very, very older statesmen at the school, and not only was he a great leader in journalism but also in the role of a free press. he taught constitutional law as well. my junior year in high school. it was incredible experience. brian: your husband is with us today. peter baker. before i go to peter baker, what were the circumstances where you met him? susan: people used to say i got my job through the washington post. i was lucky enough to get a job at the washington post and to find and meet my husband. we also like to say that monica lewinsky was the thing that brought us together. so there was some good at least they came out of that side of. i was an editor at the washington post and i would oversee investigative reporting

for the national staff. i started in january 1998 one week before the monica story broke. peter was a white house reporter covering president clinton. that is how we met. brian: we have some video from 1998. actually, right after you started. february 6. this is your husband, peter baker, when he worked at the post. >> the president gets home from his deposition on january 17, having just spent six hours with lawyers from paula jones and going through all this reported sexual encounters with lawyers repeating questions.

the one that stuck in his mind was monica lewinsky. he gets home at night and because of betty currie and asks her to come into the office the next day. so they can talk about it. that sunday in the privacy of the white house and they went through his testimony and he tried to see if his memory matched her memory. prosecutors are very interested in that because her version was somewhat different in that he says i was never out of earshot. he and lewinsky were never essentially alone, he claims. betty kerry said yes but later told investigators that in fact she had been the outer office on a number of occasions. brian: what are you thinking? peter: my taste in ties hasn't gotten any better. that was a long time ago. the issues were so extraordinary. never repeated since, thank goodness.

we're young journalists trying to figure out what the story was. was it about politics? was it about accountability? it was a really extraordinary time. it was a stew of all these things. brian: what do you think is the residual of that time. on our politics right now? peter: it was part of a continuing than washington that became increasingly corrosive over time. we had a hard time figuring out what are the right boundaries. the ways even hold the president accountable. when does become partisan? you can trace back to all sorts of events in the previous 10 or 20 years. and then extended through today. you see an evolution of how politics has grown harsher and harsher in washington.

brian: you were able to find your spouse at the washington post. peter: she was my boss at the time. we were spending a lot of hours together. late at night. for about 13 months the story was all-consuming. one day we discovered completely by accident friend al kamen that we lived on the same block on the same street. we didn't even know it. we never saw each other they are because we spent our time at the office. that told us there was something real here. monica lewinsky brought us together. i grew up here in washington outside fairfax virginia. i went to public schools all the way through. my high school journalism teacher was a man named stewart

held was very influential in encouraging me. susan: technically president clinton might say that was not the controlling legal authority. there are many bosses in a big newsroom. i have been really lucky. to be able to have professional and personal partnerships over more than 15 years is a very unusual thing. he was terrible on deadlines. and he is terrible now. what is the last possible moment you can turn in a story? there are a lot of procrastinators who gravitate toward journalism because only the force of a gun to the head

will get things done. of like those old newspaper deadlines, what is happened in those 15 years is the absolute proliferation and explosion, we are all wire service 24-hour deadline people. he was one of the very first people to write a web story for the washington post. we wanted to have a midday update on impeachment. just 15 years you go from the print paper and waking up in the morning to a fresh set of news and headlines. now this rolling world in which the new york times and the washington post and politico are all filing all the time and we expect sophisticated not just commodity news versions but a complicated breaking stories almost instantaneously of them occurring.

in our living memory of covering the scandal he was the very first guy to even write a web story for the washington post. brian: you are going to jerusalem together. peter: tuesday his departure. our 11-year-old son will go with me later. susan is going to finish out the election with politico. she will join us a couple of months after that. brian: what is your thinking about being the bureau chief of the new york times in jerusalem? peter: susan and i were bureau chiefs together in moscow. we have never spent any time in israel. we are looking forward to learning a lot. it could be a real adventure.

part of the world that has so much history and so much of a vital part of today's issues and we spent a lot of time writing about in washington but we've never lived there. brian: you are stepping down as the editor of politico. susan: i will be changing roles and continuing at politico in a roll around helping to lead our editorial growth and innovation. continuing to expand internationally. we just launched politico europe. we are looking at creating and launching new things. i started the political magazine. it has been a really exciting new platform for us. ambitious longform reporting. the war of ideas. you can't own the washington conversation unless you are part

of the debate over ideas and policies. how it connects. that approach is something that can work in europe and other big markets of the world. both of us have spent our careers focusing on that intersection between washington and the world. one of the things that we learned from our tour in russia which coincided with president putin's first term in office. it was after 9/11 so we ended up in afghanistan and iraq. we came back here to the washington of george w. bush's second term in office. that sense of washington isn't just the capital of the united states, it is the capital of the world, that nexus through which things flow. we are very insular here. kind of a small village at times.

you have to renew your intellectual capital. to really understand the stories and issues. i will be writing a weekly column on foreign affairs. it will appear in politico and politico europe. i am excited about doing that. also be working on longer form magazine pieces. probably for the new york times. brian: many folks hit what you do. -- hate what you do. i don't think i can say it any stronger. they don't like the media. what do you say to them when you meet up with someone who is hostile to the new york times and what you do? peter: you get a lot of e-mails or communications from readers that are unhappy. the ones that are truly scatological are over the top in terms of hatred.

those, i do not usually you too. those that are angry, even if they are hostile, if you write them back and say i understand why you are saying that. here's my thinking about why i wrote the article that way. if you give a thoughtful response that doesn't seem defensive but actually accepts that there is some legitimacy to people's points of view and we are open to criticism, they almost always say they shouldn't have been so mean. they look at us as an institution. and, when they see us as individuals who can have a conversation with them, it becomes a healthier thing. brian: let's go back to 1992. this is you when you were at "roll call." susan: it was the original newspaper of capitol hill.

before there was politico or the hill. it was founded in the 1950's. by a former hill staffer. in 1986 it was purchased by arthur levitt, at the time the head of the american stock exchange, and i think, if you remember, he had this great insight along with jim glassman that rather than just being a real community newspaper you could be serving one of the most important audiences in the world. the members of congress and the universe of capitol hill. with original news that goes deep on those subjects, the process and the politics that really mattered. it was always a really smart business proposition. the washington post had a monopoly market. but of course, people were paying huge premiums to reach all those readers of the washington post. in the suburbs and all over. how about to undercut them and just reach this specific,

circuited influential audience. and of course, that has given rise to this all industry of targeted ideas and issue advocacy advertising. i was unwittingly stumbling into that. i became an intern at roll call in the summer of 1987. i was 18-years-old. i was at harvard. my dad read an article in the washington post about this very interesting media experiment. and, i didn't know these folks at all. i sent them a letter in those days. i think you did that in those olden days. i ended up with this really incredible experience. i came back to work there after i graduated in 1990. in 1992 i was probably the managing editor of roll call. i had this incredible window into washington. as it was transforming.

the first post-cold war election. this was the election of bill clinton. and, you know, this -- the beginning of the transformation of the media. what we did at "roll call" back then was very much a kind of pre-internet kind of publication. brian: everything you to do can be seen on the internet. let's watch this little clip of you in a "roll call" editorial meeting. jim glassman and morton kondracke are there. susan: everyone has done their generic story on women candidates. what we should do is a story more specifically about which women. where are they coming from? how many? and then, the flipside is the

results of redistricting and how many new blacks and hispanics are going to be in the democratic caucus as a result. >> right. >> the people that we know are coming as freshmen are almost exclusively minorities. susan: these new districts are ones that it is all most inconceivable that they could elect republicans. brian: 20 years earlier you would probably see no women in that room. what was the change like? susan: rollcall was a great place to go after college for any journalist male or female. it was a great window into

covering national politics. at a very young age. not going that older route of a distant far out suburb newspaper and then a slightly closer in newspaper. maybe someday getting downtown. we were very privileged to be able to jump right in under jim glassman. to cover national politics and learned a lot of awful lot. it was kind of insulated from the society at large. it was a startup. very young. not very conscious of gender breakdowns. in 1992 there was the anita hill hearings. looking back on my very young just out of college self and where women are in journalism

today, i think i would've been disappointed and surprised at how much we are still having many of the same conversations. that is not to say that there hasn't been a certain amount of progress and many first woman barriers have been broken. the first woman editor of the new york times, jill abramson, or the year of the woman we were talking about their in congress. many many more women in congress today. still only 20% though. the percentage of women ceos is still in the single digits. i think i would've been surprised. a much more uniform marched on progress. maybe that is what you always have a sense of. it is interesting to see the debate this year over hillary clinton and what seems to be a

generational divide between older women who have a sense of the barriers still existing for women in professions whether it is politics or journalism and a new group of voters these millennial voters, who seem to be bridling at the idea that you should vote for a woman just because of her gender. it is surprising. it is a small number. it is small and political journals and i will say that having been the editor of foreign policy magazines before i moved over to "politico" there are even fewer women in foreign policy circles and international affairs circles than there are in political journalism. brian: how do you view it?

peter: susan has been very blessed by having a lot of opportunities and she has made the most of them. watching her up close has been inspirational for me. she has ended up being the editor of "roll call." she was the editor of foreign policy. she is the editor of politico. but she is right, not enough women have ended up at that level in journalism. i have worked for women over the years. at the very top levels there is still a glass ceiling. there are different expectations, conscious or unconscious of what is allowed in the course of being an editor. i have worked for some male editors who are pretty tough guys and that was celebrated. and, you know, women, i still think, have a tougher time with that. brian: what year did you leave the washington post? peter: i went to the new york

times in 2008 and susan worked for donald graham and ultimately helped him by foreign policy magazine. brian: you weren't very happy with the way susan was treated? peter: that is true. there had been a conflict in the newsroom. i felt that the leadership of the time didn't handle it well. i thought they were very -- i did not think they were as supportive or loyal to someone who had worked so hard and done so much and accomplished so much as susan did. brian: you said you would still be at the post if it hadn't been for that? peter: yes. i grew up with the post. at my house, we had the washington post and the washington star every day. when the washington star died, i got the times.

i remember riding my bicycle seven miles to get the first edition of the washington times. washington journalism mattered to me. my dream was to work for the washington post. susan: there are lots of different answers to what was the conflict. i learned a lot. i was the national editor of the post at the time. and, these papers were not where they are today in terms of figuring out to the very uncomfortable digital transitions. our friends and colleagues had just left you found "politico." we were trying to reinvent political coverage. it was a special challenge for me to manage such a large staff of many very accomplished veterans. all of them extremely anxious about what this new era of

transformation was going to be like. and, not incidentally i would say, the longtime editor of the post was replaced right after that. brian: leonard downie. susan: yes. and, i think the paper went through a big series of changes that needed to happen. it has been great to see its recovery over the last couple of years. the new owner and an infusion of new blood and new ideas. brian: the two of you were selling a book in 2007. here is an interview i think at the press club. [video clip] susan: very early on in vladimir putin's tenure we met with one of his top political consultants and he said the goal was to and the revolution. what he meant was the revolution that toppled the soviet union

back in 1991. peter: the west has to be open eyes and clear i'd about what russia is. bromance was fooling ourselves into thinking ourselves that we would be a democratic figure. he doesn't want to be that. brian: when you look back at the four years you spent in russia what comes to mind? peter: that was a period of great transition and tumbled. everybody thought we were coming in when people were getting boring. yeltsin had stood up to the kremlin. who was supposed to represent stability. it was a period of enormous change where vladimir putin began to turn things back. he turned out to be something we did not want him to be. bryan: and, what did you think? susan: we found out how

invaluable it is to go out there and do reporting on the ground, be open-minded, trust your instinct. we didn't come to it after decades of entrenched ideological positions one way the other about the soviet union and what the new russia should be. what we found was a resurgent nationalism. and, this fascinating figure of vladimir putin who really came out of the kgb, and was determined to perhaps it uses some of the tools of the west, and who had really been misread in some ways by people in washington and elsewhere in the west who wanted to believe in this onward trajectory of democratization in a western style way that really did not prove to be the russian trajectory. and so, for us, this was a revelatory experience and renewal in the face of the idea

of going out there and judging for yourself and being open-minded and reporting on the ground. people talk in a very cliched way about the value of being a foreign correspondent. going out there and engaging with the world. for us that really was the case. i think that it changed and deepened our understanding of the world. it changed our trajectory as undoubtedly and made us better, deeper journalists when we came back here to washington. brian: when you two were working together, were you both bureau

chiefs in washington? how did you do it? how did you stay not at each other's throats? peter: we wrote this book that we were promoting in that video. we did that while she was pregnant with our first and only child. we had this great story where we were back in washington and finishing up the book and we were coming home from dinner and she said i think the time is coming. and i'm like, what are you talking about, and she is like, i think the baby is coming. and we were out most of the night polishing these chapters. she finally went upstairs and went to sleep and i said i sent off those last two chapters to the publisher. and she said, that is good because i am having contractions. susan cole: and we were on c-span just the day before. we were at an event at the wilson center. we were presenting about russia.

we agreed to do this and now i was nine months pregnant. and they were like, oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you but c-span is there. who wants to do that? somewhere in your archive is the day that our son was born. brian: how does vladimir putin look here now. this is 2007 when you wrote the book, what year did you leave moscow? susan: we left at the end of 2005. the trajectory of putin is surprising in the way that we didn't expect most russia watchers were shocked when he invaded crimea. the arc of putin is surprising. this war in ukraine was probably genuinely surprising, but the overall march of putin is a

-- march of putin-ism which is now a real phenomenon, it looks like he now may be the longest-serving leader of russia since stalin. to have been there at the beginning is to have seen the germs of all of these things. putin's love of all of these press ops, riding a horse bear-chested will stop that has turned him into a global icon. that was a foundational time we happened to be in. there was such a break from the 1990's a story of russia that there is more continuity with the story that we sort of stumbled into from 2000 through today. him?you able to interview was lucky enough if that is the right word to have been at the very first interview that he gave to american

correspondents and that was in the late spring, 2001. he was a very unknown figure. he had been an of skier former cagey b guy. guy.b he was little known in the west. he had little experience with western journalists. we were invited to a roundtable at the kremlin library. they kept us waiting for hours. didecollection is that it not take place until after 11:00. i remember the question i asked. i remember that i was three quarters of the way around the table and putin gave very long answers. , he was.y this time eager to show us that he had mastered his briefing books. he was spouting a lot of facts and figures.

he gave a very long and detailed answer with statistics to every question. it got around to me. no one had asked yet about did about the ongoing war in chechnya. there are many serious allegations of human rights violations. terrible situations for the civilian population as russia targeted this rake away province of its country. this was the war that had brought putin to power. i was the newcomer, the youngest person at the correspondence table and i was the one who got to ask him about chechnya and human rights. he did remember me after that. [laughter] brian: is he speaking english? susan: he understands english, but he does translation in his formal setting.

brian: i want to give you a -- i want to show vladimir putin at the end of last year in december at an anniversary celebration of the startup of russia today, the television networks. this is in moscow. i want you to talk about the .mpact [video clip] advantage is we allowed you to show yourselves. we are not making you do anything, you are free in your work. we give you the opportunity to have fun, to enjoy your work. we can see the result of it. the result is awesome, great. i want to say happy anniversary, this is a great today, 10 years.

you have managed to achieve a lot of things. you know all of that, but i want to repeat myself. six information channels have been created, and also global video agency. today, russia today is great. number one news channel on youtube [applause] brian: so when you watch that, an american public television station that carries a here in the station, what is your action -- what is your reaction? peter: it is a state-funded television operation that is meant to translate to the west basically the kremlin's point of , view. their view is because cnn, c-span, and washington post are not giving them a fair shake, they have to counter.

it is an information war. what i remember is the first story we really covered in russia was putin's takeover at mtv, the only independent network in russia. his whole rise to power was orchestrated through television. oligarchs owned television, state owned television. he understood that television mattered in russia as a way to maintain power, and to control the airwaves. he took over mtv and it was a formative event of his early presidency. it showed a lot of what would come. rt is a natural extension of that. tv matters in controlling politics. brian: how much information is blocked in russia, if any? susan: you can get on the internet. it is not like in china, there is no great firewall at least

, yet. they are extremely successful in the manipulation of the information environment. the one and only independent television network that russia ever had was the very first thing that vladimir putin and his team, took over, understanding the importance of that. this is a country where the centralized tv networks and tv news makes a huge difference. almost the only thing that binds this vast country couple of different time zones. it really matters in a way. it is hard to remember, here in the united states, back to the era when people sat at home and watched network news every night on one of three stations. but in russia, that has persisted as a habit. it really mattered. there are a network of websites that aggressively cover news in russia, or even the outside by various exiles and dissident types. you can get access to information but the information , environment has been thoroughly manipulated.

it has been fascinating to watch some of the coverage of the war -- coverage since the war in ukraine began, especially over the last year. people have written fascinating and disturbing accounts of the just listened to the news in russia, what do you hear. you hear an alternate actual reality. whether it is remembering the downing of the malaysian airways plane that is all a , western conspiracy, russia had nothing to do with this, of course there are no russian troops in ukraine, despite all the documentation. the war in syria, their intervention, there is a starkly alternate reality that is presented. but of course this is a very powerful and sophisticated tool in many ways. it is not new. if you look at the historical accounts of how the soviet union took power or maintained new

influence in eastern europe after world war ii -- a great book by an apple balm that came out a few years ago -- by ann applebaum that came out a few years ago. it is the tools have changed and become so much more sophisticated. people should not think that just because there's the surface appearance of a robust network of websites, that people are not operating in a very propaganda atmosphere. brian: in 2015, in march from , you played a role in a story caused, i like the word kerfuffle. let's watch this, and you can explain more of it. [video clip] journalists and

colonists not any of the , reporters who cover him, he said he was going to announce the isis campaign. he invited some foreign policy people from various administrations. i called all the people to try to guess what he was saying, and what was on his mind. the off the record restrictions did not apply to me. i cannot be held to a rule i do not agree to or profit from. it is our job to find out what he is thinking. if members of congress had gone in and talked to about this, i would call them and maybe they would tell me what he said as well. brian: give us the context. peter: the president of the united states communicates in a lot of ways. one of the ways is having off the record meetings sometimes.

less so with the reporters, or -- more with people who are considered to be opinion shapers. people who are influential writers. sometimes he does it in a lot of people. he brought in about 17 people . my job as a reporter is to figure out what he is thinking. i called all the people in the room, and got enough information about what he is such reported out. there was a little kerfuffle, good word. but the people in the room could not write about it under the ground rules that they had agreed to move but i was not part of that, and i did not have an agreement with anybody to not write about it. it is my job to report out as best i can. brian: the editor of the new york times as saying i do not think that anything the president has to say should be off-limits to the readers of the new york times i would not have a news reporter in that room. please explain what that is all about?

peter: a lot of people do not make the distinction that a newspaper like the new york times has multiple pieces. there is the opinion page, and that is why people say you are liberal or conservative, because the judge your opinion page. columnists are free to do what they want. the newsroom is reporters who are taking a neutral, no sides approach to things. i am not taking sides. i think dean feels pretty an off theat having record meeting with the president compromises a reporter. the president of the united states, how could you hold us -- hold that back from the readers? us not toer for participate in those kinds of meetings, because then we are not compromised. brian: you were called in, and the president said, i would like to talk to you off the record,

, what would you do? susan: i did attended off the record meeting once. it was in my capacity as a writer for political magazine. i was writing when i had the time to do that. i reported international affairs, a precursor to what i hoped to do when we are in jerusalem. i did attend a session like that . i very much agree with peter that that is not an appropriate role for a reporter. i do think it is a part of a very concerted part of the president's communication strategy and the way in which he wants to get his strategic message out without being publicly accountable for every word and phrasing of what he is saying. of course there is a long tradition of that, and we all know that president kenny was -- president kennedy was hanging

out in georgetown with ben radley. teddy roosevelt dazzled reporters with his extensive access to them. that stuff did not all my gives -- did not all make its way into the press. seen evolution in this last 15 years of the media and reporting. one of the regrettable things in washington is that as it becomes a more partisan atmosphere the media has also become more partisan part of the fragmenting. we used to have three tv networks, washington post, new york times, wall street journal, now we have millions of platforms. a co-mingling of opinion and ideas. certainly, much more division between red america and the media it likes and the blue america you -- the blue america,

the media it likes. one of the things that attracted me to politico was that their dwindling island of public space in which both sides have to contend and that independence of our journalism inquiry is we really valuable at a time when it is fading fast from many other platforms. peter: in the interest of prints interest of- transparency -- more casual chitchat about a trip that just went on. sometimes i have been there and i cannot get off the plane so i have been part of off the record sessions in the session as you cannot really control it. i do not want to make us up to but i surehan thou

, there is concern about how you do that. i am concerned it becomes a substitute for on the record encounters. if the president get interviews to the white house press with any kind of frequency, he took our questions that his predecessors did, that would be one thing. you could see a supplement of off the record from time to time to share additional insight. the problem is it has become a substitute for the in which he does not interact with the white house press who cover day in and day out on a regular basis. brian: political magazine you did a huge piece on the obama administration. what do you think history will say about the obama administration 50 years from now? susan: that is the famous question. president obama said to david remnick, i just want to get my paragraph right. , historiansd people

to write overall this paragraph that we all know the first part of that paragraph. he broke barriers. he made history by becoming the first african-american president of the united states. furthermore, he not only was the first black president, he was a two-term president. this has been at administration that has not been marred by ethical scandals or any kind of cloud over the president personally in his judgment and decision broadly speaking. and other words, he will be judged as someone of integrity more or less by history. how will some of his policy decisions go? debatingill fiercely everything from basic strategic assumptions, why did the go for obamacare first, should they have done other things in order to have laid a more robust foundation?

how does the president's record in the world look? what is the iran deal going to look like 10 years from now? we are just getting the beginning of the answer on if -- another kind of unraveling. we're not talking about the famous line during the opening. they asked him what do you think about french revolution. he said the jury is out. hopefully we will get a verdict before that. brian: how many years have you covered the obama white house? peter: basically since the beginning. i came in with him. i covered the second term of president clinton, the second term of president bush, and everything from the beginning of president obama to now. seven years, i guess. susan and i are writing a biography of james baker, the

former secretary of state. war,e end of the cold during the gulf war, he also ran five presidential campaigns. imagine henry kissinger and karl rove rolled into one. he had his hand in every major thing that happened and what it for a generation. he represents an archetype in washington that does not exist anymore. someone who's fiercely partisan, and then sat down and rewrote the tax code and settle other wars. he is an interesting figure. brian: how much access is he giving you? peter: he has been generous to sit down with us. we have done a lot of interviews with him. a lot of interviews with people with him. we do not have enough time to work on the book, but it is a fascinating subject. brian: is there different role -- is there a difference in the versus thee playing

one your husband is playing for you on this book? susan: we're dealing with another once in a generation historic presidential election. i would say that we are really lucky to be able to collaborate together, and i will pick it up after the election the how far we have got in with it, and keep running. brian: what is the difference in the way you approach journalism? peter: in some ways, we are the james carville and mary matalin of journalism. i am a reporter, she is an editor. too.s a great writer people often think of her because of her editing accomplishments but they forget she was covering tora bora in afghanistan. she went to iraq the day american troops within but without an embedded unit.

she covered the theater siege in moscow and so forth. but for the most part, what susan's temperament and great vision in terms of editing is something i do not have an do -- never really spent any time on. i stuck very closely to the grunt side of the equation. brian: how do you differ? susan: i do not entirely agree with his characterization. peter is a great journalist, an d extremely modest. he taught me an awful lot about journalism, and does have the instincts of a great editor. he just chooses not to go in that direction. peter: if you getting an editor, in is so rare, you have to marry them. susan: we are incredibly lucky to be able to work together and complement each other. when we rode "kremlin

rising," it was interesting to see the different ways in which we approached the writing. for example, peter was very fast. we divided up the chapters that he wrote very quickly, much more quickly than i did. it was his first draft of these chapters where i was taking more time and somewhat more finished product, which, given that i also was pregnant with our son, and was on the back end of this project, not able to do as much, it might have been good that my chapters were further along. because then he has a process of going through and stitching the book together and rewriting more intensively. we did have a different style in how we approached the writing side of this, but i think what we had in common that is really exciting is that we both love the story. almost any story. i think we have obviously had a shared passion for trying to

understand washington in this post-cold war world. this has been the arc of our two careers, and i think the thing that stitches some of these -- together. it is definitely true that peter, although he often is the person who deals with computer stuff in our house is less interested in the kind of broad questions surrounding the digital reinvention of journalism, which is an energizing and exciting subject for me over the last decade, as i have seen a new set of possibilities for journalism open up. in some ways, he is the last newspaper guy. [laughter] peter: i do what they tell me to do, but i just want to write a story. if they want me to do it in 140 characters at a time, i will do it 140 characters at a time. brian: if you look at your trip, how long will you stay in jerusalem?

ur.er: a three-year to h brian: what do you want to do? peter: i am looking to get beyond the simple stories about the conflict and help washington readers understand israel on the ground. i think we all understand in arabs, ancients, hatreds the wall, the occupied , territories, this, that. there are so many very passionate people about this. they feel strongly about one side or the other, and it's hard to find anything that satisfies both. i want to broaden the story, deep in the story see what we , can do about helping people understand what it looks like on the ground, how it actually plays out the on the very basic construct we have. brian: what is one thing you want to do?

susan: peter tells people that we decided to go to israel because we were part of all the tired of alle were the partisan infighting here in washington. peter: a place where everybody gets along so well. [laughter] susan: for me, is a great story. it is always a great story, as an important story. there has been no part of the world has been more consequential for american foreign policy than middle east over the last 40, 50 years. and not to have that experience on the ground in a more deployed deep way than we did in the iraq war would be missing out on something, especially right now. the conflagration around israel is really extraordinary. it was always a sense of this is an island, it is its own story, but now look what is happening in egypt. all the country's surrounding israel. jordan which obviously is

, basically physically geographically connected most closely. 25% of its territory -- sorry, 25% of the population is refugees overwhelmed from the syrian civil war unfolding on its borders. this is an extraordinary moment both in terms of the middle east and in terms of the politics of israel. talk to people here in washington as we have been doing. you have a sense of mounting frustration. on the one hand this is a super close relationship and partnership the united states and israel have had and do have. on the other hand the people who deal with the most closely are extremely frustrated. not just because of the bad personal relationship between president obama and prime minister netanyahu there is a

, real sense that we might be independent point, a juncture, where the things we know about chiller are not working anymore. there is a growing sense of there is no real peace process, so what will come next? brian: how old is your boy, and what is his name? peter: his name is theo. he is 11 years old. great kid. brian: what is he thinking about moving to jerusalem? peter: he is excited about it. he is an energetic explorer. curious about the world. brian: where will he go to school? susan: there is an international school there, we visited a couple of weeks ago. that will be part of the huge learning experience for him. this is a place with kids from all over. 30% turnover. something like two american kids including him and then children from all over the world. brian: i understand it right, you're not jewish?

peter: no. brian: a lot of the new york times reporters have been over the years. any fallout from that, good or bad? peter: for a lot of years, the send a jewisht reporter. the editor back in the 1970's and we have to send somebody. i will send a jewish reporter. he said he would send david schindler. i think it can become cases, -- you have to ask them about their experiences but i think it can be complicated because people make assumptions about you because of that and they probably ought not to. either they assume you are this or at that point you are that and we go in without that kind of background. as the bureau chief i did not have a stake in this one way or the other and i go in with fresh

eyes and i don't take sides in a just want to report on what we see. hopefully that will be old-fashioned good journalism rules. brian: peter baker has been a longtime correspondent for the new york times. susan glass, the editor politico, they both go to jerusalem. we are out of time. thank you very much. ♪ >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available at c-span podcast.

>> if you enjoyed this week's q&a interview with susan glasser and peter baker, here are others you might like. patrick gavin discussing internet news sites. jill abramson on being the first woman to hold the position of editor of the new york times. alyona show one rt. you can watch these anytime or search our video library at c-span.org. >> your calls and comments on washington journal. live at noon, the u.s. house gavels and for general speeches with the legislative business at 2:00 p.m.

ken burns and harvard university professor henry louis gates junior discussed race in america. tonight on the communicators, jim halpert, a privacy and cyber security lawyer and john simpson, project director for consumer watchdog discuss how and whether the fcc should develop privacy regulations for the internet. they are joined by howard busker. >> the ftc can no longer regulate that one aspect aspectt access provider of the business of internet access providers. there is now a rulemaking coming up where the fcc will decide what to put in place in lieu of or perhaps replicating the ftc hospitals under the new -- ftc's

rules. >> most of the rules that exist existed in the world of telephones. now that they have extended by reclassification, the situation to cover isps, they have to, with rules appropriate to the world of the internet, not just telephones. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. , talks about the battles within the publican party for a nominee. the chances of a brokered convention and who he will support for the nomination. later, ken burns discusses his latest pbs documentary, jackie robinson about the life of the man who broke baseball's color

barrier and became a leader in the civil rights movement. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. washington journal is next. ♪ morning.d monday, march 14, 2016. the house returns from its district work. its work weegins got 3:00 p.m. and is expected to hold a vote on the confirmation of a new secretary of education. one day before five key states hold primary votes we begin this morning on the road to the white house. donald trump is facing renewed criticism over violence and angry confrontations at his campaign rallies. trump who canceled an event in chicago, has claimed