laura: you have been so generous with your time. i speak on behalf of the entire room that we are grateful and proud that you would choose to make your first major public speech here in this historic hall. thank you very much. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] >> join us today when president trump and jens stotenberg hold a joint briefing. if follows a meeting between the two leaders. watch it at 4:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. later, the former pakistani president will discuss combating isis as well as u.s. foreign policy in general. he is speaking at george washington university, the national churchillian -- churchill library and to center. you can watch it here on c-span at 6:00 p.m. eastern.

and here from the wife of senator tim kaine, and education center kerry -- education secretary. she recently spoke about education from the 1950's to today. this is in cambridge massachusetts. here is a preview. issues,ve facilities urban infrastructure, urban aging, in our urban core. we have kids with a multiplicity of challenges and maybe even more than in barbara johnson's day were at least we had more intact communities and on top of that we have systems that are pushing teachers out, pushing the great teachers away. part of the good news is that great teachers can get jobs everywhere now regardless of color. vaughn was able to

work at nasa and get a man on the moon. greate great teachers, facilities, and the urban core is a very challenging one. >> that was a short portion of her remarks. see this in its entirety at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. here are some of the programs this holiday weekend on c-span. saturday at 8:00 p.m., a nasa briefing on the discovery of seven earthlike planets. >> we are using the hubble space telescope to study those planets to determine if they have hydrogen and helium. >> followed by a discussion on the pros and cons of genetically publicd food, hosted by square in los angeles. >> we think all plants are gm does, because there is nothing that you buy in the grocery stores my whether it is conventional or organic, that

has not been conventionally modified -- genetically modified. easter events from the last four presidents. thegoing to african-american history ms. m in washington. >> i knew that the country was thursday and for this museum -- thirsty for this reason, but i do not know the reaction would be this positive. >> and then a panel of federal judges discussing the history of the bill of rights. this hugelys is senses,t designation of division of power. >> followed by a conversation with the smithsonian's library of congress, and i could buy -- archivist of the united states. >> we have millions of objects, including 54 million other things. >> at 6:30 p.m., residential

historians douglas brinkley and richard norton smith discuss presidential leadership. >> it is interesting that the greatest american president, abraham lincoln, is bracketed by our googly the least successful -- by the least successful american president. >> this week and on c-span. remarks now from the white house press secretary, sean spicer, among the speakers at an event on how the press covers the trump administration. he apologized for remarks he made on the holocaust. [applause] good morning. sean, good morning. >> good morning. >> let's start with yesterday. [laughter] holocaust situation. the question.

your thoughts today? sean: i made a mistake. there is no other way to say it. i got into a topic that i should not have and i screwed up. i mean, you know, i hope people understand that we all make mistakes and i hope that i show that i understand that i did soughtd i saw people -- forgiveness because i screwed up and i hope each person can understand that part of existing is understanding when you do something wrong. you owe up to it and you let people know. and i did. one, ite two takeaways, is a very holy week for both the christian and jewish people and this is not to make a gaff. the mistake like this is inexcusable and so of all weeks this was not, this compound that

kind of mistake. second of all, and for the book my obviously -- and first of all, obviously it is painful to myself to know that i did something like that because it obviously was not my intention. and to know when you screw up, you possibly offended a lot of people, i just, i would ask for forgiveness and for folks to understand that i should not have tried to make a comparison. there is no comparing atrocities. it is a very solemn time for so many folks. this is part of that. and obviously that is a difficult thing personally to deal with because you know for a lot of people who do not know you, they wonder why you would do that. so that is first. and secondly, from a professional standpoint, it is obviously disappointing. the president had an unbelievable couple of weeks, he took very decisive action in syria and made tremendous

progress with his visit to china president from china, so you want to amplify the president's actions and a compliment and i think he has had a successful couple weeks and when you are distracting from that message of a -- aiment, and your job compliment, and your job is to do the exact opposite, it is disappointed because i think i let the president down. so on both a personal level and professional level that will go down as not a very good day in my history. >> did the president say anything to you last night? sean: i did not talk to them. >> any other message from anybody else? sean: i do not get into private conversations. this is my mistake i needed to fix and so i'm not going to get into it any additional conversations. this was mind to own and mind to apologize for and mind to ask for forgiveness for. >> turning to other issues, do

you think the press is gunning for you? sean: i do not think it is monolithic. i think some folks clearly have an agenda and some things -- some folks probably route for you. there is a spectrum. >> what is the surprise in the job for you? we are over at the republican headquarters -- you were over at the republican headquarters for a couple of years, what is the surprise with this? sean: i think the level of scrutiny is obviously, i would not say it is is a prize, but the magnitude to which it exists is fairly unbelievable, no matter what you do or where -- amplifiednd of gets to a degree that you could not imagine. and so, i also think what the priorities are about what gets covered and what does not get covered, i think, and a sort of the of session with the process,

which i always understand -- up ion with thebsess process, which i always understand, but when you look at the issues the world and country are dealing with sometimes be obsession with who is up and down in one week and who said what in a meeting versus the substance of what we take into improving the lives of americans or dealing with world issues is intriguing. >> do have a sense that you work for the president, the white house, or for the american people? you think you are working for? sean: to some degree it is all. >> how do you reconcile that. sometimes you are any position for advocating -- sean: at the and of the day, a president won an election by the american people who voted him in, so it is -- i ultimately answer to him, it is his agenda being pursued. ant is the case of anyone in

elected office, you are elected by a group of people and you feele an agenda that you communicated to those people, or are accountable to those people. so first and foremost it is the presidents, it is my job to help amplify and discuss what he is doing and why he is doing it, and their compliments -- accom plishments he has had. >> do you spend time with them every day? how does your day start? sean: everyday. i get up around 5:15 a.m. and i start reading emails and i try to do some kind of exercise. theagain, we are monitoring news of the day, the issues of the day and going over the events. we have meetings in the 7:00 hour. and we're basically figuring out what we are advancing as well as

what the incoming is, what are the issues that are hot, what do we think will overtake the day and the events happening and how we will communicate them. >> in terms of what the media, i assume you get complaints from the media, what are those complaints? sean: there will always be an issue with access. >> to you? sean: to everything. to the parking lot. trees. [laughter] sean: there is nothing they do not want access to, so that is probably first and foremost, what they want. and obviously the end ministers and officials, the president -- administration officials, the president, you name it. >> i'm trying to see how to facilitate a better relationship between the press and the white house. sean: i think it is naturally ofbative because the matter

what the administration is and the party. the press will always want more and that is the nature of the relationship. but i think that there are some things, to your question, i think the advent of social media, we talk about data a lot, and the most recent republican secretary was at the advent of an element of being first and trying to get things into social media that has really changed the dynamic by which that room and the relationship exists. >> people would prefer not to have anonymous sources. sean: i think there is a difference. there are people on a policy level who are implementing, that are helping to shape policy. because of the nature of what they do, they do not want their names out there, not because they are hiding but because they are there to serve the people of the government. i think when the press, you can

bring somebody in and everyone can see who they are and they are talking very clearly, that is a different thing than when we get a phone call and we have five background sources that say that you crossed the street the wrong way and there is no accountability, we do not know who they are, inside the white house or outside the white house, there is a lot of -- that is difficult to respond to, because you are shooting at a ghost. we try to minimize these anonymous sources, i should say background sources, to make sure people can see those individuals you know that they are real. for many folks in government, they are there to serve the people and work really hard to work on a particular issue and they do not want their name or their family particularly exposed to that. >> i have heard the complaints coming generically from the white house, people complaining about the overuse of anonymous sources by the media and i see

members of the media rolling their eyes thinking that some of the people who say this are those making statements and wanting to be anonymous. sean: there is a difference. we get hit with a lot of, 18 people said the following in we want not tell you who they are. we have no idea -- again, what i think happens is somebody will say i know somebody who knows somebody who lives next to two people his brother is friends with him on facebook. that is not really a source. and when you are basically defending, you know, it -- that is not somebody in the room. we will have an event in a room andthere will be 4-5 people i will get a call from a reporter who says they were six people, six sources, and there were not even six people there. it is a game of telephone. if you do it among children you will get, the reason we actually teach them the game is to show

how a message will vary by the time it gets two or three people deep and the question is, how reliable is that source? and you get those five people who say they were in the room, and it did not happen, and they say there are four people willing to go on the record, and we will not accept because we have two people on twitter -- you have to way to those sources are. >> it is a two-way street. even the president will tweet things like, that he is being surveilled, he was surveilled by president obama and we do not get the sources on that and it is a dramatic assertion. sean: i think there is a question about how this happens. we have asked for an investigation on that front through appropriate channels that were classified, a lot of that material is that a classified level. >> after the bomb was dropped.

essentially, after the tweet. the tweet came first. sean: but how classified information is handled is a different discussion. i think we have seen, you have seen bipartisan outrage on this, there is a level to which classified information is being shared with journalists and others that are not cleared and it presents a danger to the country. and i think while journalists want to toil in this and people want to read a sensational story, there is a reason it is classified, it threatens the safety of the united states and resources are being protected. we should not be applauding the leaks of classified information and the president is right to call this out as a major concern and i think you have seen people on both sides of the aisle involved in this to call that out. it is concerning when we have classified information and resources that are being used to perpetuating narrative. if you think about it, it ties your hands when you do not respond, because just because

you claim that you know something classified and you call up, you cannot then -- we cannot fight back on it because it is classified. so us engaging in the conversation puts us in a dangerous spot. >> this is a city where virtually every, a lot of things are classified and probably do not need to be classified. there has been overclassification in the city. sean: that is separate. >> but not insignificant. sean: when you are talking about sources and methods with national security and the use of certain things for inappropriate purposes, that is not over classification. >> the president tweeting, he says he will continue to tweak and i imagine -- tweet and i imagine a couple kids your job somewhat. -- complicates your job somewhat. sean: he has an ability where outions of people can reach

to him and to some of the frustration as he has a direct line to the american people where he can communicate thoughts, and push back to false narratives and false stories, it frustrates people who want to control the narrative. >> but he has dropped a stink 140 essentially, and in characters or less, then there is no follow-up, no give or take. sean: for a lot of people, especially outside of washington, they have yard for -- yearned for an authentic voice that does not strip everyhing politely as politician has done. even if you disagree, one of the things people give him high -- four iseping his keeping his word. that is something that has been missing a lot of times in washington. >> absolutely. but there is no give-and-take. sean: i would argue that if you

look at our engagement with the president in terms of myself, him, and the rest of the staff, we are engaging with coalitions, unions, members of congress and interestingly -- in an extremely robust way. >> last night he gave an interview, and i read this morning, in which he said the u.s. is not going to go into syria. did you see that? sean: i did. >> he also said he would not telegraph his plans. telegraphed to assad and isis he will not go in. sean: i think there will be ground troops. there is two issues. one is that does not mean how we will deal with isis at home. if we actually deal with isis and it moves into syria, that is one thing. going in and occupying. for the

express purpose of regime change is something the president has been clear on threat the campaign. so i think to sort of try to extrapolate that, this is something he talked about well into the campaign, the use of force and military troops and something like that. that should not be a shocker. that is not what he has been talking about for a while. greta: so assad is not taking the comment? sean: absolutely. 100%. i think the president said in the interview that should they continue to use gas especially against children and babies, that the president, all options remain on the table. make no mistake about it, i think the president showed last thursday night he would use a decisive, justified, and proportional action to right wrongs. greta: secretary of state tillerson is in russia today, in moscow. do you know if he is going to meet with putin?

has that been confirmed? sean: no. greta: i will leave it at that. assuming he were to meet with pigeon, hypothetically, if you were to meet with pigeon -- putin, hypothetically, if he were to meet with putin, what is the mission? sean: he will meet with mr. lavrov and communicate the same message. there is a shared interest in defeating isis in the region, that we have a national security concern that should align with their national security concern. and we have all been party to an international agreement on the use of chemical weapons. and that russia should live up to its obligations. russia right now is an island. it is russia on north korea, syria, and iran. that is not something you want to be