the top 22 winning entries will air in april. you can watch every studentcam documentary online at studentcam.org. this form is hosted by arizona state university cronkite school of journalism. good evening, everybody, and welcome. i am mark. the executive vice president at in the middle, we have ashley parker, white house reporter for the washington post and senior reporter. from 2011-2017, she was a washington-based reporter for

the washington times. one of the fine people live stolen from the times over the years. where this to for me is chloe, senior producer for cbs this morning. she is a former producer for the cbs evening news and has covered several presidential trips and campaigns. she was also bureau chief for cbs headquartered in beijing. both theu have covered trump administration and it is sort of a softball question. what is different? >> how about everything? a lot is different. theink this white house, experience as a consumer of information about this white house is probably similar to what we experience has reporters in that it is probably as wild and cryonic as it seems to you. -- chaotic as it seems to,

especially as compared to past administrations. the white house can often be a very controlled environment. in which there is a great effort to control the message, to know what is coming out every single day. there are amber goes on information. the obama white house was very much like that. they were trying to mention -- they were very much trying to manage across the government. with this, there are a lot of tornadoes happening all over. that is what makes it so cover.ging to you could never know where to look next. that is because there is not really a lot of central planning happening. that is different. some people with it is good or bad or whatever, but it is just different. >> why, in a white house where

so muchack the press and seem to be enemies of the press, why are there so many good sources for you? >> i think a couple reasons. one is, this white house is, and a lot of ways, more accessible plan reviews white house is. some of this changed when general kelly came in. it would not be uncommon for hope hicks to see you and say, hello ashley, hi. i think the president is in the oval office if you want to stop in and say hello. i was talking to someone and they said, outside of the oval office you are likely to see a preacher, and elephant, or something like that instead of the president. and the obama white house, i remember any little story i was know. they had to

what sorts of questions will you be asking. what is the topic? will this run on the front page or on page 17. it was very managed. the trump white house is not like that. you also have an acute sense of what he is thinking. his tweets or what he is thinking about in that moment. i do not buy that story that he is strategically hovering up one chaotic thing with another. it is just what he is thinking. to your original question, this was especially true at the beginning. the president consumes a lot of his news through the television. that is often the most compelling way to get a message to. you would think if you are west wing staffer you could walk into the oval office, walk-in and walk out. present the president with a briefing hook or your mission. but it is often less compelling to be in front of him in person and more compelling to be in

front of him through the sheen of cable news. so you have people, and factions, staking him out in the press because that was often the most auspicious way to sway the president. >> how do you manage all of this chaos in terms of how you prepare for news shows in someone. >> barely. [laughter] >> i think the most challenging thing for a morning show is somehow we have a vague prediction of what might be driving the news at 7:00 a.m. in the morning. i have to say, the number of times i have woken up to seven different stores out of washington that we had not had when i went to bed at 10:00. it is astonishing. i think in particular, my favorite is not super-recent, but it may we saw this story that would maybe drive the week. that russian state media had

photographed the russian ambassador in the oval office. ambassador kislyak. i did not the glue do much better than that for the next few days. that afternoon, the president fired the fbi director. that is par for the course right now. the pace is difficult because we have a finite amount of space. we only have two hours and we cannot fill the whole two hours with news even though the washington bear would like that. so, editing is challenging. steering the news is not something we can do. it.e have to roll with it requires a lot of flexibility. the other day, the wall street journal had a big story about the present. as i was reading it, the post wrote a story about the expletive countries. so the possibilities are endless.

>> to have a sense of who was on what team? >> trump has come to politics recently. he has filled the white house with people who don't know him not well. have not worked for him particularly long. summer family, some are allies even though there are fewer and fewer of those people left. it creates factions. a lot of people with a lot of different interests working for this person. that is different then usual. usually, by the time you become president you have been in politics for a while. you've developed a stable of staff of people who are

intensely loyal. trump has always had the challenge of having a lot of people working with him who frankly, he does not trust a whole lot. who are coming into the job from all kinds of different perspectives. and they also don't trust each other. many of them have not worked with each other for very long. as reporters, we are often getting people fighting to influence the president through us, through the media. one up eaching to other. push people out of trumps inner circle, out of his good graces. , one ofthat has changed the interesting things is that we often -- i used to work with ashley until recently. and, one of the reasons -- things we often talked about and talk about still in my current job is, who is really allied now.

that changes all the time. you would be surprised. i think there was an idea. you might have an idea of who is allied with you. for example, stephen miller is often spoken in the same breath as steve bannon but in the time we have been covering the white house, that alliance has changed. these people are making new alliances and breaking old ones all the time. it makes an interesting but also challenging. a lot of it has to do with people just trying to survive in the trump white house. in order to do that often, you have to pick your allies month-to-month is that is how quickly things change around here. get: ashley, don't people punished for talking to this way out of school? i remember the obama administration. people were afraid of jay carney and afraid of talking out of turn because they would be punished somehow. and no.

obviously, people are getting deeply reprimanded, you would think it would stop. but i think one of the problems as they have not had a great ability to crack down and figure out who is talking to whom. i believe they had an emailer fun record or something or proof, there would be consequences. every now and then you see something like that. right now they have sort of band personal cell phones in the west wing. there are cell phones where you can receive texts, secret messaging. that is the way a lot of the tote house prefer communicate with reporters. they do that under the guise of security but these crackdown seemed to happen in moments where there are a lot of leaks coming out of the white house. so i have to think one of the problems is -- and i have to think under general kelly things have gotten better and a lot more disciplined and there are some people who do not leak at all. but i think they have an inability to sort out leaks.

one other brief point, sort of what abby was saying was one of the ways to cover this white house, you may notice if you are a very experienced, close reader of the washington post, some of the white house stories have a line that is widely mocked as the rest of the journalism. it says, this portrait of the president in this moment is the with, of 27 interviews you know, senior white house officials, lawmakers, friends, outside confidant, etc. the reason we do that is harshly because it avoids having to thing.every single but the real reason we do it is to cover this white house, you had to talk to that many people. in the obama white house, if othersxelrod or's or told you something, you know was true. same with others.

you could put it in your story and feel confident. especially in the beginning with all of these warring and fighting actions, each person's story, you are sort of getting some percentage of the truth. so some sources, i think of as wikipedia. a good starting off point but i would never put it in the newspaper. to get the full picture and actual truth, you have to talk to 25 people and balance what they say against there a gender is end of alliances in an and doing that you can come close to figuring out what actually happened. >> can i just add briefly to that, the next logical question is, are they just lying to you? i think the answer is "sometimes." but i think people in the white house often do not have full visibility of what is going on. what conversations the president is having at 10:00 at night with

his friends and how it changes his thinking by the time he wakes up the next morning. so sometimes people are operating with their best guess as to what is going on. >> what was true to hours ago. >> there is a sense of lack of confidence, even among people who should know things. that they may not always know what is relevant what is not. and heart a cousin of help trump draws from such a wide array of advisors and people around him. you are never really sure where he is heading with his thinking. host: it appears to the public you get a different nature of what is going on from different networks. how does that feel that cbs? others areke of what doing? what do you say is your charter? different views of the administration on different channels. >> i was looking at some of the stats the other day.

i think it 1980, 50 2 million people were watching the big three networks. now we are half of that. 25 million. we are not heavily influenced by what fox or msnbc are doing, that is not how we operate. i have been it seemed as for a long time, but my current capacity at cbs this morning, in many ways we are counterprogramming the other two morning shows and trying to take a serious look at news in the morning, which has not been done. we are doing a good job at it, i think. it is still new at many ways but the thing we decided to really -- on is time. giving it stories the time they deserve and also inviting lawmakers to come on to our show . one series is called "issues that matter." we will give someone five or six minutes of television in the morning to talk about a policy perspective which is unusual. on ourot see that

competitors. we had the speaker of the house on the other day and gave him 14 minutes, which is a lot of time. and unusual. we also invite lawmakers who you competitors. our senator langford. senator jones did his first interview for with us. senator gardner did not have a lot of visibility but was a critical player and it is becoming even more so. say weit sounds lame to are being more serious, that is our answer. and i do think we are. there has been an appetite for it, which i find to be encouraging. >> this president has given very few full-scale press conferences of the kind we are used to in most administrations. yet he seems to be in the newspaper and on television constantly. how would you discard his accessibility to the press and

would you want to change the way it works? is moreome ways, he accessible because you have more sources and when he tweets, you know what he is thinking. you can watch the rally and that is a pretty good window into his head, like on saturday night. i am surprised he is not done work press conferences, and part because during the campaign it was not uncommon. again, with most other politicians, you put in a request for an interview and go back and say ok maybe 10 minutes here. i will wait but my computer. in the campaign, you put in a request for president trump and you would be out waiting in line in a food cart and your phone would ring and it would be the candidate. so he is someone who really enjoys engaging with the media. one of the challenges as he thinks he is his own chief of staff. he thinks he is his own

political strategist and communications director. but one-on-one with the media, he could be very good, engaging, charismatic. not just an one-on-one interviews, but especially actually -- because in one-on-one interviews you can see it as is here for people to pin him down. go deep. he is less comfortable with the unfamiliar. in and around like this, if you is comfortable, there is a good form for. i remember when everything was going well. maybe you remember. it was the only press conference he gave. he came out to the east room and he sort of took back control of his area. the idea was, you know, sean spicer cannot speak for me. mike can't speak for me. i can speak for myself. when he opens up the televised cabinet meetings, they often reveal a lack of deep policy

understanding, but they also show someone who is on of a deal maker he and 10 win over our room and in theory is trying to get places. so yes, i would like to make him more accessible. i would love for him to sit down at the washington post for an interview. i would like to see him come into the living room once a week. i am not sure why he does not. i think he is good in that format. the briefingg of room, it is beginning to look like a soap opera. are they useful anymore. do you will still go to them? >> we do go to them. [laughter] >> are they useful? some days i think so, some days i do not. i think this is true not just of the trump white house but also the obama white house where i would sometimes wonder if they were useful. the greatest use is to create a public record of what the white house position is on a given

subject. i think it is actually incredibly important because when everything is distilled and we find out either what the real truth is or we are at the point where there is a decision that needs to be made, we can compare that to what was said. i think there has been a lot of times in this white house where it turned out statements that are made from that podium are just simply not true based on we have learned subsequently. it is important for the public to know we are doing that kind of due diligence. i think in this day and age, especially now when there are questions about what a strand what is false, it is easier to show our work when it comes to the truth by saying -- here is what was said on this day. here is what we know now. i think when we can show viewers and readers that record, it really matters. especially now at a time when people are questioning what is

real and what is not. so it is good from that perspective. i think one of the bad things about the press briefing is often the answers can become incredibly circular. whatever question you have asked, it becomes, well you are the one who is really doing that. that is not helpful. those kinds of back-and-forth's are not helpful. to the extent we can press for answers on facts, i think it is still very important. to the extent that it becomes this sort of game of trolling, not so helpful. >> i would add to that, can the problem there is that tv is a little bitter curse of the press briefing because you have all of the correspondents who want to -- the same problem and question and went to ask it on camera. one reality that contributes to this circular

dynamic and also, you just run down this rabbit hole. the same thing over and over again. frustratesndably someone like sarah sanders. i would be interested to see how much the press briefings play on news stories. the pieces themselves, in three years or so. i remember when i was covering the obama white house, with all earnest, itto josh was a high bar to have josh earnest in one of our evening news stories. now, sarah sanders is everywhere. so much happens after the briefings now, but they are also completely deleted and irrelevant often in a matter of minutes after they conclude. >> let me ask you about the tweets. critics who say the

press does not -- should not even cover the tweets anymore because they are often not true and they are often just seeing foxreact to what he sees on news. how do you weigh the newsworthiness of the presidential tweets into to have any philosophy about how they must be covered? >> i think the debate about whether or not we should covered , i think it was a more valid question during the campaign. i think this is now the president of the united states and he is saying something so it is always something that should potentially be covered. i think we are a little bit selective in what we cover. if he is just ranting or trashing the media, going back to the press briefings, it is never to our advantage when the media becomes the story. i think the only thing the american people hate more than congress is the media.

i think the value is, what the president is thinking in any given moment. what is on his mind. i think it is probably true universally, we do try to add context and fact checking to his tweets. it would be a responsible if we said, he is the president, here is what he said. is saying this about president obama. it is worth noting there is no evidence for that claim. in fact, here are details to the contrary. i think that is about you and a service to readers. >> i think we should covered the tweets. ashley said this earlier. the president is literally giving us a window into his mind set and his thinking. that is an incredible amount of access the reporters could only have dreamed up five years ago or 10 years go. it is important and telling. sometimes i chuckled to myself because i see reporting that is

like -- the president is thinking this thing. and then the president literally just tweet said. -- it just -- i mean, it is important. the president literally just told us exactly what he is thinking. what he likes, when he dislikes. you can tell when he is angry, you can tell when he is happy. this called to covering white house. it takes the guesswork out of some of this. we no longer have to totally rely on other people interpreting his moods. we can say, this is exactly what he said on this subject. ofin this extraordinary time me to, how important is it for the news to investigate allegations of infidelity and sexual misconduct? >> i think the responsibility is automatic.

i think one of the stranger things is how the rules do not apply in terms of things that would've mattered before. we spend a lot of time talking about a port star who was paid off right before the election and conservative republicans on the hill do not want to condemn it. do not want to engage. not toerhaps fairly, know anything about it. and i do not think whether people care, it is something the american people care about it. whether democrats or republicans care, think it is our duty if faced with evidence to pursue it our due diligence. i think one of the problem is -- infinite resources are never required to do everything we need to do. we are constantly adding new dayurces but i think every there are things i wish we could

be working harder on that we just cannot be. so, think it is important. this stormy daniels thing, we just interviewed her for 60 minutes and that is going to be a real thing. [laughter] >> can you tell us anything? >> no, i need to stay employed. -- he'sink his behavior the president of the united states. the same logic applies to the tweets. what he does and says are presidential actions and residential statement of facts. [indiscernible] -- ashley, what do you think the impact as of the mueller investigation on morale in the white house. do you have any sense of where it might be going and what the fears are in the white house of where it might be going? >> yes and no. we only have these very tiny glimpses into what mueller has

asked. i think mueller really has the it is going. where in times of my all, i think it is very bad for her all. i think this president can take --ook -- in terms of noel morale, i think it is very bad for morale. but i've got armchair psychology from people in the west wing. president seems incapable of saying these two things that seem to be true, the russia absolutely interfered in the 2016 presidential election and yet he won the electoral college fair and square. he's sort of feels like it he admits to one, that russia meddled it somehow the legitimizes his victory. and that is the one thing he cannot tolerate.

whenever it comes up, there are people in and out of the president's circle, right? it is like hotel california. cast outeople who are for good and never recover other people who commit the cardinal sin in his mind of crossing him on russia. so that is a turner -- attorney general jeff sessions because he recused himself from the president. he could just never recover. steve bannon, too. he was in and out of the presidency circle and out of the white house. the trump was still talking to him a hand then steve made that mistake of saying to michael that the that book, president's son had, at trump tower, the meeting with the russian lawyer that was hostile blake treasonous. and that was the end of steve bannon. the president cannot stomach

that sort of thing. it makes him behave in ways that often exacerbate the problem. you had the collusion, the fact that this makes that behavior towards that second bucket more likely because he is reacting to information he has received. and that is of course bad former al in the west wing. morale in the west wing. host: that michael wolff book, how much reality is in there from your experience? abby: i think it depends on what part of the book you are referring to. my rule of thumb on the michael generally, when people are noted in the book you should just take the -- quoted

in the book, you should just take the quad. for example, steve bannon. one of the reasons that steve part of the book permeates so deeply is because he was on the record. those were his words. he never denied them, and they were telling where he was at the time and when he was talking to michael wolff and building the level of access will fat for some. of time in the west wing which was extraordinary. so i think that much is very true. i think he is a journalist took had and interpreted it from his sources and gave us a picture of the white house. one part of that is the level of chaos and backbiting. i think that is a fairly accurate picture. i think that is a fairly accurate picture you can read every single day. the other thing, they just mentioned, the real on the record quotes of people who

worked in the west wing at the time. mostnk those were the important part of the book, from our perspective. it set off a whole cycle of steve bannon being excised and also kind of a fracturing of the trump university i think is still an ongoing story about the steve bannon faction in the trump white house and how they deal with each other the fact the president's mind at least, are not necessarily the entirely same thing anymore. commentatorsmp often describe the process part of the resistance of the president. trying to push them out of office. how do you react to that westbrook do have any sense among the people you work with and the coverage they are pursuing that it is anti-trump as opposed to the normal

accountability one would want to have with the president? it is normal accountability. i think it is an easy narrative to say we are part of the resistance. i think it dovetails perfectly with the enemy of the american people, opposition party rhetoric that this white house has attached to the news media. i think it depends upon how tired you are. how you feel when you hear that language. do think technically, we work in an environment with strong press freedom and the first amendment and things are not so bad. i actually think about this a lot, having been based in it is a verye different role of thumb when it comes to press freedom. and, watching people in china use some of this opposition party enemy of the american people rhetoric to justify the way they treat their own press, it is scary. and, i think if you see in

places like hungry or turkey or the philippines, people who are using this rhetoric as well, they are adopting pro-trump commentator rhetoric. the president's language to justify incredibly harsh crackdowns on their own journalists. so i think the implications are wide ranging when you take on the press. i feel confident what we are doing every day is a job. and it is about accountability and responsibility. i do not see an agenda to oust the president by any stretch of the imagination. ashley and abby, have either view been the targets of the anti-media vitriol either on outinternet or when you are with the president? >> i have an aunt and don't -- i have an anecdote about this.

was covering him during the campaign and i travel and work for the new york times. post to destroy the president did not like. we are at this huge rally in san diego. like 10,000 or more people. and to be clear, all press limit what candidate i cover, you are always sort of the enclosed but usually you were in the back of the room but with trump you are sort of part of the show because there is always a moment when he says -- look at those cameras in the back of the room, they are not showing the crowd, are they even on? shout "thed just cnn sucks as

part of the way he would call for building the wall. part of the trunk show in one people or so,00 he starts complaining about the story. and he says there is a woman named parker, i actually have a little name card that i quickly slid my laptop over. the most dishonest, the most -- theble excavation most despicable! . are they here? they're not here are they? i am sitting in the front row in the entire crowd is there. that is a good part about being a printer reporter, no one knows who i am, right? so i will say, a lot of good friends are on tv's a lot more, especially women, else a lot got, you know, but cnn

security guards for their female reporters to walk to the cars this was aes so fairly negative way of the president and a crowd of 10,000 people. happened you? >> i have had people post my 'address. i won't even call this person a reporter but a conservative person who writes for a website posted a story about my mother, posted her photo online, in an attempt to punish me for coverage of a trump surrogate. that kind of thing has really escalated. it can be a little scary. i actually don't mind personally. obviously, you are concerned about your physical safety but i do not worry about people attacking me personally online. really, i worry more about the impact on family.

table to did not sign up for this. i signed up for this. my mother did not. so that is the kind of thing that has really escalate. post, whenas at the things like that happened, they had resources to help. the news organizations have gotten to the point where they know they need to find ways to connect journalists physically and online. and protect their families as well. because it is undiscriminating, the kind of vitriol you get online. the obamathing administration did that has not happened in this administration yet is they actually prosecuted people who leaked out classified information to the press and subpoenaed members of the press and their phone records and other records as well. i know the attorney general said he had something like 35 investigations. are you fearful that will happen administration?

ashley: i am fearful of that. i have to say for as much as the president literally yells about reporters and what we are doing, to your point we do not have a james rosen situation. is, iw an inevitable it just do not know. that is up to the attorney general, who is in a precarious spot with his boss right now. and, i think we are waiting to see what happens. i do not really see any indication that there is going to be any sort of active push to go after the print media -- sorry antimedia right now. but all of the infrastructure is there a hand the mandate is felt, id it has been guess more important. it is a fear, but i do not think it is a fear we should be totally consumed by all the time,'s on as we protect organization have

to support us. host: ashley, are any of your sources careful of discussing classified information with you? ashley: i guess i do not technically know what is and is not classified always. --it turns out, there is not there is quite a low bar for something being classified. someone is trying to be a good steward within the administration wants to help me understand something but they are very fearful. i am like, tell me. it cannot possibly be classified, you know? but they are trying to walk a line so they personally do not violate any norms. but i will say, can on the whole, in terms of the stories which i do i do not think it is on the same level of people on our rational or investigative team because some of my stuff is like -- what channel was the president watching when he got so mad at attorney general sessions?

not to undermine the stories i do, but it is often not rising to that level of classification. host: abby, has the press made any mistakes that you would be concerned about during this coverage. i am thinking for instance, the coverage of john kelly, he was going to go in and straight and up white house, make it more regularized and there would not be so much more chaos. now there are stories exposing other aspects of john kelly's behavior that does not fit into that narrative. >> i think we have made mistakes. fact.e made mistakes of first of all, that happens. we try to correct them when they do happen but they happen. the problem in this administration knows always at any time -- the problem in this administration, anytime they happens it is used against the media in general. small as, ing as

the early days of the trump presidency when a reporter did not see the martin luther king -- boss in the oval office bust in the oval office. the president still talks about it on twitter. things like that to happen and we are sometimes disproportionately having it used against us. but i think what you are also asking is, are we making mistake in how we characterize or contextualize things in this white house. i think we sometimes -- i want to use john kelly as maybe the best example of this. i think our interpretation of john kelly was largely based on what people knew about him at the time. the thing about john kelly is that not a whole lot of people in washington and him all that

well. he was not known to have deep political views on policy. he was a military person. hill for hison the advocacy for the military. he had friends on the hill in that span of issues. we have learned more over time about his views on a broader array of subjects because for the first time, as far as we know in his public life, he has had to weigh in on those things. his stewardship of the department of homeland security was one thing, but now he is actually in a completely different position where he is not just executing the law, which is often what he would tell people of how he dealt with issues at dhs, and forcing the as it was. now, in the white house, he is advising the president on what direction to take the law. so we are giving a broader and better understanding of him. i think as reporters, we have the responsibility to have that

greater understanding play out as we are learning it. be unfair to suggest we july all ofown in john kelly's deeply held personal beliefs about immigrants and about dreamers and whether or not some of them are too lazy or not. some of these issues had not really been played out. in the early days when john kelly was selected, we were furiously trying to build up a knowledge base about what he believed about anything. i remember talking to sources about this and people saying, he does not really go there a lot of times in his personal beliefs. a differentst in job. i think there are a lot of things like that developing and this administration that change all the time.

our knowledge of situations are evolving. so much of it has to do with so many of these players are just newbies. they do not have a whole lot of records first two inc. through. we are dealing with that. it is a struggle. it is part of the job. i personally would not characterize them as mistakes and now way. ashley: this is sort of more of a defense or contextualization but one criticism that i guess is quite fair is everyone talks intrigue,a, palace process stories, why don't you focus on policy and what the voters really care about, which is a valid criticism we are aware of and working towards. it seems you guys have a bit of that figured out. but with this white house it is hard to overstate how -- bound thesend things are. it is connect the dots. one thingk at the way

went down, you would have to look at a tabloid picture of porter's in a rob night on the town. that led to his ex-wife coming forward. it also led to rob porter, by all accounts was highly competent and professional and quite good at his west wing job regardless of how bad he was based on these allegations of his personal life. he had all of these processes in place to basically make sure that, on trade especially, a rigorous process was run. a lot of people who did not believe in tariffs and who were free traders were using him to block the national was. when he was not there, the white house dissolved into chaos.

not just because you is gone but because they were dealing with that and a number of other allegations. tot allowed peter navarro waltz into the white house when general kelly was not paying attention and there had been a breakdown of protocol. you want arabs? we will bring you to tears. they will actually have pretty serious policy of occasions for wasglobal economy and that deeply tied into his mood and how he felt and the people and the drama. so if you want to tell the policy story and that decision understanding of what the does, you have to pay attention to that. host: chloe, one of the things i grew to hate as executive of the washington post was the correspondent dinner and how it became a hollywood show.

our cbs people going this year? is that still worthwhile at all? slowly: whether it is worthwhile is a different question, but i do believe cbs people will be going to share. i do not love the white house correspondents dinner. i think it is stressful. i think this year was more interesting with the president not there. it was one of the more substantive dinners. less about the celebrities. but yes, i will keep it brief. cbs i'm sure will be there. it seems like the president will show. i do not think how that will change the equation. host: i was going to ask that. whether or not he will go. >> yes. host: are we allowed to ask that? >> i believe he is going to go. someone i was talking to said he really enjoyed himself on the gridiron. they set a very low bar and that

was helpful. so they are of two minds. it that might encourage him to not go, notso might test is look with the correspondents dinner. host: one last question and then the audience can ask questions. the microphone is over there. how much longer will jared end of all caps be in the white house? just -- how much longer will whiteand ivanka be in the house? >> i do not think it will be through the end of the first term but i do not want to weigh in into any of the more empirical evidence as to why that might eat. i think the reality with jarrett is, he has such a wide portfolio right now. without the security clearance in particular, that issue gives him a problem of credibility whether or not the mideast these plan is actually finalized, does

he have the actual ability to do do anything there? how he finds his way with limitations, including the russia investigation of course. ashley: i'm torn. -- i just wrote an that everyone hated. i think i could see them trying to ease out because admittedly, they are under scrutiny and they are accustomed to that and do not enjoy it. at the end of school year would be a natural transition. there is a thought that jared has a soft landing pad on the campaign. you cannot get a clear signal from him on this because he will talk to general kelly. gettingsay, they are

killed. the book is my little girl. in the next breath he will say, you can't go. i need your counsel. so he is sending mixed messages. so part of me thinks out maybe before the end of the first term, the other part is these to her family and they are survivors. add, i totally agree with everything both of them just said. especially the idea that trump is not quite know whether he or go.hem to stay i think he definitely feels badly for how this has turned out for his daughter and son-in-law and he genuinely thinks they are undeserving of this great need. but also, one new factor in all of this is that now there are fewer and fewer people that no shelike and trust -- that knows and likes and trust. i think people who know trump wonder what happens to him when he has no one left.

factor in whether he wants to have even fewer people around him and then, i has been athere recent effort underway by some people close to the white house in the public, in the media, to bolster jarrett. there is an op-ed written this past week talking about how unfairly he has been treated and how much great work he is doing. so you kind of have to read some of those signals as perhaps jared and ivanka to want to settle some of the dust. so who knows? it is anyone's guess. right now, the soft landing could beat the campaign. host: notice i did not ask you about the --.

question from the audience. >> my question is you talked about his first term. is his second term expected? what is the mood like in the white house? when the candidate trump was running, people did not take him seriously. now what is the mood? is he really running for a second term? do you think there are chances? is the media taking him seriously or not? running.definitely >> we know he is running. he said he is running. he trotted out the new campaign slogan in moon township over the weekend, which is keep america great! i do not go to the white house every day so i would defer to abby and ashley about the mood inside of the white house in terms of the election campaign. i think to the point of jared's his campaign

manager has been named already. an interesting person. with his digital capacity and what he did for the campaign the first time around. the infrastructure is in place. you have groups and georgetown holding dinners for the president. i will defer to you on the rest of it. but that being said, anything goes here. whether he says he is running, think you have to take that seriously. to your point about a campaign, we were accused of not taking him particularly seriously and being overly literal about everything. so maybe is the weakest answer but it certainly suggests i think there is some speculation he hates the job. how much he hates the job is probably too early to tell because he certainly enjoys himself at least part of the time. what he guys think?

the question you did not ask that i often get liberal,people who are how could he possibly win again? the answer is, he could. 100%. i do not understand how people cannot imagine a second term of trump should he choose to run. i am not saying he will run but i think he 100% could win if the election were held tomorrow and if the election will be held, as it will be, in 2020. everything about donald trump, the people hate, the stuff people wish they could change, was already baked into the cake. the donald trump now is absolutely no different than what candidate donald trump signaled on the campaign trail. with other candidates, there is a little more like with george w. bush, if you look at his campaign promising compassionate conservativism and then 9/11

happened in the situation changed. see of people who voted from the first term and not the second. people voted for obama the first time because he promised hope and change. but if you liked donald trump the candidate, and donald trump the president is exactly what you would expect. >> we know from our sources the president thinks about this all the time. he thinks about his 2020 numbers. his 2020 election process. how he is doing and iowa. he thinks about and talks about it all the time. a sure sign that he is acting on that is what he did with tariffs. move, not a political at all about republicans and 2018. it does not help them whole lot. maybe it helped joseph kony in pennsylvania, but even republicans will say not so much. this is all about the president

in 2020 and whether he can go back to his voters and say, i deliver this for you. it is about those union democrats who have been drifting away from the democratic party. it is about getting those people to stay with him or come over to him. vein asof in the same how i have been told that people found sean hannity personally engaging.nd i dare some people in the administration have been vilified by the left who you found to be actually more sympathetic or professional? i find myself having good evenhts about sean spicer, anthony scaramucci for that short time. >> are you in the entertainment business? [laughter] >> i-8 feel like i should pop it to ashley on this question. there are good people.

i always tell people that. to the rest of the world, there are characters and this reality show, the administration, but they are people. they have personalities. many of them we knew before they white house.rump so yes, there are a lot of people who are perfectly lovely to work with on a day-to-day basis who are professional. two things.you one, a lot of people tell me that when they meet trump, that is how they feel about him. that he is like nothing like the caricature on television when you meet him in person. he is very inviting and easy to warm.o and and i have talked to all kinds of people about meeting with trump. some people who really do not like him, and they will all kind of tell you the same thing.

they enjoy the face to face with him. i have heard people say that as well.al qaeda i have heard people say that -- i have heard people say that about ivanka as well. she comes across a little bit as there is a screen in front of her receiver on television, but in a room she is believed to be very diligent. democrats on the hill will tell you this. she is engaged and the like working with her. there are people like that who are different than the person that you see or they act out on television on cable. >> i was going to use the president and ivanka as the same examples. i haven't spent a lot of time with them, but we did an interview with ivanka and anchored the entire broadcast from inside the white house, which was fought with peril and we really upped the ante and we aired a portion of john dickerson's interview with the

president from the white house. which did not, to some people, paint the president and the most favorable light. some people said he looked childish and henschel and. and we kind of held our breath because we were in his house. he came down and spend some time with as and was jovial in person. focused and clear. friendly.etely i will say the same thing about her. she does know her stuff. she is steeped in policy. really kind. she fed us and that always goes a long way, especially with our camera crews. those are interesting examples in terms of people who get a hard time almost everyday. ashley knows and particular because of the story she wrote ivanka, how people feel about ivanka.

ashley: i sat down with ivanka and jared a number of times and they were incredibly polite. i rane a story and then into jerrod and he could not of been nicer or more polite. i had to deal with stephen miller on stories and people have a lot of opinions on him. i found him for personal, polite. i did a profile on him, not revealing sources, but one thing supposedly is everybody in the white house and even people are diametrically opposed of his views, like him as a person. i kept on trying to get someone to explain, how do you find him so charming? but he is someone who is widely liked throughout the white house. it is particularly uncommon in this white house, but he is incredibly loyal to the president. that is in short supply in this white house, but he does not

always agree with the president and all of his views, but we would not see stephen miller hislancing and giving personal views on immigration. he would not link or do any of that. he might try to hold the president back but he would accept the decision. there are a few notable exceptions. i have had positive experiences dealing with people on a professional basis. this side ofns on the room? >> i am wondering about the rest of washington that seems to lose a lot of coverage because of all of the are the guys on the room in the white house. are we missing a lot of stories because of everything happening in this chaotic administration? such a hugehat is factor in this lyrical environment we are in.

there is a whole government out there that i personally believe is undercovered. there are a lot of policies being changed, relations being rolled back that affect real people. i know that there are a lot of reporters out there trying diligently to chip away at those stories every civil day. i think the new york times last week ran a really great story about the deepwater horizon regulations that were being rolled back. there are stories about air quality and water quality. what the stories about cabinet secretaries are spending and how they are spending that are also important. need infinite resources to cover not just the trump white house and the trump administration. to add a complication to that is even as there is a kind of inexorable drive to roll things

back, there is also a certain amount of chaos that makes that difficult to cover that and a normal administration there would be a transparent process where stakeholders are brought in and they get to weigh in on informed onill gets things happening. often in this white house, that process never ever happens. people on the hill are just as surprised sometimes when things happen that directly affect their district. as is the public when they read it in the newspaper. so it makes it more challenging to cover but no less important. i think we all wish there were like a million more people doing it. >> one of the challenges i would act, and certainly some things are undercover, but one of the challenges with cabinet secretaries, some of the stuff gets covered but it does not get the airtime or attention to breathe and get results.

oftentimes, the way change happens is because of public accountability and the media shining a spotlight on something. for instance, if you had to take any one of these cabinet secretaries, take shulkin. a taxpayer-funded trip with his wife where they went to europe, wimbledon, and he is charged the nation'sor veterans. arguably one of the most important things and something trump cares about. a wonderful story that got little attention because it even that absurd details. the insurrection in his agency. he has an armed guard standing outside of his office. in any other administration, the process would be the article runs, the ig comes out, and people are clamoring. voters start clamoring for change in the administration realizes they will have to pay a penalty if they don't switch this up. but people in the west winger

saying they were stunned and relieved they were not getting a ton of questions on shulkin because it happened during the rob porter thing. there was rob porter, domestic abuse, tariffs, this stuff gets covered and then it just is not quite stick. my impression is congress is not doing a whole lot. it is either in opposition to the president or holding him accountable and the normal give-and-take that would go on between the white house and congress, even though the same party, congress may not be holding up its end. is that the rate impression? , major garrett, who is our chief white house correspondent says the daily struggle at the white house is to separate the interesting from the important. i think we are starting to figure out how to do that at the white house. the frenzy associated with the first few weeks of covering the trump white house, we are

blasting every tweet onto the air without really knowing what was happening. even building new software to make sure the tweets were on tv faster. really crazy. we are starting to stabilize a little bit in the white house. we realized a lot of this is newness and inexperience. not a deliberate plot to destabilize the entire country. on the congress front, i was talking to our professional correspondent the other day and she was talking about how frustrating it is covering congress right now because republican leadership is so president, athis least in more public forums. it comes back to the tweeting, too. in a very strange way, the easiest thing is to say, i did not see the tweet. at their presidential statement the end every third one does have a policy implication.

you're hearing that from the speaker of the house. that is challenging. in the terms of the rest of washington, one of the most interesting places right now is that judiciary. for the people who cover the supreme court, it sort of feels like your typical republican white house. the appointments are solid conservatives. the federal society is successfully informed of a lot of that decisions are. and, there is a little bit of newness with the tweaking, specially taking on the courts which sort of caused lower courts to look at things a little more closely than they might have in terms of his executive actions. but to the point of things happening quietly, that --iciary has been taxed with packed with solid conservatives. the white house has chosen them in record numbers. they are dwarfing what obama was able to do in terms of judicial

appointments. i was talking about in the column, five things you missed while trump was doing god knows what. it is about policy things we're missing when nobody is paying a ton of attention. i think congress, the other day at the end of the day i tried to read all 750,000 emails i have gotten. be so muchthere will craziness in the white house that it sort of berries the fact that congress passed mandatory sexual-harassment training, for example. it's probably especially in light of the weinstein story, could be the lead story on any given day. is a hard time, especially when we have this renewed gun debate to say they are getting a ton done when there is about a day left in the legislative calendar before the year ends. host: one more question. anybody else got a question?

i was looking for a woman's question. we have a lot of men. [laughter] host: right there. hi, stacy myers. i worked with walter cronkite. noaking that gun debate, when you guys do cover him a hand he says something that seems to be a major policy statement then in 24, 40 eight or less he says the opposite. like with the nra. are you guys reporting it showsg that passed contradictions and rolling it back or do you have to wait until he basically says the opposite 24 hours are less later. >> i think the north korea meeting, the meeting with kim jong-un is a good example. there's the camp that is like, he is not spent a lot of time in washington.

i'm not criticizing my bosses in if the president says he is going to meet with kim jong-un, where's it going to happen? it will be in geneva or something like that. and maybe there is a 10% chance his happens, probably. so it is sort of like, the point about running for reelection again, i think you have to cover it in the moment as it happens with the appropriate context and look at the implications. i do not become make she say i am not going to be attention because he will change his mind tomorrow but i think it informs patterns of behavior and legislative tendencies. you may be able to infer from actions.is >> obviously on some of the policy stuff on emigration, guns, he says one thing then checks with chuck at nancy, he does to the other side. it is a balance. putting it in the relevant

context. the president often changes his mind. especially, and this was aware thing to adjust to, sort of west policy, but people. who is going to become the next secretary of state. president trump sort of feels like the only person, if the news leaks out he is going to choose whoever, pompeo, it leaks out, he might change his mind because he is angry at leaked or because he watches a lot of news coverage of pompeo and it turns out people do not think he is as great of a pic of the president thought. so rarely have you had a president responding to the news in a way that affected their decisions. so i'm sure if obama or bush was appointing someone in that leaked out, they would be frustrated but they would not necessarily choose a different cabinet secretary. are caveats, hedges, nothing is a done deal until he announces his decision. >> and his staff will not stop

trying until the words come out of his mouth and have been printed in blood on paper. for a much.you president trump has just shown up so i know it is time to stop. announcer: here's a look at our live events for tuesday. ryan zinke e testifies about his departments budget request and senate natural resources committee. and, talking about improved access to experimental health treatments. discussion on a financial deregulation bill. command in. central and africa command testify about the president's 2019 budget request. then, education secretary devos talking at the national pta legislative congress.

then, following her remarks we join the senate foreign relations committee where former british prime minister david cameron testifies about global security. unfoldsn, where history daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events aroundington, d.c., and the country. c-span is brought to by your cable or satellite provider. >> coming up on washington journal, the recent tariff announcement and his role in the midterm elections. the historian mary frances berry