affairs consultancy, and by claire and carl stuart. - i'm evan smith, he's a hugely talented and much loved actor who won academy awards for milk and mystic river. he's also a director, a political activist, and the author of a novel, his first, called bob honey who just do stuff. he's sean penn, this is overheard. let's be honest, is this about the ability to learn, or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa and- i hate to say that he'd made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and, over time, took it on. let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you gonna run for president? i think i just got an f from you, actually. this is overheard. (audience cheering) sean penn, welcome. - thank you very much. - very nice to meet you, an honor to meet you. - thank you, back at you. - as a fan of yours and as an admirer of your work for many years, of course i've been excited about this, running around telling people, i'm gonna interview sean penn. and i got two q

- [female narrator] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy, and by claire and carl stuart. and by claire and carl stuart. - i'm evan smith, she's the acclaimed author of come to me, a finalist for the national book award and the new york times best sellers away and lucky us. her new novel is white houses. she's amy bloom, this is overheard. she's amy bloom, this is overheard. let's be honest is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa and... you could say that he made his own bed but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and over time took it on... let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you gonna run for president? i think i just got an f from you, actually. this is over. (applauding) amy bloom, welcome. thank you it's nice to be here thank you very much for being here, congratulations úon this book which i really enjoyed enormously, and one thing was, many thi

affairs consultancy, and by claire and carl stuart. - i'm evan smith. she's an activist and academic and the author of 28 books including three bestselling collections of poetry. her latest is a good cry: what we learn from tears and laughter. she's nikki giovanni. this is overheard. (applause) - [interviewer] let's be honest. is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? and how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa and ... to say that he's made his own bed but you caused him to sleep in it. you know, you saw a problem and over time took it on ... let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you gonna run for president? i think i just got an f from you actually. i think i just got an f from you actually. - nikki giovanni, welcome. - thank you, i'm glad to be here. - very nice to be with you. so i have a big existential question for you to begin. why poetry? there are a lot of forms of expression. a lot of people who choose to commit words to paper or to somehow

affairs consultancy, and by claire and carl stuart. and by claire and carl stuart. - i'm evan smith. she's a next generation journalism star who left a high profile gig at the new york times to become the new white house correspondent for pbs's newshour. she's yamiche alcindor, this is overheard. she's yamiche alcindor, this is overheard. yamiche alcindor welcome, nice to see you. - thanks for having me here. - i'm trying to think about your new job in this way. is being a white house correspondent at the moment the best job ever or the worst job ever? - in my mind it's not the best job ever because i think that there's a lot of jobs in journalism that are amazing, but this is one of the best gigs in town for sure. in dc i think it's the best job, because you have a front row seat to a history making president. before donald trump was elected, i said if we get him, he'll be the first reality tv president. i think that that's completely still true. i think if you are covering donald trump and have not watched the apprentice and do not watch reality tv, then you are absolutely doing yo

affairs consultancy, and by claire and carl stuart. - i'm evan smith. he's front and center on the trump beat for the new york times. one of a handful of reporters at the nation's best news orgs whose daily scoops have made journalism great again. he's michael schmidt, this is overheard. (montage of audio clips) mike schmidt, welcome. - thanks for having me. - good to see you, probably not for the first time, someone says to you, the president's been talking about you today. right? do you have the story in the newspapers. we sit here today on an average sunday. you have a story with your colleague, maggie haberman in the new york times about the prospect of the president adding an attorney to his team specifically focused on the threat of impeachment, this is an attorney who had worked on? - clinton. - clinton's impeachment. now, the president denies this is true, but he denies it in his own charming way, on twitter, and in doing so attacks the story that you wrote. this is kind of like the new normal, is it not? - yeah, and similar to other ways that h

- [narrator] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy, and by claire and carl stuart. - i'm evan smith, he's the 109th mayor of new york, a few months into his second term leading the biggest city in america, and on the long list of names floated as possible candidates for president in 2020. he's bill deblasio, this is overheard. (light music) - [evan] let's be honest. is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having to talk properly? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa and-- you could say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem, and over time you took it on-- let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you gonna run for president? (overlapping voices) (audience cheers) - mr. mayor, welcome. - thank you. - thank you very much for being here. let me go right to the elephant in the room, or the donkey as it were. - the donkey in the room? - do you understand-- - you just coined a new phrase, the donkey in th

this was cecile richards of planned parenthood and she is quoting evan smith, who in your book says white people are scared of change, believing that what they have is being taken away from them. in 2004, the angelo population of texas became a minority, you just said, and no coincidence social conservatives who ruled the state two decades have continued to look backward. >> they would like to have gays back in the closet. you know? not just no gay marriage. just want to -- eliminate the identity of homosexuals. it's nuts to some extend. this one character i write about in the book. he's talking about how they're propagating sodomy in the kindergartens. well, it's nonsense, but he is one of the main funders of the party, of the republican party. and eliminate abortion entirely? you know, remove government from almost all walks of life, even down to the security cameras on the traffic lights. you know, get out of the u.n. i mean, these are -- things that i heard about as a child in the '50s, and now this agenda has come back, and it's -- in my opinion, the republican party at large, you kn

the merriman smith award for broadcast goes to evan perez, jim shootout, jake tapper and carl bernsteincnn. [applause] these journalists and a number of other cnn reporters broke the story that the intelligence community had briefed president barack obama and president-elect donald trump that russia had compromising information about mr. trump. you remember that story. cnn then reported that fbi director james comey personally briefed president trump about the dossier. the judges called the reporting breaking news at its very best. [applause] [whistling] >> the merriman smith award for print goes to josh duffy. [applause] josh's story about the resignation of white house press secretary sean spicer grabs the reader from the opening sentence. duffy hustled to find a wide variety of sources and conveyed in the drama of the resignation and help the reader's attention. he reported details others said we did not have, beautifully reported and written, say the judges. [applause] i also congratulate chris johnson. where is chris? honorable mention for the merriman smith award, chris johnson of

smith award. >> that's right. for breaking news coverage. me and a team of reporters, jim sciutto, evanjanuary 2017 that the intelligence chiefs had heard about this dossier. we all know about the dossier now. and that they had briefed president obama and then president-elect trump on the existence of this material that the russians were claiming was compromising. >> jimmy: yes. and was this the biggest story you've ever broken, would you say? >> it was pretty big. i don't know. it's tough to compare them all. i've won this awards a few times. and there were other -- i did one about -- during the obama years when he was about to fire his director of national intelligence. and i knew before the director of national intelligence that he was about to be fired. so that was one. >> jimmy: you should get an award for not screaming when you interview kellyanne conway. because that alone is a remarkable achievement. >> i don't scream every time. [ laughter ] i appreciate -- i appreciate your noticing. >> jimmy: i want to show something because this -- i don't know if you've even seen this. but