coming up next, a conversation about covering president trump's first 100 days in office with journalists from the associated press, wall street journal, and washington free beacon. during the discussion panelist covered biases in reporting, the trumpet administration media restrictions, and access to the white house. this event was cosponsored by the university of chicago institute of politics and the

university of chicago international house. [applause] welcome everybody. for this alumni weekend and journalism week i'm so glad to see so many people it's fantastic. and because it is journalism week this is going to be in the first 100 days but also about covering trump's first 100 days. i'm going to start this off with zeke because many of you probably know their travails of the associated press and how because the ap would not call

the gulf of mexico the gulf of america the president of the united states decided to keep the ap out of its very important role in the white house press court and i want to talk to wazeke, tell people traditionally the position that ap has taken both in the white house briefing room and at press goggles and pool sprays, why is this change so dramatic given the history of the associated press? >> first, thank you all of you for being here. we need to step back what is the purpose of the pool it comes up a lot in this discussion there's hundreds of journalists who want to cover the president of the united states or any other public figure operating in a strained environment. so journalists get together and they say organist share our information so that we can get

some representatives in the press corps into a smaller space and they can transition it back out. it's evolved over time at the white house it's on its current form about 50 to 60 years ago and has dissolved a little bit since but the associated press has , been a foundational part that and we are owned by members of the news cooperative we are there for the small papers and the television stations in the u.s. and around the world who can't all be in washington haso there members o the associated press they subscribe to the associated press. and ultimately by extension the eyes esand ears of everybody el that was our role, we were front and center in every pool on air force one and traveling. whenever he traveled covering

the white house 24/7, 65 days a year. we still do that but we do it with a very different positioning we are not allowed the same level of access we had previously. i don't know some people remember but traditional white house press conferences the president where the almost always recognize the ap white house reporter first, the press secretary would always start off with the associated press first, it was a central division and i do want to talk about precedent, the word unprecedented has been used ad nausea over the last hundred days and at times it is merited

but i do want to talk about the past. during the obama presidency at the very beginning there was a moment where fox news was not invited to a gaggle a gaggle is when usually the press secretary holds private meeting with reporters to go over what's going on in the day usually not what the camera is available. do you guys remember rathat? >> i was not there for that. >> do you remember that? >> talk about like how did that compare how is that similar to and different versus what's going on with the gaggle's now? >> i think there are some similarities and some differences, the similarity was that the obama white house and obama himself he made it very

clear that he did he singled out the network for its viewpoint that he was not as specific and saying it's because you won't use a term i want you to use he just didn't like the viewpoints didn't consider that news so he said foxes in the pool but i'm i can include them. the difference is that the rest of the pool participants said that's not okay with us we recognize the threat and when i can show up if you don't include fox. so they stood alongside fox in that in the obama white house eventually relented. ap is in somewhat of a trickier situation as i suspect you guys will see in the court battle because the refusal to use golf of america is actually a viewpoint discrimination but

there hasn't been numbers of the press corps are saying they agree with you, they are not refusing to show up at white house briefings or refusing to be included in the pool in the same way that outlets did. >> that's an excellent point. do you want your colleagues to say ap can't go to the full spray were nothing ago? it's a difficult question no easy answers the media landscape now is very different than it was 16 years ago. your operating environment all of our basic positioning we want that boat cover the numbers the question is what happens from there.

i think every individual in the press corps collectively is trying to cover the news while also trying to at the same time protect the independence of the press corps and i may disagree with some of the individual decisions they're making i understand the structure of the environment in which they are making the decisions. >> the obama white house relented i'm not sure how much the white house actually cares. >> i was just going to say. you been in some of the most heated press pool sprays when they talk about a full spray it means the president you get invited into let's say the oval office the president is there with the world leader vladimir zelinski there's a few cameras

a few reporters insta poll spray because only a few people in a little bit of time but what would happen if you have one of these sprays with the president of the united states and the only people who show up are the president supporters. >> i think the issue is one that every news organization has struggled with since the president made the decision and it caused everybody to have to think really hard about what is the value of being there why are we there? and what do you give up by not being there? the president when he has these sprays he does have tv cameras so let's declare about who's being removed is the tv cameras are still there that has not been a part of the media that he has been eager to shut down.

so people like myself or zeke kind of the reporters asking questions and in those scenarios you have maybe 15 or 20 people asking questions and you do want independent media in the space able to ask the president a question. i've asked a lot of questions i thought back to that, right. but people who are at least making an attempt about asking about news of the day and pressing the president on his policies rather than the pole numbers are great but you can comment on that. so the value of being in these small intimate gatherings with the president and having representatives and independent media there is an enormous

value. it was probably one of the most interesting and surreal experiences of my professional life and i've been a reporter for 20 years. i was in the oval office during the heated exchange between zelinski and vice president vance and later president trump. being able to witness that the images that came out afterwards people did see this, you could go watch the full exchange but the place i happen to be was next to the ukrainian ambassador to the u.s. and standing right next to her there is no b she has taking notes during the exchange. which she took in english. the camera is s and can be focused on her notes.

i was able to be positioned there and see what she was writing down. the cameras did a good job capturing the camera is not always on him i do remember as that was going on just watching him closely and seeing his reaction and you just learn a lot about the principles close to the president. was thankful to be there even though it was broadcast live so everybody did get a chance. >> do you feel like if you were just sitting back in the white house briefing room watching the cameras what would you have missed? >> i definitely wouldn't have ss seen her notes. >> what were in them? >> she was being very, she has beautiful handwriting.

[laughter] she was writing down the names of each person who spoke and a brief synopsis of what they were saying. then she writes down jd v and writing his question then literally there is a lawn blank line. i don't want to read too much into that t without a conversation. sometimes when you're standing and watching something you want to look around and see how the people are reacting. >> you are mentioning some of the questions and there were stupid questions out there. we've seen carolyn levitz bring

in what she calls alternative media alternative voices people from anywhere from broadcasters who have been tied to russian media to jack's zodiac who is a famous conspiracy theorist. in the not conservative media. i wanted to get your take on how this is working and what it is meant to the value of the press briefing. in this presidency. >> i don't think the press briefing has had a whole lot of value for very long time. it's been on camera and used for performative posturing by various members of the press

for several years, you'd probably be a lot more useful of the one up camera itself i don't .think there's anything particularly unique about when it comes to this white house. in terms of bringing in new members of the "media " i think it's great. is reflective of the way americans are actually getting information we saw this with the white house. excuse me, we saw this on the campaign trail where it was a huge issue. is a comedian who turned broadcaster but hugely influential and the harris campaign said in retrospect, we were sort of sat down with him is he a journalist by traditional anstandards, noble, but millions of people are getting information depend. there's many others who don't

get the traditional information.megan kelly had this debate with the new york times in a podcast and video i highly recommend of what it actually means to be a journalist i think is reflective of strong feeling among the american public. i assume that particularly well reflected in this room. that the american people have lost faith in journalists and journalism quad journalism and they are seeking alternative sources. self good on the white house for bringing them in. we are not doing brain surgery it's not that hard to do this. so could i add one thing to that, i think it is a little bit inaccurate to think that just because the president is getting question from conservative reported ulthat it an easy question. you can see any politicians some of their worst moments are when they believe they are taking a friendly question and

then they say something they go off and some bizarre direction that are they say something they didn't want or need to say. i think for me at least, the differentiator here in my belief you want people asking tough questions. wherever that ideological spectrum comes from it's the idea like b like i cringe at i but i will say in my experience at least and the two of you have much longer he doesn't tend to like that. he tends to like questions he tends to like having a more honest exchange with reporters. it doesn't tend to bother him in many cases. >> you might say he likes that, it was a feature of the 2015/2016 campaign.

who there is symbolism of that. it's a different question. the representative of the president often the president himself has to amaze themselves and take questions from alexa last. on behalf of the people who can't be there that doesn't happen to everyone didn't happen anywhere else. no world leader in the world if they didn't pick and choose who they didn't like and where they they went to an overseas summit

after dinner sitting around the white house there is a uniquely exceptional piece of this. that some of it has been eroded in politics in the pool like how useful it is the point of having a press briefing and having to take those questions are something maybe not produce a line of the story but to argue that they should go away entirely.>> i want to talk about the last ãin your coverage. famously they covered the joe biden mentor slide.

ããmental slide and physical slide. the first story that the wall street journal published were criticized not just by democrats but by some in the media itself and i wanted to ask you what that said about the white house press corps and then i want to talk about what would d happen if you wrote the same story today about the current president. what lesson did you and , we learn about white house coverage from the response to your first story? >> i wrote with my colleagues we wrote a story that published for the first presidential debate that documented ways in which president biden at the time was having some mental

difficulties in some meetings. the reason we decided to this story after the report came out the special counsel he wrote a report documented, i was very alarmed by what i read. we wanted to go further and find people who met with the president in small meetings and get a sense for some sort of sense for his mental acuity. the white house lawn said to us when he would have various snafus in public they would say if you could see him the way we see him behind closed doors in the situation heroom he is so sharp and you don't get to see that but if you saw what we saw you would have a very different view and so in my head at least that served as a thesis.>> like okay let's find out who

meets with him these meetings and the people who don't work for the white house democrats republicans who came to me with him they did report to us and we reported a story that he would have good days and bad days he stumbled frequently he overly relied on note cards to say very obvious things. he would lose his train of thought frequently, he would close his eyes even for long periods of time that he would pause for extensive periods of times to get his thoughts. that people found alarming that they would also say that we could have one meeting within one day he was off and then he was okay the next time so i thought maybe it was me maybe he's just having an off day the people who met with them even were very eager to rationalize away some of the behavior they were seeing.

we capture that in a story that we ran in the very beginning of june. the white house was they pushed back very hard we sort of expected it. i was a little surprised by the media reaction. in my first 10 years in journalism and local reporting when you get beaten on a story at least i tend to put my head down and go out and try to match the atstory. some of the press said focus coverage on the controversy around the story. that became the story and the narrative of washington that

even to where i would go party in washington like very fancy grandma's party in washington and people kept walking up to me and saying, the white house is not you are you okay? like i had cancer or something. i'm fine i love this is an important story we are still working on it. we are doing a follow-up. personally it was a tough period. fortunately the journal stood strong the editors knew all of our sourcing. they didn't waver at all. they inimmediately put upon another story about biden abroad we pulled in reporters from around the world who had contact with foreign governments another iostory bas more on his interactions abroad. the story came out the day after the date step that we were looking at it and they

started working on their own versions of that story. >> what do you think of the way of other white house reporters, other media responded to that first journalist story. >> i was not surprised in that i think at the beginning we just we talk about something very specific in terms of trump excluding the vap but there's all this rk and access issues that are not particularly fair so we don't have a congressional white house press sent we were just watching it on tv and we started the series joe biden senior moments on video and 21 or 2022 there was

never a week where we didn't have multiple moments that we were displaying to people. just based on tvtv. our view was that all right, the mainstream's figures out we been observing this, i was totally unsurprised to see the mainstream press circling the wagons around the white house. but i covered the first trump white house political. i think if you haven't been white house correspondent it's sort of difficult to understand that while these people are supposed to be competitors like you guys should viciously love each other that it's actually one big group of people who are basically friendly with each other socialize with each other, seek each other's approval basically right for each other who, the cable

networks in the mainstream media twoutlets is actually qui difficult to get out of the bubble and write something that implicitly criticizes the work of your competitors and the result is the flow of information is often doesn't serve the american public because it reflects one point of view as opposed to 27 points of view. >>. >> if somebody wrote a story saying that donald trump is losing mental capacity, how do you think the press would respond in that case. >> it depends on the reporting. and the wall street journal we have, we are not of washington

wall street asjournal is based new york. the user information and the information republished to decide on billion-dollar bets and companies. they are not super interested in group he coverage of trump has always been rough. we were the ones who broke the stormy daniels story and won a pulitzer prize for it is a story that ultimately led the president to have criminal convictions. working to follow the reporting wherever it goes.

>> do think the press would circle the wagon a defense the white house today or is there a more reflexive work effectively critical attitude toward the trump white house compared to the edemocratic white house? >> he there would be a

different dynamic certainly from which side of the spectrum they would be coming from. or attitude will change. it's not hard because most reporters e are democrats their sympathies are with democratic parties and democratic politicians. the way i put it this is why it's good to have reporters from both parties is, i'm jewish there's a yiddish phrase it that when there is a democrat in office prepared reporters don't feel it in their cash gifts to go after them like let's get these guys,

how else to explain that it took a national debate with the president of the united states basically have a meltdown on stage for the press corps to start writing othe story and then they turn on a dime everybody was writing it then he drops out of the race and we haven't heard anything about it since. argue with the free begin as we say we coming from b& just admit, you didn't write it because he didn't want to. because you don't feel it about the way that we do about the democrats they don't admit their ideological flyers. >> i would say one thing that if you going to certain social media sites you will get all sorts of people saying, why the hell don't you write about donald trump's decline?

there are people who think. >> there two very different presidents. covered all four years of joe biden. the wall street journal because we have a newswire also included are used to be included in a lot of the pool so we were always income a lot of people even the white house did not realize that because he made such little news that people were surprised we were in these we were always in the pool but we also have that privilege position is a very different experience to be in an although office exchange with donald trump and joe biden and. >> how so. >> when you walk in there is

little tricks to the game. i be interested what do you think zeke because you done this a lot. your goal when you go and is you want to get called on by the president want to take your question. with trump when you walk in he will make eye contact with you, he's being, he's very clearly reading each person in the room and who is this person who is this person and you have this instant to develop some kind of quick rapport with the guy. i've covered him for years i haven't covered him for years like others but you got this moment then you settle in to listen to his spiel and then you ask questions. he will call on you based on the little moment of interaction that you have. the first few times i did this i was like looking at my phone trying to get the recording device to work and there's a

lot of things we do when we walked into the oval office as a whole slew of things you start doing any fun. wasn't doing well making eye contact with the president. sometimes when he answers the questions he calls it the leave. when you listen to it frequently what you know is that he doesn't really want to answer the question. so he's gonna filibuster a while. is not an unusual thing in washington. my experience with him has been quite different with biden it would be really quick interactions sometimes he would

be super on top of it other times he got shut down dsudden didn't even happen but we see with president trump sometimes there are days of seen him more than my has been. with to be called into the oval office that often there are things to criticize him and his many critics but my experience with him has been he's watching in a way that i did not experience with president biden. >> he's a very stable genius. zeke, i want to talk about covering this role in this president and the presses role at this extraordinary time. this is been 100 days like we haven't seen after dr and are not comparable either. let's talk about the expansion of executive authority and what

role the press the mainstream media whatever you want to call it has in deciding when a president has become more coming in authoritarian. when democratic principles really are at stake. is there a line that's not my job as a journalist to draw the line that's not how i view my role. my job is to give you all, you all on youtube, the information that you need to judge for yourself. want to give you accurate information. i want to be in a position where you can trust me.

democracies need that block of information we are thereto provided. the questions like that are may be better answered in places like here in chicago in the academic context. people who study that particular question we call them up in sources and ask them questions. but my job if he does this or doesn't do that, we don't label people that's not our role in this democratic process. our readers don't want that the public doesn't want it and arguably we wouldn't benefit from that. our audiences everybody. lifestyle truck, hates donald

trump, and everywhere in between. they need to know what he's doing. >> we are in a situation where w president of the united states is defying court. you say he's waiting for final notice but you can call one law professor the law professor says oh my gosh we are in a constitutional crisis you call another one and, we are not in a constitutional crisis yet, maybe somebody else is. >> is there a time when journalism is actually, if you quote three people saying were in a constitutional crisis we are not may be, and we just confusing our reviewers?>> to take his point think in the first 100 days of this white house in this administration is the amount for the way that the president is using power. i think i'm not sure i agree we

are not here to make a label about that but he's using power in a way that's quite different from other presidents. that has manifested itself with doge creating the office and elon musk and elon musk was in these cabinet magencies before the cabinet secretaries were even confirmed. there's an extraordinary amount of power the white house immediately held onto, the tariffs is another ndexample of the president and vastly expanding his power and his reach. i think whether going into what your label at their perspective is, we were elected were to do something and you had a democratic party that has been drawn down by y this bureaucrac and procedures and see themselves as working much faster but still respecting.

one way to look at it is to casually document and write about the expression of power. >> the show don't count. >> with the foundational journalism 101. don't tell people what happened show them what happened. >> as you said free begin is approaching this your open about it you're saying here in conservative publication. and we constitutional crisis. >> actually share their view on this. i think the president has taken a maximalist view of executive power on a whole host of things. i suspect that the courts will say is that some areas the executive actually does have these powers in some areas the executive doesn't have these powers.

but i think the idea i that for us at the free begin, for me personally to come over nathe t and say there is this debate brewing in the courts and debate brewing among law professors but i actually know the answer and it's a constitutional crisis here and it's not a constitutional crisis here. we are all learning. i'm not an expert on whether the federal government has the authority to cancel delete of dollars in s grants to the universities the briefs were certain i viewed it to distilled on the arguments for readers that people can understand what argument is happening here. to be informed and reach their own conclusions. i think things will get interesting but the supreme court's is xyz on this white house decides how it will

respond. but i think what's often lost on the public is that we are all learning about these in real time too. we are not experts on any of this. that's a great thing about the white house. you can make anything white house story. and everything is a white house story. for me it's the best job that there is a reporter. i believe that my bones because of it. it also means we are all by nature generous. in some ways so are most people

out there as readers. the specialist on our teams that are much smarter than i am from strattera's policy. or defense policy or individual issues. my job is talk to them and still down there expertise for the general public. >> i hate it when a moderator inserts his own story into other things that ai'm to do that right now. during the republican primary i wanted to do a profile of the -- in his early days he was walking around telling everybody that he understood they could cut government by 75% without congress. i remember sitting down with him and saying, but there is something called the ac impoundment control act it says that it's a law back 1974 that the government must spend what

congress appropriated. there's another law called the antideficiency act which says the president must spend the money that congress appropriated on the things that way it was appropriate for. i wrote a snarky article saying he just wants to break the law. but i didn't realize that you could break the law and i think donald trump is breaking the law. if i was writing it i would say it. what doge is doing is a violation of two laws the impoundment control act antideficiency act. i haven't seen much of that stated. >> i think to the readers, i think doge and what doge is doing has been very well covered. i think the impact or who they

are who is elon musk what are his motivations. how is he acted in the past. i think it has been very well covered. i think this president is pushing the boundaries he's pushing the envelope. but we are going to find out exactly how far he's pushing it because he doesn't push -- ...

i think that's been one of the main storylines of his first one hundred days. >> a lot of what you're seeing, a lot of the coverage on the impacts of these policy decisions and, you know, john's point of view, you know, violating the insufficiencies. that's not, you know, congress has to, you know, we see some of that happening around tariffs, youif know, journalists, we coud k focus on the impacts, key component of our job that sometimes gets missed in all the washington drama and cover

politics. real people in washington on the sixth floor, you know, that has effect on real people and real policies and real programs. part of our job to tell the stories too, p good and bad. help people understand what is happening, what the government is doing on their behalf and to them. in some ways that side of the ledger, that's been the bigger priorityhe than necessarily to obscure, you know, congressional sessions, not minimizing that, but i think for the broader broader, he knew. some may not know that. >> and this brings up another question, in the time that we are having this -- this

conversation until 3 things were broken in washington that probably merits being written up. how do you cover a presidency that comes to you as a blizzard without being covered bring the snow? how does it -- and how do you -- how do you get -- how do you convey to your readers or your viewers what is important when you have so much information to impart? >> i might be>> the worst person to ask about that because these guys work at outlets where. >> so we've got 25 people, no way that we are ever going to provide people a full offering. the way i look at things is to say, what's the white stays that's being left by everybody

else and how do we strategic fill this and for the past four years or, so we saw huge opening to cover academia which is now become major national story but where we developed real strategic advantage because folks weren't really on that story but now like we are ahead of the pack. i know we were covering colombia and harvard 3 years ago. and so that's how we sort of make decisions and then i think we have a little bit of an advantage covering sort of fights brewing on the right, just because you're here to cover things when wee know the people and, you know, you hear about things brewing on the inside there, but i look at things as just, like, we don't need to duplicate what the mainstream is doing and covering. what areat people policing and where can we be of service?

>> famously had to cover everything. i mean, he did it on ap require, it didn't happen. but do you -- can you convey what is most important or it's not justy role and what does tt mean for the readers? we have the news alert, 120 character. this big thing happens and story and then smaller 130 -- 130 word freeze and a lot of things can be captured in the brief. something tray we want to know, it's relevant, but, you know, to the audience but it might not be, you know, ab, cd, e plot of the day. something worth noting, you know, we write a lot more notes right now than we have in a while. a lot of action happening on a lot of media news, we had great

graphics for the hundred days, captured the first hundred days. we try to capture everything but also not everything is treated with equal weight. the impact aren't known. what if it actually means, is it held in a court and congress needs to take effect. that sort of where the judgment gets, how significant is something. it's a challenge. a tremendous amount of fund as journalist because you get smart and learn about things, educate the public. i think we are about to move to q&a now, i will let annie answer

that same question and then move to q&a. how does the journal, you know, decide? >> so our model has changed quite a bit. we often try not to do too much of the news of the day unless we have something very specific. so i was working on a bit tiktok on the treasure secretary and imagination behind closed doors, the president to move off of its tariffs and filing that story the day that he sent out a tweet and said that he was pausing tariffs. oh, gosh. literally had to rewrite the whole thing all at once. i think you were doing something similar but it ended up being a rich story for the readers because we had a loft very deep

reporting factions and who is talking to who and who is trying to convince the president to back off a little bit on the tariffs. i think we are trying not to be what the ap does so well, and so we also try to pick our spots a little bit? >> all right. so we are going b to now turn to q&a. i will really encourage students prioritize students in the q abdomen a and, of course, fire away. >> hi, we talked a little about this debate we are sending to authoritarianism. we had a fellow and she clearly said trump is on the same path to russia and, you know, authoritarian society journalism isn't necessarily -- being

journalist, you think that you're missing the moment and worrying about powering the debates and just like -- like normal time, saying that we are like objectively according to many experts and something that is closer to authoritarian that the u.s. has never been. >> what do you think? >> missing the moment? >> i hope no. i hope that we are not missing the moment. the way i try to think about the president is described earlier, how does thiss man use power and that's how i approach the biden white house and approached previously and also quite frankly because i did cover news for years, i did see some parallels between trump and city

play your, behave in some ways, similarities. i think that that question is also one that better asked and better answered in other parts of our paper. we o have entire editorial page people who think about that and lookok at that. every administration shifts things in different ways and trump has its way of making changes in a way that really, it abrupts, but if you looked at the first administration, first trump administration, the tariffs that that he put in place caused all confirmations, headlines, what is he doing, this is crazy. i think we are approaching him

and his administration by trying to look -- what is the actual policy, what hastu actually changedas. if he is, we talk a lot about press corps. i know it's one thing to take out a number, group, but another thing is to expand it. and is they've walked a line there that has stayed in this example. they can make a strong argument. this is the president who does like -- i think it's a question that's an important one and that we -- i certainly hope we are not going the look back and say that we failed on. >> hi, my name is ella, second

year in the college and i'm just really curious given the large reach that your organization have and how your organization strategized resources for certain stories and how do you guys like strategize what you think is important to the public? >> are you guys part of the strategizing sessions? i'm curious. just a little bit because we are in the front lines of where this is happening, the president does something and ourur job is to -- we are watching truth social and figuring it out. a lot of this happens, you know, strategic level, tax level. is this going to be the 800 worth story and takeout that we will come back to next week. the day might start quick little

snipped. it's a dynamic process and, you know, there are barely objective things. itap happens, it happens a lot, but i think it is not h the majority l of the things we deal on by the stretch. you're at the top of your organization, what is the planning process? >> our focus is always on prioritizing new and original reporting which iss a little bit different, the president did a press conference today, 30 reporters in the room and that news is out there. everybody is going to get it. so my focus is really on if we didn't exist would this news be out there otherwise and that tends to be really the most time intensive and expensive sort of reporting so i'm always thinking

that way. >> hello, my name i'm des. undergraduate school. given how the president often -- how vocal he is first and how he often goes to traditional sources by using social media and direct messaging ability, how -- if you think that traditional media can go back to reclaiming the role of shaping the narrative and shaping public opinion, public discourse and how we will go about doing that? >> yeah, this president is unique in that he shares so much of his thinking. it's highly unusual to have this much of the president's, you know, thought process unveiled right before your eyes and if

some strange way make our job a challenge because we often looked like, okay, what's the story behind the story but if he's already told you that, then it's like, okay, we didn't reallyk -- so i think my , you know, i don't see my job to shape the narrative as much as to like unearth new things and find out, okay, the president said this but who are the last five people that hesa talked to and what did they say and what did he say to them and just map it back further from where the, like, public -- the public view began and with there president, he pulls the curtain so far back sometimes you don't have a lot more to go but there only is more and this is theom lesson tt you learned after doing this job for a long time. something very, even with trump that is so vocal, many of his

smallest -- that's what we are looking to find out. you've all gone through this. tariffs are a beautiful thing and we actually don't want to do the tariffs, but i never said that tariffs are a beautiful thing. is it -- do you -- is there a role for the media in calling out a lie or it's just, you lay it out and say, he said this, and then he said this? >> well, you may have a lot of differentth thoughts. he has competing impulses, so, yes, he likes tariffs. i personally don't like the tariffs but he likes tariffs,

but he also wants to be perceived as a deal maker and so i'm not sure he's lying when he says like i'm putting the tariffs on, oh, no, wait, i struck ahe deal with japan and they are not contradictory and they are competing impulses and they see theor most on foreign policy where he -- he just said in the time magazine interview where he doesn't want to go to war and doesn't want to drop bombs on people and use rhetoric at times and he wants to make deals i covered and i was in his summit with kim jong un and he put out s showering with praise and he put out an agreement that said probably said the opposite. i mean, a whole lot of nothing and i was struck by when he told time magazine in his 100th day

interview, essentially will israel draw you into a war with iran. okay, so you're not -- so you're not going to bomb iran. that's not what i said. i said, we will go in very willingly, we won't be dragged if iran doesn't strike a deal. i think in foreign policy, you see it in the stats too is where you have these competing impulses and i don't -- look, the guy lies a lot, but on these issues, i think the areas of huge important to administration economic and foreign policy i really think they are a push in poll within the administration that reflect the push and poll. you see it right in front of you. we do a loft in your own words and said last week today. and just how people understand that, like, you know, maybe

contradictory but different impulses. if i go back to additional question, we are not going to the t era of people reading prit newspapers every day or, you know, 20 million people watching that. social media, podcast, we are not going to go back to that. our role all of those, you know, platforms need some basic foundation of objective and, you know, ourou job is to provide that. we want to be picked up and giving the jumping points, conversations was a this a good thing or bad thing. you love it, you hate it. we can criticize this or not. we can see it that way. whatever it may be. that sort of -- there's a link

journalism and objective journalism. i'm going to go to the -- i know we are running -- that was my bad. i injected my own question. go ahead. >> hi, my name is maya, four years of college. i want to build off the first question, it seemed like you guys were jumping around directly addressing their issuef authoritarian tendency and as journalists you feel maintaining makes it difficult to take a clear stand on issues that my be viewed as threat to democratic norms based on previous administrations and this is because i do feel there's an agreement of his antidemocratic policies that falls on all political sidesee of the aisle d by trying to stay on bias, are you doing the country and consumers of your media a disservice? [applause] >> you want to answer that?

>> people have tendency, political position or view of thatti politician view those things, views journalism differently. given the i facts so they can judge for themselves or go back to their kitchen tables and have conversations, dining tables and engage in civic discourse. we can't -- very dangerous thing if we get to a place where news

is not accepted as fact and facts are not -- are in dispute. our job is try to reach as many people as we can with the facts. one of the things that journalists, we correct it, equal and greater volume. and that's something that you often don't see from people who come at things from journalism. i don'tur know that journalism s the answer to those questions. i think those are societal questions, part of it and i think from where we stand and

what ournd view, our view and or role in this process is that we want to provide that baseline for civic discourse to the extent that we probably can to as long as we can to many people as we can. okay, we have time forca one moe question. that's great. >> hi, my name is jay job. i'm a third year in the college, political science and, i'm sorry, another question about journalism and authoritarianism. i've noticed not just you guys, not just you guys but media politico, especially hill when talking about trump's use of power uses terms like expansive use of presidential power, wide-ranging use maximalist. framing as he's using a lot of power and i don't know -- it's hard to term it but does that, using describing his use of power as a wide-ranging use of

power not endorse the idea that is a legitimate use of power and take a political stance on whether it's -- >> i use the term. but i think -- i will put two questions to you, are you open to the idea that there are unanswered questions about the powers allot today the executive branch. i thinkex you cannot answer that and say, there are no unanswered questions about this. there will be no cases that arise because of there. like, that is where we are. theree are dueling views within the community of what powers are allotted to congress andnd the executive. these are playing out and i thinkd we've had 3 questions im sure there are many more out there that whether trump is authoritarian, i think i just struggle to wrap my mind around, like, do you all believe that

the problem in checking trump's power is the two few journalists out there calling him author taken and if those up here will just do that, things would be better? i don't know. i'm -- i don't -- i have trouble, i have trouble understanding. i don't -- i don't there's a lot of opposition to donald trump in the journalistic community and if folks would only cover them more vigorously and speak out against him that, the problems would be solved. i'm surprised that there isn't more concern about a look of journalistic rigor and, you know, questions asking about the previous administration for all those concerned about coverage of this administration. it's certainly not limited to, you know, one administration and one party. >> okay.

guys, that was a good way to end this because as vic said, journalism is not the answer. >> i just want to say to eliana and all of you, "the new york times" ran a series of polls during the election and at the very bottom of the -- of all of those polling questions, there was one that said, where to you get your news and the fact of the matter is, 7% of vote -- of voters of likely voters, 7% got their news from outlets like these.th >> oh, really. [laughter] >> so on that note, journalism is not the answer. vic, eliana, annie, thank you very much for being here and thank everybody for coming out.

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former ohio governor john kasich author of heaven help us, religious institutions and people of faith in the united states. human trafficking and other issues. >> i do think it's critical to count the number of times you go to church but at the same time i think we need to realize that those institutions are sort of when you think about running for office, you need a clubhouse, a political clubhouse to gather. i look at the churches as an opportunity for people to go in there with their ideas of changing the world and to be able to find support, some material support, some psychological support. i also, you know, believe things done, working with others than just working alone. >> john kasich with his book heaven help us.

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