Service so im going to start by saying thank you. Is that okaying . 2ag youre welcome. [ applause ]uji2 and im thinking that there v6wy are others here who served, if 8aun you served in any of the administrations represented here, will you be known to us . Will you just briefly give us a little wave . [ applause ]fn and we say thank you. [5c thank you. Well talk about the whole relationship between the media and press secretaries. If there are any press secretaries here, whether you served on capitol hill or in the white house, elsewhere, can we make yourself and if you ,fo especially returned my phone calls, thank you. u;a9nn4cq and if you didnt, well, thank you anyway. Okay. Any press secretaries here . Thank you for coming. ÷ thank you, thank you. [ applause ] its a little like the defendant thanking the prosecution, but v whatever. So anyway, now that weve gotten that out of the way, lets talk about what we really want to talk about which is all the things we wanted to know when we were sitting in those chairs that we didnt get to talk about then so this is our chanc zq spill it. So lets do that. 6d÷ so the first thing i wanted to know is, did you actually want these jobs or were you did you get drafted or did you volunteer . Ron nessen, i will start with you because you were a correspondent. You covered the vietnam war. You were grievously wounded and almost died. You come back here and you reported on the administration. You reported on gerald fords inauguration and then you were reporting on the then press secretarys appointment and all j an of a sudden youre the guy. How did he talk you into that . Well, as you say, i had been s®hy a reporter for a long time. I had also covered the white y, house for about two and a half usnr years when Lyndon Johnson was president. And then i covered the first month of the ford white house. And i think what persuaded me to do, to take the job when he offered it was i wanted to see y what it looked like on the g g 9m 9n in fact, i wrote a book afterward called it sure looks different on the inside, because i had thnuvnse as a reporter that i probably knew i5 n 10 of what was going on in the z white house. And one of the reasons i took this job was i wanted to see what the other 90 was. That was one reason. 5x i think the other reason clearlyablz was that i really liked gerald ford. Xsi2asv i covered him as i say, as an cxee nbc correspondent. Wz and so that was the other reason for taking the job because i really did i really did like him. The third reason im ashamed to say is that i had a pretty large ego in those days. And i thought, hmm. Imagine that. Im moving up to a white house job. Is that right . Very satisfying for a guy with a big ego. Marlin fitzwater, you actually first went to the white house as a deputy, right . Right. ÷ . P7y i was in the civil service. And i was at the Treasury Department when jim baker caused and said we need a deputy for y domestic policy. Somebody to take the heat for the president on the recession, which we were about ready to hit 10 unemployment. Would you be interested . I said sure. And so he said come over. 0m p and i went over, spent an hour bjai with him and he said you want the job . I said sure. 2mv and he said lets go see the 39 president. Fl1 . Z we walked down to the oval office and president reagan was sitting there, he said well, marlin, jim here says youre ÷g1 willing to help out. I said yes, sir. E acelb that was it. How come . Bi hahp hc first time i ever met him and first minute id ever spent time with him. n4gq door and said mr. President , ill do my best¤skz and i got outside the oval office into the secretarys r area, and i went yes and she said what is that all about . I said history must always record that even if i get fired tomorrow, i for one day, i was a i] c president secretary for the president. [ applause ] why did you say yes . You could have said no. I dont want that job. M why . Dealing with people like me every day, really . You know, i was a professional Public Affairs person. Id been in government 17 years at the time i went to the white house. h i worked in a lot of different agencies and so the white house was the pinnacle of our profession, a professional deal. The other thing was i didnt know what the white house was all about. I mean and seeing that press corps and helen thomas said what are you doing here, kid . And it was all downhill from there. K fn [ laughter ] mike, what about you . You had come to the white house from the state department and youd been at the dnc. It wasnt a direct my story is a little different. I had been around in washington as a press secretary for 20 years. X and i had worked for im sure everyone remembers the administration of president john glenn, president bruce babbitt. Rzn president mike dukakis. President bob kerrey. 82f÷ so it was actually probably because i have an unfailing ability to pick the losing candidate. O pn i had worked against bill clinton in the primaries so my thought was, i was not likely to get a job and George Stephanopoulos took pity on me and said this guys been around a long time, he worked at the Democratic National committee for a long time. So he can probably do the job. Luckily, warren christopher, secretary of state, hired me to be a spokesman. But after two years working at the say the department and doing the job there and maybe something well talk about later being on television because at briefing was televised, the White House Briefing was not fully televised. L i caught the notice of some folks at the white house aqcen they invited me to come over. I dont know that i ev;1and of angled for it, but it made sense because had i, obviously, worked in president ial politics for a pretty long time. And it made some sense that that would be the trajectory that i wound up in. Did you have a yes . No, because it was if you remember, were in the aftermath of an election now that is not to be called shellacking i guess, but in 1994 at the end of why did you do it . Because it was an honor to be asked to work in that place. I think all of us would say its the coolest place on the face of the earth to work. Rz ,c even though i ildi time, i had never been outside the country very much and i had just worked for the secretary of state and been all over the world, that was pretty exciting. Bgn but the opportunity to work in the white house you know to x5 drive up that little west executive drive and say ive got m6a right outside the west wing, its an honor even when the subject matter you have to deal with becomes fairly zesty. Lets talk about that in a minute. But before we do, robert gibbs, what about you . If youre on a campaign, isnt kind of the working assumption if your guy wins, youre going to get the job or gal eventually . I think in most instances by the time you get to the end of the campaign, you have a fairly decent chance or decent sense of if this person wins, who is likely to be the press secretary. I think mikes absolutely right. I think the you realize pretty 5 n quickly how great an honor and 70÷ great a responsibility it is. Bos when you doll drive into that white house, a lot of days when u uz its dark. And you realize sitting in that qcdux oval office throughout the week what youre witnessing, what youre trying to describe and what youre part of. Know, i think its truly an amazing honor. I do remember pretty early into my first briefing and i was listening to a question and it was about ten minutes in and i remember this voice in my head saying i cant believe youre here doing this. And theres another voice saying Pay Attention to the questions. [ laughter ] i thought it would be amazingly gh embarrassing to somehow miss an entire question in your first briefing. Hon m so but i think thats, you know, you understand that however long youre there, youre just youre going to get to witness and see things in a seat that very, very few 0c people have. And its remarkable and its amazing. e so lets keep it going because for those of you who. Its all good times. Q [ just keep going. Qhn well get topfze ju well start it out soft. So you know, the post has a 5f] feature which called date lab which thankfully as a married t z person i dont know about. When theyre trying to fix 4x people up they have this thing caused brag a little. So brag a little. Like what was your best day . K1]n what was your best day . Robert, you want to start . dfwx i think the our best day was probably signing health care. Im starting with you because i dont know that youre going to get too many more questions like this. C thats for sure. Acr no, i think i just think the 9cjzda 9n sense of accomplishment and the ÷n ÷ euphoria of you know walking into the east room and having b the president sign that and now,l3 you know, you have people come up to you and say you know, i have had a condition for 15 rk years. I could never get health care, faduv thank you for being part of 5÷ n Something Like that i think was that was probably it. Plus also that day is, you know, thats when joe biden said into an open microphone just how big an accomplishment that was. Exactly. Pirix2afbes he did. Z [ laughter ]fpp and i remember i went back top,el you know, when youre in the east room, the microphone is lry. ÷yej the camera. Its not audible. I couldnt hear it and im there and somebody. Comes running in and said you should just know the microphone sort of picked this thing up. And so were talking about it and one of my other deputies z]6fn rushes in and says i dont think he said that. Tsxn uc i said yeah, im pretty sure he said that. Xgqn and im sure well get some of the technology of this, but i ÷y remember i was on twitter and i thought, you know, let me try to sum this up. So i remember i sat down and im like, and so i wrote, yes, 1gaee mr. Vice president , it really is. And i hit send. I think my phone is demerit. el÷ interview demerit. So two minutes later my tv assistant comes in and says the Vice President s chief of staff is on the phone. Damn, ix4u d have checked with them before i tweeted. And it was one of those things, and again, sometimes in even in politics honesty is the best policy. W and ron called in and i picked ri up the phone saying hey ron, trying to pretend like nothing was going wrong. He just said thank you. He said we were over here trying to figure out what the statement would say and we read your tweet and it was like yeah, just sort of own it. So that was a good day. All right. Though . Good point. Thank you. I just have the to find my phone. Who is next . Mike, what was your best day . Much more mundane than that although i loved that story and thinking of that, you know, you were the only one of the four of us that had to worry about tweeting because . Its a whole different job. I think the job that you ended up having to do just because of the changes in technology and media went by so quickly. But mine was okay. Very mundane but it captured as i think back on it what i think the best of what the press secretary can do was. And it was a day that we announced in the Clinton Administration that we were promulgating a very complicated federal regulation to regulate tobacco for the very first time. It was premised on the theory that a cigarette is a delivery, medical delivery device designed to deliver a dose of nicotine to the body, which was stretching 4r things as the Supreme Court later concluded. But it was the regulation went on 30 pages in the federal register. ug and i stayed up a good part of the night to read it even though i said okay, the briefing the next day, were going to bring in Donna Shalala, the secretary of health and Human Services, david kesler, head of the fda, and theyll do the briefing but i want to make sure its a big deal and make sure i know whats going on. Well, donna and david kesler got up there. ezon÷ it was so complicated. They instanu v o7]6 the weeds. And you guys all know terry hunt from the associated press. Hes standing there looking up. Going and it was clear . acer watching the reporters that we o were losing the story because explaining it. And i so i got up and elbowed Donna Shalala out of the podium which is a very difficult thing to do, if you know her. nufv 0u and i kind of took over the briefing. And got the head of the food and drug celebration administration, the secretary of health and Human Services there and looking at them saying am i explaining this correctly. But i had to simultaneously translate that complicated language and vocabulary of government to something that would actually get through and help the reporters write the story. A couple of them came up and said boy, you saved ypbuns there because we were not getting any clue what you were talking about. A6÷a thats the best of what the press secretary can do. ,o÷k[a i mean, we get accused of being spin doctors. Ff we probably sometimes get a little angry at the press corps. 3 uu but at the heart of it is tryingzffs to take the work that the white house does, the president does, ady and the federal government does and help the American People under7 it. So i mean, you know, it was not the most dramatic day. I had plenty of those. But it was the day on which i felt likevbtp ly did my job. Ronnie, want to go next. Just to follow up on that, gneqn one of my best days in the white 8 house was when is i smoked when i first went to the white house. And a bunch from the press office went to these decided to 4vc[ f join this class called smoke enders. . [fv and we went. ]o i think its eight weeks or so. And i stopped smoking. Lbek so but seriously, my best day in the white house clearly was when uraupd up and announce the end of the viu43 and i had as i say as an nbc correspond3t8anad covered the war. I did five tours there as a correspondent. Got wounded almost died. 3rw,b c go over into the Old Executive Office building and read this statement from the president saying for us, the war is over. And ive guh ait arrjad cassette tape of that at home. My voice is about five octaves higher than normal, very quavery because of what vietnam had rcu meant in my life and here im the one who has to stand up and announce the end of the war. H0 did you want to cry . Yes. Did you cry . Not in public but in private i did. How about you, marlin . What was your best day . Im thinking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall this week and i remember i shouldnt admit that i remember that. What about you . Well, theres so many days and events that you run through your mind. Whether its the fall of the berlin wall or the invasion of kuwait, liberation of kuwait or z4 panama or those kinds of things. 8v4 but i think the most special day day of the Reagan Gorbachev summit in 1987. And everyone was anticipating an end to the cold war and gorbachev had never been to the west. Everybody in the world wanted toy1t see how had he would get along with the guy who said it was an evil empire over there. Yx and we had 7,000 correspondents credentialed to attend the up mit. So we moved the White House Briefing room to the ballroom of jwnn the jw marriott hotel. J cn and we also renovated half the fy Commerce Department or at least the first floor for overflow crowd. And we got all 7,000 people packed in there. Toq. X and i explained for several days why we were accommodating these people and also that i had u unu invited my counterpart to brief t with me. My rationale was if they were wouldnt get in an argument across town which is what normally happens in these cases. I figured neither one of us wanted to upstage our principles or create a war. We would be very careful. And he and i talked aap ra. We were going to be careful. So we got to the podium and we. Wd walked up kind of on the stage like this and we were about halfway across and Sam Donaldson was sitting in the front row and he said, 50 bucks, marlin takes ;s6n bs him. [ laughter ] my first response, well, thats sweet. Nqw but my second one was, he just destroyed every purpose i had for their entire show. But nevertheless, it was a memorable five days. But why was that your best day . Was it because of what it meant . S or was it because of your role in it. No, i think p . N11e jt uaq of what it meant to the world, h7 to us. It was the beginning of the end, the unveiling of the Reagan Gorbachev relationship and all am [z the arms control agreements thatroybnfi went with it. At the same time, it had this faon kind of very exotic and credible surrounding where access hollywood was sitting in tv . Z front row and entertainment t r tonight was tops on my phone list and things like that. So it was a great show, great pavilion. Last of all, it was fragile. And the mistakes could have been disastrous. T9 i had kind of underestimated alllstc that. So but anyway, you put it all together and it was really a s series of experiences, you dont very often get. When you have an awesome day like that, does the president ever come say, good job . Almost every briefing i gave. He had a squawk box on the gavel. He would call me immediately i nrex÷d got back to the office. Sometimes he would uk 4iju down while im briefing. Wow. Loi z he almost said good job but sometimes he would say a bll criticism was, far lynn i might 8hlrr t hahp hc say that a little differently. Anybody else . Arent you going to ask us what our worst day was. Im getting there. It. Go ahead. Aet what was your worst day . Well, i think clearly my, well, the worst day was when t1x÷ ford lost the election to carters b5 i think. But i think one of the most awln difficult days was when betty ford went out to bethesda naval y n hospital and had a mammogram and cancer. Qdkd2n and she underwent a mastectomy. Ill never forget the look on fords face. They had been married for 30 years. They were so close and so in love. And you know, he was in danger of losing her. And she wanted to put out the news while she was still in the operating room. A n sent a message out. And i think by being so open about this, it resulted in a lot of women going and having q uec hahp hc mammograms. And happy rockefeller, the Vice President s wife discovered she had breast cancer. Pvn my mother went and had a mammogram, discovered she had breast cancer. This happened all over the uun country. 4 was in such great risk. Q uhhuh. Xdn it had a happy ending, of course. Sa w it sure did. Ra o anybody else . Hmm, mike. Yeah. Me 2y well, no, you know, its funny because i [ laughter ] everyone assumes that the days of la fair monique would have been you know, the hard fe y days but they were relatively easy days. The press corps was consumed with only one subject and i was saying nothing. K0o [ laughter ]te tn so it was just basically as i said at the time, 100 different ways to be double parked in the no comment zone. F7. Yy you know . Or hard or wasnt the worst day. It was just unbelievable. Mzxn but my worst day and ron, i appreciate it, its the emotion that goes into it sometimes sy6x because were supposed to get up there and be cool and collected and calm and as someone said in the introduction, we have to keep it together all the time. And my hardest day was i had worked as ron browns director c5q he was the chairman of the dnc. And the day his plane crashed on7f ytp a trade mission in the balkans and went down and it was an awful thing because there were a lot of young people, many of the folks on the white house staff who had been part of the advance party who were also killed in ejnif that crash and i remember we had, i mean, we had the oval office, i dont know how the White House Communications folks did this but we had piped into the oval office the guys who were on the search and rescue team who were up there to confirm the identity of the body and i remember it was awful. And the president called alma brown and it was very emotional. And then it happened right around the time of the briefing. 6 k and so i said okay, ive got to the go out and brief because everyones going to want to know whats going on. A . Ev i didnt stop to collect myself because heres a guy who i had yhh cross swords with. I think the only time i got fired in my life, ron brown fired me. And we had a wonderful by relationship despite that. Ymn and i remember going out there, and i got about twothirds of the way into this and i felt myself losing it. u2czt and you know, i still lose it a little bit. I had to stop and say i need to i looked down at my staff c uq l i was in turmoil so someone handed me a note which said get off now. So i went out and pretended thatjyy i was getting some information from the president. And then came back and was able to do the briefing. Its those moments that we you know, we handle a lot and hr prepare for a lot but every once in awhile you g mething thatdbh jerks you out of your place. And i think those were the hardest moments. 4n3;r but you do know what they are . I had a passing aquaintance. I was a little concerned. 2zay so anyway, it was over and`n she called my and said would you come up to this is after she got back from the hospital and yn she said would you come up to the residence. And i went up and she said, well, i just want to tell you, i thought you did a great job and are there any questions the press are asking about it. I said well, yes, they want to know why you had a double mastectomy when theyre now developing other less invasive kinds of operations and she said just tell them this, i want to live. Shes still alive today. So theres a lot of days like that that are really moving that. Ob;saiu you know, i wouldnt say it was ]y youre part of these policies. Youre guilty. M bw and she stomped off. And two of my deputies heard all the screaming and came in. W6cc and i was crying. it and they said why, why, i said you know, i just dont think the i deserve this. How can this how can this be . But i got over it and you go on. ÷g tiahp hc is that the worst day, probably not. B why did that make you cry. Can we take about a half hour aatahauju qan we could. Y why did that make you cry . Because it was just seemed so unfair and so unprofessional and not my responsibility and not yobp r t hahp hc and it was just painful. The idea that i was res8di a for killing children. Do you feel that im igxfn ndn└ondering if why you i would cne uxs never have known this if you hadnt said this. Z not to let people know you have feelings. Yeah, i dont tell those it took 20 years to get this oneamn out. What about you, robert . ihff . I think the hardest days are when you have really big things xh collide. Hpqow and i think mike makes a good ot point actually the easiest days to get ready to brief are the 8q1 hardest days to brief. And what i mean by that is, they . Give you youvex,wkiahis izqo÷ notebook with 20 or 25 things in rcu÷ it. But if you know youre only going to get one question asked ;khf six different ways you dont really have to Pay Attention to the other 19 tabs in the binder. We call it the kitchen sink day because everything in the kitchen sink was going to get e n asked that day. So you had to have ten times as zahx many answers. Look, i remember every day of the oil spill was brutal. Stone popped their story about Stanley Mcchrystal and weve gotc÷ to call a fourstar general back from afghanistan and you know, i remember walking over to the e÷][n residence you know, i had calledb the president and said i think you need to read this story. And i walked over and he met me a÷ht26 d33 two paragraphs and he just wegg had a quick conversation. H n÷y he said whoevers left it was meet in the oval oje minutes. So have you these events that collide. Tn i remember the shooting at ft. X ezd52rn 0my÷x hood what an awful day that was. Dg v and pretty, you know, decent part into the evening we had spent 8ably two or so hours 4jeazf[ry÷ maybe five or six of us seven, i forget how many in the oval zew office with bob gates and admiral mullen and bob mueller zkb,n from the head of the fbi, the 5 president talking through and i wont tell everything but talking through some of the stuff that they had already learned and i remember that was a thursday because i remember im walking out of the oval office, and hes walking in, and all of a sudden, i remember oh, yeah, tomorrows employment report. And, of course, the White House Economic Team will get the j eiq employment report. And they dont, it comes out 30 1vsah9ey in the morning. Its the day for two years employment report. And larry was going into to tell the president what the report was. Z again, im so focused on fort 3bn hood and the investigation and the fbi and all that stuff. Igx i see larry and im like, he za kind of craned like go like this. And he just goes and i remember going oh, man. as and it was the first t1j x 7u unemployment surpassed 10 since reagan. Momeoe 5u ere al7ve got all this stuff and then something collides. B t pp÷ i think the most powerful moment was late october in 2009 and we dja mhp were in the midst of the 2 eg÷ afghanistan review. And an ied had just jr a basically truck carrying a nen bunch of our soldiers. And so there were 18 dead. And the president had lifted vd when he came into office the banrhb nn transfer process at dover. And we knew at some point we. Cyu÷c ÷ would go to dover. Pjyl . X and we figured this was a good ny÷ time to go to dover. Sovh j n yeah. onmfv and we left the white house about 12 45 at night. Unaccompanied in a helicopter. Its about a 45minute ride to d x dover. And ill never forget the j had given us the tail number of the giant plane that had all the and i remember we put the helicopter down and i look out s the window and the first tail d y number is this giant plane and eo]ti in its that one. And i can remember coming off the helicopter and seeing in h8 these neat little rows 18 gam qz transfer cases with the flag. ej and the process ti ]1j5yau done, its a remarkableus etr t hahp hc ceremony. K m and we were sort of there, we aiah were there for about four hours. i afghanistan revik a f z youre there watching the dignified transfer and youre knowing that hes sitting there mfk7dxpuv6l thinking, im going to make a to come back like that. Lv and its just one of those c3 ns1 q things er had to describe it the next day and we did the pool reports. I never really had to go out and brief on it, but i just remember [ cl thinking there are those moments in which you begin to feel a little bit of what theyre going through. And in a real sort of in a way understand for a brief moment what weighs on their shoulders. Yeah. So switching gears now, did 7w b are you talking to me . Yeah. Z n did you lie . n,cn did any of you lie . I think i never really lied. I think i often. And im not lying now. I mean, one of the promises i 7mcnpv2 w made when i took the jod3 2jykhfzo cf1 o will never lie and i will never coverup and i didnt. Fiqsn i really kept that promise. Y i think sometimes i worded things in to make them ysn fn ]1n less. J9 true . R fdj no, no. No, just less damaging letgh say. But did you ever feel you walked v . U1lra ÷ up to the line . I thought we walked up to the line,u xajy i think we all walked up to the a line. But dont forget this. P let me just back up half a step. Ford succeeded richard nixon. And he had done, you know, greatxuaon damage to the presidency and so n÷ forth by the watergate. W t and how he handled watergate. D2 wzl and i think this made all the hn people in the Ford Administration determined to go in a completely different o direction. Plus the fact that i came out ofpqb1 the press. B h and i knew that there was always a suspicion that the, you know, that the press was, i mean the press secretary was not being completely honest with us. And so forth. And just to tell you, and im ÷ just to show you how i was determined to be completely j÷. Pzyqen different than the nixon white house, nixons press secretary was named ron ziegler. p5p gw÷ and one of the things i said p3uur fords press secretary was im a ron, but not a ziegler. L but no, seriously, you know, ne0ln given the fact that ford had succeeded nixon and what how the Nixon Administration ended, you know, and the fact that i came out of the press and the fact that ford you know, in his wholebui political career had built a reputation for honesty and so z forth. So you know, we may have delq putting out some stories as i say, i may have described him in the best possible terms without lying. The press corps. amhs rq e. Nb[ v you cannot lie in that job. I mean2uah p eer ending. If you ever got caught knowingly misleading the press, the consequences of that would be the rupture in that relationship of fragile trust that exists anyhow and you wouldnt be useful to the president. Now, i did, i mean i got in troumisejaursq elen thomas . Gdceq asked me that question. napg5 and i said no, ive never lied. But i certainly learned how to tell the truth slowly. 5jfn [ laughter ] yeah, we were up in marthas odfn vineyard after this really zodoxu5r3 bizarre thing in which the 4ystcqy president had to go on National Television talking about things that we r 112 the very next day we were going off on a happy Family Vacation jmarthas vineyard and i knew vo that we were going to be back tos the white house because we were m getting ready to launch a cruz 2yq . H missile strike against osama bin0 laden to trg; im at a kv. Rz1v7÷nmmo little powwow that he was having. Ha g j i remember being at the little schoolhouse at marthas vineyardt7u dtj1xu z txoz which i think rons probably been there and you know, the beach. So they kind of hang around saying when are we going to get iz the lid . Q are you going to wrap things up. You know what the lid is . Tell them what the lid is. No more news for the rest of the day so youre free and clearn o unless some emergency happens isuij basically our signal to them ky were not going to be putting out any more news during the day. 4 z what do you say . X was it a lie for me to say you uczxn know, no lid right now. Im just going to check a . o edmn whats going on, see if theres qz you know, yeah, were going to u5qs war in about an hour and a half. Would you like to stick around . Z a8n [ laughter ]icr q e are techniques that nmg you have to use and sometimes they border on a thing called dwt spin which is that you are aax trying to take your best ÷quv interpretation and offer it up. Aen but i think if you knowingly m kh mislead the ameri aqpd i their representatives, the pressn÷ ko . ir a q oast. Probably. Marlin, you had access to classified information in that nhzi hahp hc you were part of the group of 73tocq nine, correct, in your M Administration . How did you handle that . 1 i mean, did you say dont tell q a2c me anythi qjit j uq l or how did you handle that . Well, first of all, i was o n fortunate to become press secretary to both reagan and bush under circumstances where i knew them. Ea uju q with them before in lesse s. And in both cases i went to them and said, i want to be in all meetings including all national n÷ beginning, i would go into all y pentagon would call back and say, amy9l5na jt uwater here . And fortunately, president bush about the second time this happened he started a meeting and everybody was lined up, and i was just a half a second late coming through the door. And he said, lets just all wait for marlin till he gets here. There was never a question againlvvoc v was supposed to be 10 there and why not. f0x but in my own mind, i had to worry ab q ery time. And what i would do first of he n35 all, is make a judgment on my en own and try to decide am i really confident this is not ia h classified. Tmx then id go to general scowcroft was our National Security 7xt advisor and say, is this am i getting in trouble here . Ms and he would often say, heres a better way to say it or heres something a little more nuanced. And it saved me so many times in qa÷p1i,n saying something i shouldnt have said to have a process and have it in mind. ÷k,u mike makes a really interesting point here about if a press ji1bn secretary lies, he loses and why we have to be so carefuldne about that. 3ru and i have two quick examples. Asked if we were going to invade grenada, the president had gotten a tip. He went to the National Securityu3w advisor and8j ja n ;2n 8 qeeju ajapr thats preposterous. H larry didnt know. He wasnt involved. He went back to the press and said prepost w t absolutely not. The nex o eajj j a did. We had over that night. H6mbn and the press never treated him well again. It was similarly jody powell what was going on. He was very close to president carter. And he was part of the dctqc everything considerations on the attempt to rescue the hostages kx in iran. n and one niveh hey were making the hostage rescue attempt. The press got a word of it. Emsb and went to him and said is this happening . T happens. Ojz and he in his own mind said the q same thing i probably 7n have said. I think i would have, that the most important thing here is the 9n mission and protecting the lives of our tro; and i am nol0g1jjur qsra thispkqk no matter what. What jody did is he just kind of fiahp hc hadnt thought it through and he said no. Rlo ] its not going on. a and ive twwsaaa ra wvjph about this, but i remember the very beginning of the administration, and i know this 4mant is going to sound preposterous f z6 ke but you know, one of the things they said, dont eveniz acknowledge drone strikes. Dont even acknowledge that theres a program that does t0l4 like freaked out about saying o something thats classified. Okay, probably lqhat ajd day i was briefing, somebody asked me about a drone strike. Gz i do i have any information xet on that and you know, not going l3 q dn to get into its on the damn nf w front page of the new york 8afd times. Right . B ryn because somebody has reported weve killed six people in a zdy drone strike. Yet the press secretary to the president of the United States ejs÷ is not capable of acknowledging a program in which that even uq2ea [n exists. And ive said this now since i left. I didnt do anything, i didnt say anything about it then. ,5e i wish i would have because you tzb99 qb uaaat haupding up there saying Something Like that while theyre reading the New York Times 1us its sort of preposterous. I have an example sort of like marlins. Nso cf1 o in there to give him political advice about afghanistan, then the idea that they dont know the president is thats the to biggest understatement in the g0 pr t hahp hc world. I said, if you think im going to go, the president s going to go into a threehour meeting in which were going to repeat a dozen times and you think im somebody who sat in that meetingi and say, hey, im about to go brief the president s just been can you give me the fiveminute so i can go answer 30 minutes of questhd v about afghanistan, [ its crazy. Somebody is willing to sign up for that, be my guest. Were you serious . 9,z were you prepared to quit . I absolutely would have if i . Zdm could not have been in that 9e have this you have way more information than you can ever h5;ej euh t hahp hc say. And particularly at a time, i mean, look im sure there was z then and there is now a safe in p gf the office where you have to i2r lock up classified documents, 9d8 you have to record when the safe74 om gets open, record when the safe gets closednia cn theres a lot that youre that you get information on. And i think if you have are n5 somebody who isnt in a lot of that and cant watch it and v 0dh;n understand what youre supposed to steer around, then the whole job becomes sort of moot. Because if 3tot in that, and cv again, its not as if im im sure plenty of reporters will go back and look at those briefings and say you didnt say a lot ;rof about those 12 threehour meetings but you at least get ahr good sense of what is discussed,. The interplay, the issues theyre talking about. Omza2kic ÷ you could bring somebody out to shf do it a general or something would be6;6 as comcrted to v do. n1fno bf uk f8ver but if youre not in there listening to that discussion in nc those probably 30 some hour worth of meetings, i said one izn, af thing. ucu and it was the second to last question and the last meeting after the decision had been made and the president said, how are we announcing this . Made and . A the president said how are we announcing this . And i said were doing it with svvt a, youre doing a primu÷ time speech at west point sir. Thats all i said in 12 meel ; and pie job wasnt to say anything. My job was to take a lot of notes and try to as best as i could, what was happening. If you]s[ a briefing wouldnt press secretary, you wouldnt, capability. Pu1 are two two important things here. O wp okay. Lets get1 k3÷ to those two point things because i want these folks to have theirgly chance. Itsf er not what you,nka press secretary thatg gets you in trouble. N its what r in trouble. And marlin in his book talks about, its hgt a process of information and verifying that you know whatt yz you need toc67uuj r t hahp hc in order tovifwn do the xbriefing. 8 that is critical to the job. But the second thing thats important thats come is that the president has to protect that role of the press sent to be there9 n and tot6 know whats0i a going on and to take it all in. The president would stopijlo meetings and2jz say get old mike mccurry in here becauseu . Press is going to be on ÷uz him about this, and i want him to hear what were talking about. Qjnker t hahp hc and he would literally stopc 1v things and make me come to the ] . Inaetv meeting so i would see what ,a the conversation was about. Q[yqr h u p president who doesnt respect that role is going toj0x screw up thetfn relationship thats important. But theres an awful lotxqo see, now theyre doing to me what i would up. Werera going 9 ask questions here, these two mics on either side are for8 so have at it. Go ahead. You know fcrq, when ford asked me to take this job i made it clear that and he actually, he made it clear that8 sit in ondsj any meeting, sometime2n9opinger,2n was not too happyc÷ about that, but i could sit in on any meeting because ifv c ÷ you have to go to another white house staff and sayb 7 asked an];ec uestion about this or i expect to be y0 ab< t i< oing to spin6p; ouxabv up for their own sakx÷ purposes. Theyre going to give you an answer that helps achieve what theyre trying to s q n not to be truthfulf q v with the press. So ford said you canuyin on any meeting you wantz said kissinger was a little bit more of a problem but i think thats one of the mosti uj u things you can do to make sure youre getting all the facts to pass on tov7 crza because if you haveuxhn[ call up somebody else on the staff and say, you know, i think im going to be asked a question or ive been asked a question aboutz soandso, how shall i answer it, theyll give yr. That helps them you know, with whatever the issue is. So thats why÷ think theh7dw press secretary really needs to have a meeting, daily, with. Fp the in the roosevelt h yroom. Or the oval office. They make big a decisions, and sometimes youre just sittingd k÷ tn0z youre wa4gg 0okky9[i ent it also h educated about any issue. Theres a bunch of things we all wanthj to talk about. jn hahp hc oneufed ofk;j talkzi6v ut is;av favorites . Yeah. You were my favorite. [ dtml÷laughter ]tq [ applause ] lt whenw,z i was press se rbie1n we played favorites;p onlyf0 to giveiahp hc to certain News Organizationsu;jv that we thought wouldw0qc putoeaqc bigger display on a story to try to get it more exposure over time. Exposure or3 just to get the story out bnnthere. T . Give it hdunto,sj5 hey, h usa today, well give youslt an exclusive if q a au put it on the front page because maybe some other people will Pay Attention and ask abouti kj it. Well winaat more coverage. When i was press secretary, there was only onen 8brz in theb White House Press core, helen thomas. You desperately want to qa tell helen thomas stories. Really big picture of me at one of myjb u eb briefings, and u im standing up at theil podium. Andaqq this wide angle shot of all these q there were no chairs in the Briefing Room like this. People sat on the floor and in the windowmy boxes and so forth. Anyhow, andi a helen was always sittingi down in the front you know, and id makehxoa announcements ifdn had and say anybody got any questions . Or i would announce something thate;j q president had done and helen would raise her handy a and say, well zfbyron, do you agree c with with him on that . And my answer was always the same. Imhk president has done and what the president s thinking and o sir and you know who we are and wed love to know who p are. Im jimd i wrotejur a book called lies my teachers told me. You said you dont ld4 of you said you dontkqfy mislead, yet i think that the american < people feel often that theyve been lied to7 read ann n÷ article thatvqz to point out thatx zj oftentimes the people have been lied to whether it was about whatyojp we did inl61e;q1q1 or j6 r cia giving people lsd or more rec q5]÷ nsa9i my names michaelcs my question is for l gyii i was va. nnyyknwondering, what was the hardest thing about beingnj ;÷ a journalist transitioning to a press zl,jxsecretary . Well you know y umq as a simple sort of practical matter i 6 wuay white house car woulduzol pick me up at home at 7 00kilx in the morning. Z y get tojn, . n the office at 8 00. Uycf youifn got a white house car . Lnt you got a white house car . Go m r ÷g imbu, s going to ask the next e53x question. au a6 e. Cut a better dealca than kin we did. [ laughtert ] h ln soy i leavey6hhome ato get to the white house at 8 00. East breakfast there. [ anfnlaughter ] what do you think were going to get23jiwould farm out to get h3n the answers, ande z i would have a meeting with the president atf f 10 00, and my briefing would beu0h at 11 00. Then this the afternoon0nj reporters would wander in and out ofaqt myz]iln office with their ownr questions, you know, and there were meetings that i attended and so. C ey and i would 8 00. And i and he would be asleep by the time im sn w5. X n been asleep in i left and asleep and i would wake him because thats the only time itr would get to see him so you know, thats alrb2n long day. But that was about yiqrvi[ car we want to know about this car. P 7ybody wants to po m about this car. One of the big. X differences is9yn televised briefings even when i was]kixnthere, marlin, you very rarely had my partner to the right f. O whats up with that . Whats up with the televised÷tai÷ briefings . And do you regret it now . I had televiseda the state department. Theyip was the spokesperson back in the iranvk . Xr t hahp hc hostage crisis. And it seemed weird to me, they had this thing that maybe dated back to march lips taftime. They turned on the cameras for the first two or three minutes and turned the lights off, and for me it was ao disconcerting because i felt like tpu down a little after o r wo people came in it wasnt about television,p butn radio. 6 k qi petern]o peteru[ 7d d5 maher, and theyusw said our print colleagues can use alluruv the material they get from the briefing, but we dont get any raw material thatx kn we need from we have to go out hour from thepp, hour and report from thet house and we need sound. We need your briefing. It needs to befy for electronic broadcast. Zuzi hahp hc i said okay. Wellu mexperiment. So we kept o k l6 lengthening the and the the, amountcb u of time. And finally, markj;q noeler came iv youhe know that the entire briefing was televised last, you÷hjk know, 0 if yourgacn makeu2 a big deal about it it will never happen again. And it worked finevy for three years. S f1 om v gdnj 96, 97. ]tq we got into the d ya how did youha 4 get away with not that . Cnn was the only allcableczb÷ channel, and they werent interested in9 vn putting the briefing on. Occasionallyzx something, like when theuy murrah building ble]n up inafin oklahomar city. But thep t aily briefing was thex÷n raw ingredients of v news reporting. We were out9÷x there giving our point of view. We werejdzc answering questions giving our take ono but the reporters didnt think of it as a news event t was just part of what went into reporting on the news. And then what happened was,at x because of the monica stuff, it became its own o9 qparical event, and everyone has suffered since then. So it was a stupidqkkk thing for3÷ me to allow live coverage. I should have said, you can record it, use it in zv g your lates ureqmk9[ you are broadcast, which is the way it happened in the state if they want to have it live, they file a brief and the spokesman has to grant as i recall. I want tovvy0m toyl defense or the other issue. Inte1s one way that wellwvc ÷ im not sure whether it was good or bad in that sense, q8 ua i do know this. Mike2iqw÷lno was the perfect guy to1giv do it first. He was handsome he5 was oung. [ laughter ] l wasltn ib government. [ yvznlaughter . n; ] and post importantly, 10 at a ok time during sc that scandal or it was a scandal. n im pretty sure of that. When the government wa1 really having tadbdifficulties l n when the white house with d n n ulties, mike was that said government is still operating. Its notn eogbbeasy. Impeachment is ngk0;d fun for anybody, but were g moving ahead. And so ijev think thatw z televisionfl7 presence paid off. Jxndn in that g instance. Now since then5o]i we haventyrf d had quite the same kinds offùgj6dzlqbmn situations, althou . nn im not willing to dismiss it entirely because i think there are somehd circumstances televisiondiyyg7 but itzn makes it a lotuqie different ball game and different for the[ d reporters. I think it3jgf was the end] of the printbetu journalism powern,lsz. And we could . c examinewirn allzib n hahat at. Xzpcnkv[ great on n66pnlength, but okay. It was x a complicatedqbnfd thing. Rn sir, and then this and whereix are2lgy jui we . 2 q 1my q thanks very much. This has n been really enlightening. Im patrick wilsonwfaic involvedx the youngun Founders Society here at theq and wed love to have all of you joincc us in the young founders ,n society, but my about something you havent talked aboutd youve mostly been talking about the transmit mode. Almost a,np . n you also served asl ÷ youve already alluded to as internalpp shake government answer. Even when9 they might not want to. And you known hq ery day÷ v i didnt have breakfast at 8 15 at the white house. i we were at a 7 30n meeting. Im x y idding. But when wen of went rto that 7 30 meeting, ther probably in the chieft j of staffs office, and i was always the last one to go because they always knew i had a bunch. ,3yt of stuff. You knew, you haven2 ctegqxn pretty good sense at 7 30 inmm the morningxr szc what your briefing was hsp tajjtjd to be like what your ksn todra c iy bept like. And you know, you start theg process there off9 sure people understand, we read this in the newspaper today. Were going to have to Say Something on. And we dont get to not Say Something on it becausefafn were go o5 n out there. And i literally have been in um meetings where people have saidu1au we dontxb9n have a policy prob n we have a communications l problem. Oh, okay. Tell me what ton svn say, and ill fix your policyxi [uproblem. Or you know youre going to Say Something, and i cant remember how many times somebody would say, it would0 well i agree, but just to÷ clear,p÷y youreg2v that question. Iyiy getting asked that question. And on more1sykoz than a few occasions, you would you youd sit through a f 1 meeting, andi u hahp hc nobody would come to a i resolution, and youd say guys,hh 1 30. u 02 uhp hc so we can do this one of two ]l eaiz ways. Either somebody can sticknhj i. Qcxa here and you what were t to say, or tune in around 1 30 an9 what the mlng4s v is. g÷h remarkable hozlbl quick the they realized, you know, the one thing the is it forces you to have to go out therez even if you dont want to talk classified and theyre hard to talk about. But we5e h have agf z 5c government thatc everan0zzw has to answer thosem questions. And it it, it makes5 s7at q2p are forced. Andhj n if it takesaajn6 the press secretary saying as i remxbu doing a lot,j7h you d qow and it helps though, move thatqp1up machinery in a way that you ptq1csay,c c [ okay, it onlybcc] works hy ifwewwe Work Together and we l give an answerat c thats good. You know, hesm÷ b makes a very good point about . , ÷ part of the jobcxfnrr t hahp hc of being press secretary i mean, clearly partmkxj of the job or most ofm5 c thej2y job is to represent the president and the white house tol the press. But the other part of you. Ma w job is, as hevsam p qaj 8÷ to the president. Now that you guys are outside of the white house and you guys are there, what you 1 can be doing to do a better public . Go ahead. Well, you know iu think journalism has changed. And a lot of 6bjn 60lce i was a journalists, andgp38u i went back to journalism after i left the white house, but i thinkpclb whats happened is, only haveao huntlyilbn brickly showc . Zi13 nd cronkite2 newspapers, they all 6 30 deadline. So if youirn are axkxb reporter and you jpcoveredq mn grae house briefing and it was over]ue at noon or Something Like that, you had the whole rest of the afternoon to do research, go to the files and so forth. Gtp8n with the internet and cablcaluz television, you dont have nhz that. J dsh theres a deadline every minute, and i think that has really content and depth of reporting. And i think the other0 thats changed it when i was at the v4[upi, where i was before imz . Nbc, weux9 r ½uez timeq ÷n we had like twod full time reporters at the pentago63 two at the state departmenc f1 o five on the senate side five on theh housevnc side wee fivereporters at Agriculture Department justice department. You stayed on £ long time you learned all the issues, became expert on the issues. You had all these contacts and so forth, so you could0z9rxyi n really report in depth. Well as you now,lec newspapers aregoz nu election about . Not the one two weeks ago, butv r,n thevqjhmq president ial election gaffs, gaffs, you know . And thats what reporters do because they dont have a lot ofwqi f1 o expertise issues. Let me 2 the first, this is the first and m r, we havent zm yyt i you. Eyr im justuhce interested in how this hasx your work. Its changed1 it a lot. As ron i joined l t i realize itsn 0e an amazing communications hc tool, but i was jn watching a president ial press zf conferen]az i hated to do prhj. Gntialb mm mn conferences in the,÷< Briefing Room mostly of where reporters and the press and it was battle, and i thought, dont bring the president in there, and the president would go into the east to myself, likev. Sr watching then91 q human bubble box the voice box thats h thought, this is ingeniqo you know, like now i know s where everybodys heading every ]svc minute of the day, because theyre tweeting itr but0e and, you know, digitalu cd u1 communications,]m having weekly radio address nowismip be the weekly tv and radio address, is v its also i think jc knocked down barriers in . Q÷n a sense that you jbdai1ephu do and you can communicate in a way that you truly couldnt jh n some argu y. Ezothough, that this administration has put up morevxbwso gn barriers than any of thef v preceding, except jxcyfor, lets say the nixony bpw there are those who argue that i mean, im not there. But there are lgmk look, every white house is,2ob hahp hc every white housecpu tries desperately to control the message that comes ;ua and thats not go im not clear on what this hasb0hac though. Fxq . U the question is that the argument is that people who have covered0nz manylnacekn administrations argues that the Obama Administration has put up more barriers, made more of an effort to control things like ax pool reports, things like sprays. Ly lets do pool. Sib what i6 saying[v ru segmented thac you speaking in h6c president puts up ano1w youtube people like 10 Million People would watch the newscast. Ill say this1xs reports somebody came to÷ me iv ip r t hahp1iqi uq l you who the reporter was administration and said were the pooln÷lg and thenutd people reports are people that pay to be mf÷q in the pool. jv so we want you to,bwud pool reports to thisvo ifferent list. I waspmlny , good luck. And well, what do you mean . Were doing bi this . And i said let me give you a piece ofauadvice. Grgn get an email program to send out your pools and i would say el when that lead reporter says thank you, thats a5o signal to the press secretary that s of what most people would consider a u aa briefing. Sometimes its 30 j njaa sqj its an hour and 15 y. ns i minutes. Its only rooukrae house i think thats not controlled by the white house. D ugt reporters control that room. They control in large measure briefing. I just dont think if youreee wouldnt dependh5 hfe ju poolmy i think 5 w its one ovza< the mosteonhhr t hahp hc shocking v White House Correspondent and as kz a presssz . Hsecretarn y this is supposed too be five or six reporters whoncpyyt7]l7 represent the whole press corpsa because they cant all get into an event. These five or six go write out what they see and hear and give it to]]i the otherd hik i now what role does then house have in that . Nowsk theyve taken h÷ that over and are editing the pool reports. The next thing you know they will ago over to ea the3qs Washington Post and startg w1paingtdthe post. I mean this is a shocking z k a5q9 im not making thisnnh i have a tremendous this is in faqzmto thez tfn white house, andh6÷ dont remember thist issue coming up wheno 2u jitx j n0 a there, but inm fairness too29n the white house, its. ;zdn understanding that the reports are not unilaterallyrm;pbyc edited by spa s[oq hite house, that theres a discussion with the reporter about. Djt changing im not suggesting s right wrong. I just dont want youhb a3 tozin leave you the impression. I dont remember the white house telling me what to pes÷ ind a6 n pool report ever. Cdlnc uz say about it ever. I thinkx69es the3ud. at thing is a solved by the correspondentsy oh having theiluown email n system. Lets take the white house out of it. These are the folksrb÷ who wantiahp hc talk to 34 m0÷va was asked n whatan,ceh5me mediai f . K could do. On start covering the white house as a are fine fx reporters mqh v it as a politicalno;y story, is the president up or down the pollsx ÷ going up or down. Give us more substance. We the people canw÷[aihuj substance, and them mandelson. You said the rolei1n is55 to shake the truth out of the d government hold it accountable. I wonder if you worry that the3cj1whcj[ revolvqxd 6 i uut pev secretary of states and questions, trying to81n get a u ob. You have jay carney, . D÷ tony snow, sector News Organizations afte0qdxl their press secretary 7vaq n ib b wonder lhr that undermines the credibility of the pressr 31bnn scie1n News Organization and what you can doup÷ about it. Anx thanks. Let me just l, that any of thosee1,l people got unnecessary softball questions . I dont 4 i mean, i guess, is the pressea. W 5vts not a question for you8ibzd but for the press corps. Dos you think the press corps in yeah i wish they hadho bbeen. 7tfsz i would say,c5 tch the andtq i guarantee you thatm you will not come away with thehal n impression that somehow josh has beenm1 9] lmov unnecessarily number of softball questions. Fa k i guess they wont brief in asia. But when he comes j to comes week where the president c do something on n you dont have to3 fev listen longx0f jl0,5euj q first five questions ofce 9pg i dont thklaxsoz anybodyp i think as eekcuo are days in which i would have loved towlut but il me rephrase dql5 9mq9uatah ay carneyso previous work in timezaq magazine get undermined as soon as he, in his impartial8gq17l i role at Time Magazine get undermined as soon as he 1 x takes am political partisan tj9u5t÷ job in the white house as the. Udai m ÷ nsecretary . Because; z iq 9 tj if he mak 2. Asdfqyd career adjusp q3u andrbf tj and does that, its very hard to go back the other s3s being a7hddvsq politicali back into the media worldnakbu isk strenuous, as stephanopoulos would m us sainyin ashtiy my old boss tim russert would say, if he were3u[n still here,kf so thatvop tr [urjz is more difficult. I dont thinkkij÷ it compromises andyn also their;t um uq g2 work. Ieb thin3pe]÷ p ex that their thats my take on it. S6snr you get to watchiij ese people, and youphxget to2fiy decide whether you thvndt÷ theyreotf job for you. Yeah. And their feedback onpo that isfdrz constant, believe mes1a5o e when i say. Sir . S[0p nyou. Mmhm. Hi, myh ÷ name is drew kbailey im a student at the American University here in washington d. C. I just6v wantede you guys have had uq h such a widem range of president s if ÷vc ]mvery memorable whether it was something they said that just kind ofn]tvuta d their character and that you will remember for a long time, if you can shareb÷ ron . Well, guessoyjan ive already told my two moments. One was qu the vietnam wabn and the other was announcingn0 n betty fords d breast cancer. Is therepe . W a moment that, i ycvink what hes asking, though, is there a moment that perhaps we did not see, because theres so much we think but little. I meank da rj a fair oatatement, isnt it . Wouldnt you say . I dont know, you told thisnn story on 41 do you want to tellva . Ruu that < the houser÷zy at kennebunkport . I dont know how you feel about that. Two very quickal28 u president bushy 7s called mer to thet÷ said i hair÷ en the press asking you questions about to have 0e5 0s t. ÷ meeting with z gorbachev. And he said this was early ino eg ie the administration. And the pressjo know about this in c days. So bush said to me i want you secretary of state andrf y me know;n about this. And now ty the thirdtau one. u÷ if it leaks,tlsw youre fired. But he alsou know i listen to your briefings,p i want you to kno32 to comeb1houpdr with language that doesnt deny this isyq. Uo happen jt uaq sooner or later theyre going to find outh÷4 that it has been arranged. And that was a great moment for mubj me, because it saidgyr the president sy qn sensitive to my problems and to thez problems of ]f information. The o4 story is when his house burned down not burned down, when the perfectb66y storm hit new england and it leveled their house in d just wipedz c ocean. And we went upcpmgn there the second or third day afterl0h it happened. I dont a]n know exactly how manyx days but it was so sad. 2d]pd the press was with hmd j but they werent with him innkpshc the house. They stayed backnm out of the way. Gzac nh and l411e1n it,]biyo d was son fh through the z. 1shouse, and everything was gone. All the mementos,lpun all t temf hbdh pictures. He found one littleyz picture of his father in the yard. So what do i do with this . And our photographer said8 z let me have it, 3 z ill try and save avit. Andpn and weq all in h thought hes going into shock. Myself and said, will you help n me . We beating thi,bdn rug and there÷ and finally, at the9 n end, i said, can i bring he said i dont want to be here. Hed3i went and left andejs shack or somewhere there. And theyfo0n[mf remains of the house af tu no emotion. K okay. S uxost no story and walked away. I mean, that was really]ufpy city had been turned out to be a domestic terrorism and it was, you know we had, it happened, we briefings, and the president went to Oklahoma City to participate in the memorialv py service. Ia6 that my third child was about to be abfmuborn and my wife was here, and that wasd and, but i rememberpxen watching. I remember in the delivery room and our doctor came in looked at me and said are you boss is having au. T press conference right now . Ky there are ÷xv q 9m about are you stilj6nc relevant process becauseu Newt Gingrich fpvyty tajga yju 1 congress, and in thatc [[ the president also healing and helping the country trauma, m had done an exceptionally good job in that and i had[ru u rq x it[5 . Q ua9 iu u rq it on and heq8ni3 called. Cwlhn t] t the birth of our son. Tickled he was that he the presidency to do somethingp7 really important to help the mean,kt he had done a great job. But there are those moments when you bez6oyknow, they get to kind of, with the49n lig, cameras off, theyja pxaezp to kind of stop and assess about. And i think those are a[ijrare. Jwj and then you get real insight in, you know what kind of person they are at 2u those p moments. Good. Many times ive been cu 4f off. My v9 z names jim burn. Ive covered this town for some 50 years and i was at the briefing. e when the committee for the protectiontc d of journalistsx issued a zc÷very very damning report on the Obama Administrations behavior with regard to the eluam9n and some] in my opinion the worth thingdz . He did from the point o from the ]÷t to vetooothe jvezbt i mean going he didnt. Referring to. cc i3 report or mention that provision. I mean one of÷jp am remindedpj b÷59dm gn 6 with xcai qe early on in the z2o administration. That wu we had to m was a very persuasive case3 not releasing those photos. X½ and why thatqeo would putnc1 h eople in danger and put soldiers in dangelnt have then o ;y reaction of people, even, not directedm at those that were in thetlhzwq photos, but just overall. And we talkedob a little b too much information. Id been in that meeting. And we walked out ofo i meeting,vl deci wr challenging answer here because i know that theyre notb h gt2 be released. Meeting. Ive seen theudixdis3j wiu;hpau r t hahp hc i know why. And i was very, sortn213 ofelling the truth slowly i gave an4au that led everyone make a very different decision. But8a8÷ it just reminds me of those times which, as we talkedn babout g5akmtjua jr t what do you do nontransparency. Some of the decisions andp n 3lt r f1 o definitions are not asu b mgx3gf easy as3a some people mightd transparency at large or those decisionsn8qcn at 2hnwell, thank you, i dont know that the gentleman i; trnn with that tqmciqq fa canswer. But report, . ,fnso. We did talk so60b many things d3÷ talked about including that you were the first figurewj toi1p appear on saturday night live. But well have to save that forr 7 the next session. 4p d÷ [ applause ]h i7u thank you. aiv6nr mmkv nh gp hn . Xcmf cunv an1rxf z8 with live coverage of thezaq7nezuhp hc u. S. House on c lm . 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