Really excited to dive into is how journalism is dealing with this issue, how journalists are trying to cover a story that is unprecedented. Here is how the conversation will go. The first half of the conversation, our guest and i will just have a conversation between the two of us. Halfway through we will start taking your questions. For those of you who are members of the georgetown community, you will see a q and a button. Halfway through we will start taking them. We will let you know when your question has been collected and bring you onto the screen to ask your questions. Ake sure you are tv ready. You can ask chris your question directly. Tell us whether you are a student, staff or faculty and they sure to keep an eye on the chat at the bottom. That is where we will let you now. For those of you that know me, you know my side gig is as a fox ews contributor. I have known chris for a few years now and am a summit semi regular guest on his program. It is intimidating preparing to be interviewed by one of the best interviewers in the business. It is more intimidating to interview one of the best interviewers in the usiness. So chris, tried to go easy on me but thank you for joining me for this conversation. Chris i am delighted to be here. I hope i am tv ready myself. O you look great. Chris thank you. And you are a regular panelist on Fox News Sunday. You are a panelist this sunday. How you are treated on sunday is directly related to how i am treated tonight. But go ahead. Mo i was hoping you would not notice until after this. Hris i noticed. Mo of course you did. The institute, we believe very, very strongly that journalism is one of the most important forms of public ervice in our society. I think this Current Crisis we are going through is the perfect evidence of that where so many people are touched and impacted. Everybody is impacted and they are trying to get information and they are turning to you or your colleagues to figure out what is happening. You have been in the business a long time and covered it all. Politics, president ial debates and international conflicts. Have you ever covered anything like this . Chris no, and i dont know anybody unless you are around in 1917 has lived through this. Most of us were lucky we did not live through world war ii. When i look at seminal events of my life, the most frightening was 9 11 and the sense at that time things were out of control. And we didnt know. And obviously, there was the first day, 3000 americans killed. There were the anthrax envelopes and concern about whether there would be more hijackings, chemical or biological weapons used against us. Because of a lot of good work by people in government, there were not more terror attacks. Or certainly nothing on that scale. We have never had a pandemic like this that hit the United States so directly. There have been other pandemics that hit other parts of the world. Forget about being a reporter or in Public Policy. I have never lived through anything like this. I have a second home in annapolis. Hat is where we are now. We havent left the property except to drive in a car but not get out for a month. My wifes birthday took place during this period. We did a zoom call with our family. We had easter. How many times do you have to wash your hands walking down this country road we live, to have a mask ready. We get some person that works for us my wife and i are sitting and diseffecting disinfecting no. Ive never lived through anything like this ittleknown had to report. Mo it seems to me one of the challenges of trying to cover a story like this is how little we know about what we dont know even. And it is not just the public and it is not just you as a journalist but even the experts you would normally go to our trying to figure it out in real time as we go. At the 3000 foot level, how do you cover Something Like that where nobody, the number of answers that we wanted versus the number of answers that are available, how do you try to cover that . Chris you have to rely on people that know as much as they can know. I agree with you on a lot of students will not remember this, but after 9 11, Donald Rumsfeld was the secretary of defense and used to about known knowns and nown unknowns. There is a lot we know we dont know. You want to go to experts. We have been trying as often as we could to get anthony fauci, the head of an Infectious Disease i was reporting on him when he was involved in the aids epidemic of the 1980s. E convinced Ronald Reagan at the time to come out and talk about aids as an epidemic and not something affecting a small community. He has been a real resource. Another person i was very impressed never met or talked to him, but i was impressed by his coverage was tom i think. Sby, his coverage was tom hegels be, the center for Health Security at johns hopkins. They have a lot of data and he has been one of the leading voices. In terms of what we know and dont know, you know it is very helpful. It is interesting how the story has evolved as a reporter. In the beginning i have no atience first been or any patience for spin. Hat are the facts . Was interested as possible in trying to get things from dr. Fauci or dr. Ingles be. We did a big interview on the first weeks with bill gates who is not a doctor but has been involved in Public Health for 20 years and devoted billions of dollars to Public Health and has made himself into an expert. We did an interview the first week, the 29th. That was very useful. I thought he was excellent in providing information. Interestingly enough, i think the story and frankly to my dismay has become more political as time has gone on. You would agree. It has become kind of tribal. You see people saying no. We have got to stay sheltered. It is too soon. You see protests saying we have got to open up. We saw thousands on the steps of the state capital in harrisburg, pennsylvania yesterday. A lot of that is trapped with political divisions. Liberal, big city, close together people taking one point of view on this and more conservative, people in less Populated Areas taking a ifferent view. Unfortunately but as a reporter you cover the story that is there, not the one you would like to be there. With the protest i thought we had the switch to cover more of that because it has become a bigger part of the story. We had mike pence and nancy elosi on the show. Listening to the two of them it was like they were describing two different worlds in terms of he threat for the virus, preparedness of the federal and state governments in handling it. It has become part of the story now. I want to come back to reality and facts of where we are on the famous curve. The way people are responding to it is part of the story. O it is interesting because there is so many dimensions. There is Public Health, there is the human dimension, the stuff happening in the hospitals and then the response, local and federal. It seems the attention right now is going into the last part on what is the governmental response that i think a lot of reporters are trying to make sure we dont lose sight of the human element. It is getting all consumed by the story over the federal response and increasing Politics Around it. Chris i agree with everything you said. There is one other aspect which is a really important part and that is the economic. When you get 22 million americans filing for Unemployment Benefits in a single month, when you see we will have a doubledigit Unemployment Rate for march and april. For the Second Quarter april through june we could have a gdp contraction. Usually it goes up 1 . Or 2 or 3 . They could go down 25 . That is an important part of the story because frankly, and this gets into the political question, it becomes a class question. I can sit here and pontificate in my shelter in place country home in annapolis where i broadcast. Here i am on the zoom in on my show i am doing it for a from a virtual studio but a lot of people you cant do either cant, have to go out into the real world and take the subway or have lost their jobs. On one hand Public Health is important. Obviously it is the most important because if we dont get that right, we will never get the economy right, but i dont dismiss any stretch of the administration the administration there are a lot of people if this goes on too long they will lose businesses and her livelihood and month and not be able to pay for their apartment. That is a huge part of the story. Mo we try to balance all of these differing elements because there is a tension between the economic part and the Public Health part of the story. That tension is driving the political story and Public Policy part of the story. Seems to me too often, in some parts of cable news ecosystems, that is being presented as a tension. How do you asked journalists try to provide the whole story in a way that connects them . Chris you cant provide the whole story. I do a lot on commentary on the network. I do one hour and a week. The story does evolve over ime. Sometimes, different weeks, you know, it was mentioned i have been doing this half a century. 51 years starting in the i have. Summer. You have an innate sense. Of the what the story is. In the first early weeks it was all Public Health. That was the only thing thatas time went on i thought the mattered. Economic side became more important. S she sthelt and the complete shutdown of the economy deepened and broadened, you can feel it in your bones that is the story. This past week i thought it became more political and we have led with the protests. It is not like that is good or bad or responsible or irresponsible, it is. You have to have an innate sense of what i think the story is and what is the most important thing to be talking about. And, you know, that doesnt always mean its the most important thing in the whole story. I think clearly, Public Health remains that. But as time goes on, there is only so much you can say about where we are in the curve or where we are the testing and there are other parts of the stories that come to the fore. So, you know, its kind of a rolling thing. You dont have to cover all of the story in each hour. You hope that over the course of weeks, youre covering various shades of the story. Mo i want to take a step back from a particular story and talk a little bit more about and then ill bring it back but talk a little bit more about covering Politics Today and covering this administration. Ive heard you speak a couple of times now, most recently back in december the farewell to the museum here in washington. Talking about journalism today in this day and age, and you make two points. Im going to separate each one out and id like for you to respond to them both. The first, you said President Trump is engaged in the most direct sustained assaulten the free press in our history. And i think his purpose is clear. A Concerted Campaign to raise doubts over whether we can be trusted when we report critically about his administration. We have seen even before President Trump that trump in the media has been a rodent. That seems to be dangerous particularly a moment like this. Do you think his continued attacks on your profession makes it harder when the information youre giving people can legitimately mean life or death or prosperity or not . Chris well, i suppose, you increases and st mistrustin creases, it doesnt make your job harder to do. It makes it harder for you to break through to some people. Incidentally, i hate it when im quoted to myself. But its true. Its like the closing of the museum and i said that and i stand by it. I think the president is engaged in the most direct result on our free press on our history, i got some emails back from some people that said wait a minute. What about john adames and the sedition act and i said ok. I wasnt around for that. I wasnt there. I stand corrected about john adams. But, you know, i guess i was really talking about in my lifetime, which is considerable, and i do think so. And i think as i suggested that its somewhat cynical because i think the president feels if i can discredit the press, then i can discredit them with my supporters, then when they criticize me or when they report critically or negatively about things i did, then it loses some of its credibility with those supporters and perhaps with some other people. So i think its a calculated effort on his part. The fat that he tweets he made the last two sundays hasnt gone unnoticeded and i said this he can tell that they were reaching out and the third or fourth time he does it, it loses its sting and this is about the third or fourth time hes attacked me and i was thinking what was he attacking the more . A week ago sunday, he was attacking me that the because the New York Times have done a very thorough and interesting piece about all the information that the president got much earlier than he had indicated that he was getting intelligence from the Intelligence Community in january and information from a number of Public Health people in late january, early february and this had gone unheard or unnoticed, it had gone unacted on and it wasnt until mid march that he declared the emergency. Well, i was asking some people about it and apparently the fact that i even asked about it was offensive. And then this last week, it was en more clear because he attacked nancy pelosi and then he said that i and fox were on the wrong path. And i thought so what hes basically saying is the fact that i had a voice at the opposition on the show, our first guest was the Vice President. Our second guest was nancy pelosi, and the very fact that i was talking to a critic was a istake, and then he says yeah, you have to say. Mo the very next paragraph, you say even if trump is trying to undermine the press for his own calculated reasons when he talks about bias in the media, on fairness, i think he has a point. Talk about that a little bit. Chris yeah. I think that the president s aggressive attack on the press first of all, i think in a lot of the media, that there is a liberal slant. So when the president talks about a liberal slant, i think that hes right. I think in a lot of fox news, there is i dont think in the news side, but a lot of fox opinion has a conservative slant. And so i think to some degree, you know, its like, you know, as i think ive said even hype karon yaks even get sick. Hype con tracks even get sick. It is a somewhat slanted press but the more important point i was making was that i thought that some in the media had used the president s attack as an excuse to attack back to really down some of the levels of objectivity to become adversaries for the president. There are a lot of things does that the president does in the white house briefings that im not particularly comfortable with that he does but theres a lot of arguing with the president. Not asking questions but arguing with the president in these briefings and of course now you get to see how the sausage is made because these briefings are on live for long potts. Where i really think periods of time where i really think sometimes it isnt reporting or testing which is something i try to do as a reporter, i think its advocacy or arguing, i sometimes think the fact goes over the line. Let me make one more point if i can. I think its a mistake because to the degree that were seeing as players on the field, i think we undercut our own credibility of people watch us doing our job and they dont think i mean, im a tough interviewer and i like to think if you watch my interview with pence on sunday and with pelosi, i was tough on both of them but some reporters think im so bent on beating the president on winning the argument that i think they undercut their own credibility and to the degree that they end up playing his game either combatant or theyre a combatant. Theyre undercutting their own credibility. Mo in the hard lain feed though, again, using this Current Crisis as an example, the information thats coming from the podium is not right or questionable or different than it was the day before or even moments before it sometimes, here is that line for a good girl journalist to push back and get the facts versus falling into more advocacy . Chris well, you know, its a good question and i dont know if i can give you a precise answer. I certainly dont have any problem with people factchecking. If the president says we got enough test for everybody and you want to come back and say well, you know, Governor Cuomo says they dont have the tests or in a variety of places, people have gone for weeks without having tests. I dont have any problem with that at all. You know, there was a famous obscenity case, i think it was in the 1960s and Justice Potter stewart of the Supreme Court said i cant define obscenity but i know it when i see it. And thats how i feel. Im not sure if i can say its precisely this line. Theres a difference between challenging and arguing. Theres a difference between an adversary in the sense of being an adversary establishment. The press is an adversary of the establishment and being an advocate. I dont think i can define it but i know it when i see it and i think a lot of people do too. Mo were going to move to student questions in a few moments. So i just encourage those students who are watching again, to look at the bottom of your screen and click on the q a button to start submitting your questions if you havent design so already. Chris, there are two interesting polls that came out today, that showed that peoples attitudes towards various elements of the coronavirus story are informed in large part by where they get their news. And that goes from everything from the federal response to how fast we should reopen the economy to, you know, even how serious the problem even is. And its interesting that you have them in different parts of the spectrum and viewers who get their news from the three broadcast netwo