Miles away. Lets rate the medias 100 days. They are a disgrace. Media outlets like cnn and msisc are fake news. Take the totally failing New York Times. They write nasty editorials and opeds. The washington media is part of the problem. I think we would all agree the media deserves a very, very big fat failing grade. Those boos are meaningful because the boos mean trumps venomous talk is resonating with his fans. Trumps antimedia attacks are not really news. Theyre the opposite of new. Theyre a copy and paste from the campaign. Reince priebus saying changes to the libel laws are easier to sue news outlets. Moments ago jon karl asked priebus about it on this week. Is he really going to pursue that . Is that something he wants to pursue . I think its something weve looked at and how that gets executed and whether that goes anywhere is a different story. I think that newspapers and News Agencies need to be more responsible with how they report the news. Saturday night was all about the exercise of First Amendment rights, both trumps and the medias. Im wearing a pin that every member at the dinner received. That was last night. Now its sunday morning and theres a new chill in the air. Joining me Carl Bernstein who spoke at the dinner last night. Next to him, lynn sweet from the chicagosun times. Jason miller, cnn political commentator. And Tara Palmieri, White House Correspondent for plitt ka. We wa thanks for being here. On this comment from Reince Priebus, i think its significant that hes saying, yes, we are looking at whether we can seek to change libel laws . This is part of an attitude, regardless of whether theyre really going to seek such a change. And the attitude was expressed in trumps speech last night which is the most venomous speech by an american president that i have heard in more than 50 years of reporting. Venomous towards the press. Venomous towards legitimate political opponents, and it was a road map of a venomous state of mind that ought to concern all americans of good will, particularly republicans. Attacking the press first of all, lets look at how trump got to be president. A lot of the institutions that hes attacking are the reason hes president of the United States, not to mention cable news and the New York Times which gave him great attention that he loved when he was a candidate for president. He doesnt like opposition. He is an authoritarian. He doesnt understand the constitution of the United States. And what is news is partly that republicans who have talked to him, we need to do the reporting talking to republicans who will tell you, tell us as reporters, we have a president of the United States that does not understand the constitution of the United States, who is ignorant of our history, and who, in fact, is somebody we are deeply concerned about his state of how he is temperamentally approaching the presidency and whether he is temperamentally fit to be president. Are you talking about his Mental Health . Im not going to get into defining things. What has he done thats authoritarian . Used the bully pulpit of the presidency to whip up antidemocratic lower case strategies for dealing with free principles of this country that go back for centuries and trying to undermine them through an authoritarian view of policy, of how we look at our population, at how we look at our immigrants, how we look at the press and the First Amendment. You can go through chapter and verse of what this candidates positions were in terms of traditional American Democratic lower case values and what he has done and said as president. He has indeed shifted his positions in terms of real politics on many issues that his base might disagree with because hes been facing reality in the capitol of the United States politically in some ways. Donald trump remains the same person he has been through his whole adult life. Thats the story. Youve heated up a pretty cold studio already, carl, talking about an authoritarian. I know you disagree, jason. Lynn, youre covering the white house in washington every day. Do you see that as well as someone on this beat every day . I see that the constant stream of misinformation that comes out, whether in a speech last night on details small and large, thats the issue and thats the challenge for journalists is to figure out a way to effectively tell people whats going on in a way that is so puersuasive and airtight tha this is the case. Were not even talking about whether or not you like the policy, if its good or bad policy. Even last night in trumps speech, he said incorrectly, everyone whos at that washington dinner is hobnobbing with hollywood celebrities. The story is how celebrities didnt come to the dinner. And if people in the audience even kind of used their common sense which youre always allowed to do, gee, how could he know whos at the dinner if hes not there. I know im being literal, jason, and you can scold me on that, but do take me seriously that when there is misinformation, whether or not its i agree with the points that carl was making about this, but as somebody who has to figure this out every day, that to me is the first challenge. What is misinformation and lets just set the record straight and move on from there. My point is not as a partisan but as a journalist, the things that im talking about are the real underlying story that we need to be looking at and the kinds of things that bob woodward and i talked about last night. Lets play that sound bite from last night, bob woodward and jeff mason talking about the responsibility and the rights of a free press. Heres that clip from last night. Mr. President , the media is not fake news. [ applause ] we are not failing News Organizations, and we are not the enemy of the american people. And that much is obvious, but jason, does it mean the president s winning, that weve got some of the top journalists in the country standing up and saying were not the enemies, that theyre using his language and rhetoric . I think the media really played into this whole Cultural Divide that were seeing and the fact that i think too many in the Mainstream Media just dont understand and cant digest what happened last fall with the election. I think too many in that room last night still fundamentally look at Trump Supporters as if theyre a bunch of rubes and they cant understand not true in that hold on. Let me finish up. You got to let me finish up. The president , i think, is absolutely right to criticize the media whose coverage of him so far is 89 of it has been negative. You see story after story. Youre citing a conservative group only looking at the three nightly newscasts. I got to say that theyve improved because it was at 91 during the campaign, so at least the media he gets up there, he misstates the stat. Brian, you got to understand, theres a broader cultural pushback and the fact that the media last night was standing there criticizing the president look, i love satire and breaking peoples chops. I like funny things as well but you could tell last night there were a couple funny lines but it was so personal and such a twisting of the you mean from the comedian. Yeah, but you could tell just under the breaths of a number of people who were speaking last night how much hate and contempt there was towards the president carl was i wish this president well. He is the duly elected president of the United States and he deserves the respect as the duly elected president of the United States. That doesnt mean he deserves not to be called on a lie. He has lied as no president of the United States in my lifetime has day in and day out. It is our job to look as i said in that address to the correspondents last night, follow the money, yes, but follow the lies as well. This is let me just finish here, jason. Your point about being the whole idea that the media is opposed to this president , the media, quote, seems to me is engag engaged in what i called last night the best attainable version of the truth. We are struggling to cover factually, contextually with nuance who this president is, who his family is, who his business relationships are with, what his policies are, and how those working with him are doing. Foreign policy, domestic policy. Carl, it pains the media to give the president any credit for the work that hes done. Nonsense. You are utter nonsense. This is not nonsense, carl. Let me get to tara. Youre a political correspondent. Do you feel that youre the opposition to the president . I think that we are the watch dogs. We are the fact checkers, the People Holding him to account. Does it pain you to give him credit . No. Actually, i think that his push in the past week to try to make it seem like there was a lot of action ahead of his 100 days was actually masterful marketing. He got us talking about nafta. He got us talking about his tax reform plan, even if it meant that his staff was scrambling all weekend to come up with a plan. He was able to change the conversation. He is a masterful marketer. I will give him that. But we also do need to hold him to account. Thats our job as journalists. What do we do to bridge this divide then if a lot of folks feel, as jason feels, that the press hates the president and has contempt for him . Youre saying, no, thats not true, were trying to do our jobs. How do we bridge that . I would think for the moment thats a big question. Even if we dont have the answer, it doesnt mean that day to day we do what were supposed to do, which is to report and give out the facts. Jason, if you were a reporter and you heard something that wasnt true and you know it from a variety of ways, either a document or fact or interview, what would you do . Absolute its absolutely the job of the press what would you do . Im curious . Would you write a story, Say Something . When the press reports accurately on the facts and pushes back, even if i dont like it, dont disagree with it, thats your job. Im just curious, youre the reporter bear with me. If youre reporting, maybe i would get an insight from you. What would you do, youre covering mayor brian right now. He says something thats not true and hes the mayor of a big city, youre the reporter, what would you do . I would say call him out but get your facts right. We get them right. But take a look lets take a look at the president s address to congress and the coverage of it which declared him in the Mainstream Media pretty much one of the great president ial addresses of all time, might have gone a little overboard. We have been, seems to me, gone looking for good things to say about this president. Thats interesting. The opposite i would disagree with you guys on that. Why dont you go look at some of the clips of the coverage of his address to congress and then come back to me and tell me thats not the case. A story from Anonymous Sources popped just a few hours later to step all over the president s great speech. Lets talk about this. You did this the last time we were together about Anonymous Sources. You have been an anonymous source for most of your practicing life. Come on, jason. Cut this stuff out. Anonymous sources are the basis of most truthful reporting that has gone on on investigative basis about president s of the United States, republican and democrat, for the last 50 years. Again, its based on Anonymous Sources because people like yourself, when you are an anonymous source, do not want to be quoted by name when you are trying to tell us your version of the truth. And i accept that its your version of the truth and i accept you as an anonymous source. But lets not hide from being one if you are going to call out Anonymous Sources. Im going to say, jason, tell us your life is an anonymous source. Push back on that and say if the facts are accurate but when its innuendo and rumor thats being pushed out there, i think thats completely ridiculous. This goes back to my initial point about the Cultural Divide and the fundamental misunderstanding of the press i agree about the Cultural Divide. When you saw the rally last night in harrisburg and saw the president talking about the efforts to protect steel jobs and aluminum jobs, theres a reason why the president only lost Union Households 51 to 43. Absolutely. He connected with those people. Right. And hes Hillary Clinton did not connect with those people and recognize in a way that Hillary Clinton did not that these people are hurting. Yes. And he ran a brilliant campaign. I dont want to litigate the election but to me the lead story of that rally, jason, was the snake. The president reading this poem, clearly lets not mince words. He was reinforcing fear of immigrants, refugees and potential terrorists. Thats a story he told on the campaign trail, but now hes telling it as president. Im going to take the privilege of the host to take a break here, bring every back after a quick break talking about trumps interviews this week and much more. Stay tuned. Well be right back. After becoming one of the largest Broadband Companies in the country. After expanding our Fiber Network coast to coast. These are the places we call home. We are centurylink. We believe in the power of the digital world. The power to connect. And thats what drives us everyday. Itthat can make a worldces, of difference. Expedia, everything in one place, so you can travel the world better. Do you ever feel like every single day is a replay of election day, that this country is reliving november 8th on an endless loop. This week felt a bit like the campaign season. Trump did nine interviews, sitting down with 8 different media outlets, spanning cable tv, network tv, including his last interview of the week today airing on cbs with john bickerson. His p. R. Tour created a flurry of news headlines. Back with me to talk about it, Carl Bernstein, lynn sweet, Tara Palmieri and jason miller. Ta tara, you were saying before the break you get a lot of feedback about your stories. Politico hasnt had an interview with the president since inauguration day. We had an interview with the president to talk about how the team was getting along. Do you find him to be accessible overall . Hes definitely a very accessible president. You can tell that the past week hes been motivated by the News Coverage of 100 days prior to what he said that he doesnt care, but he is very much driven by the press. Hes decided to make these lastminute impulsive moves so that the press is kept chasing after him. He planned to announce at the rally yesterday that he was pulling out of nafta. That would have been the biggest story of the day. Hes very masterful when it comes to manipulating the press. But from what ive heard internally from sources who are obviously willing to help us, they are happy to give us the real story, some people inside of the administration, but they say that sometimes the tone is condescending and thats something to think about. Condescending in your stories you mean, it comes across as condescending . Right. Its a new administration. A lot of times we sometimes we try to provide balance and show during the first 100 of the Obama Administration there was also a level of chaos and during the Bush Administration and clinton liked to do things that are similar to trump. He had a similar personality in some ways. So were trying to provide that perspective, but of course we look at the feedback and what they have to say. He says its a well oiled machine. I think you can tell from the president s organized chaos as they say. Were trying to show you inside and were getting feedback as well. I think the word condesce condescending is interesting because tone also came up at the White House Correspondents dinner. Bob woodward was saying we have to get our tone right when we talk about this president. Have we missed the mark sometimes in the first 100 days . Yes, we have. As i said as well, our tone ought to be rep tore yal, and the reporting should speak for itself and what we do especially is to try and determine what is news. I think one of the principle differences that the Trump White House has with us is they dont like our determination of what is news. I would say that particularly given his speech last night which was not just about the press, that what is news is that we have a president of the United States that is not attempting to bring the country together but rather keeps playing to his base. And the fact of we are covering his russian connections or unconnections, well find out which and what extends to what, his conflicts of interest and his familys egregious conflicts of interest, the fact that we think these are important elements of the news are why we are under attack in part by the president of the United States. There seems to be look, we have, as jason has said, a huge Cultural Divide in this country. We have almost a state of civic civil war in this country because of the deep divisions in the country politically and socially that have been exacerbated by this past election campaign. But the president , the real story now in that speech last night, is the president of the United