Worked as Washington Bureau chief for Time Magazine. This is about an hour and a half. [applause] you, itsmust tell unfamiliar for me to look at you from this vantage point. Thank you very much for having us come here. To have an informal conversation before all of you about White House Press issues, s transformation from being a journalist to being a spokesman for the Vice President and then the president. Then we will take questions. The methodology we are going to we will have you write your questions down on cards. And welcome to our cspan audience watching live. It is, as i said at the top, a privilege to be here. Jay, i see that you brought the magic briefing book. We will get into that in just a minute. First of all, was that your aspiration ever as a journalist to do what you do now . And when youre are presented with that opportunity come how did you weight it . And having been a reporter, makes it more difficult or easier for your current job . I will start with the beginning of your question. I was a reporter, as you know, 21 years. Time magazine. I loved being a reporter. Aformative experience was as correspondent based in moscow for Time Magazine during the collapse of the soviet union. Studied russian in college which was the advantage i had that helped move my reporting careered forward. In thecame to washington mid 90s and covered president clinton, congress, president bush. I had never really at all thought about serving inside of an administration. Certainly not as a job. But as you will find, life happens and serendipity occurs. And shortly after the election in 2008, the day after, a close friend of mine who had been working on the Foreign Policy deal under clinton and had been working on Senate ForeignRelations Committee as a top staffer, democratic staffer, working for senator joe biden. N issummer of 2008, bide picked, they win. I am congratulating my friend the next day. That was the first time the idea was put to me about coming in. At the time i thought perhaps it would be kind of exciting and maybe something in the foreignpolicy arena, but it quickly became an opportunity to be the Vice PresidentS Communications director, which was obviously a huge change for me. But a fantastic opportunity and a great, great decision in part because i woke up every morning for probably six months wondering if i knew what i was doing, was cut out for the job. I think what you think as a reporter covering the white house that you really understand , as reporters do, how the white house works, how communications how interaction with the media works from that side, when you get on the other side you find out its not quite as you imagined and its more complex than you realized and there is a lot to learn. I had the great opportunity when i worked for the vic president and a job that was not like the one i have now, a public spokesperson job, to learn with folksreat mentorstors, both who worked for the Vice President and president obama. After two years, when the president was looking for another second press secretary, this happened. Its been an extraordinary experience. Does it make it better having been a repor or does that create hurdles with you about questions with press access, trying to balance with the white house conveys with our neverending desire to be closer or more proximate to the president and Vice President . Better or worse is for others to say. Me more awarees of where reporters are coming from, having been there. I used to sit in the Briefing Room. Moreusly, and then broadly, covering politics, covering what houses. I have empathy, if not always sympathy, and [laughter] i think it helps in the decisions we make collectively. Its not just me. We have a team of people who make decisions about press access and interviews, and also how we describe what were doing as an administration. Let me stop you there. A decision you made yesterday on an interview, an excellent decision. We are still reviewing whether that was such a wise for choice. [laughter] if you dont know, major was with us at an event with Vice President biden. Nature had an opportunity to interview the president at length and the two men together, which is something we had not done, so the first time. That was at a Community College outside of pittsburgh where the president was talking about an initiative the Vice President was helping lead to make jobtraining programs more jobsfocused and jobdriven and connecting Community Colleges and other academic institutions with businesses around the country so we can maximize the potential of our people coming out of college, so they have the skills they need for the best and highest paying jobs. You mentioned there are things you learn once you were on the inside you never appreciate it or sensed on the outside as a reporter. Can you give an example . Sure. I think basically the complexity strategic you medications Strategic Communications was probably greater than i expected. And that there is just a lot more that goes into planning into the future about how you are going to roll out policies and talk about what youre doing and deal with all the incoming. I think when you are covering it, you sort of think about maybe this is not true for you, but i think about the communicators in the white house , the administration or other institutions come all they do is respond to questions, but there is a lot more to it than that. I learned a lot and continue to learn a lot from the most competent and passionate people you will ever in counter. That you will ever in counter. And just the diversity of the media, as a representative of Traditional National media organization, Time Magazine, i was suffering from a myopic perspective where i had a very National Media perspective and traditional media perspective on how the interaction between elected officials in washington and National Figures and the rest of the country operated and should operate. What we found, for a couple reasons, what i discovered, is people get their news in a variety of ways, and Regional Media is still hugely important. Any president or white house that doesnt pay great attention to that is missing a huge opportunity in terms how to reach americans out there. And also something that has sinceed explosively president obama took office, but it was obviously happening before he took office, par his campaign in 2008, the diversification of media, the advent of social media and how andrives News Coverage turns everything into kind of a warp speed interaction between events, coverage, reaction, and i think it makes the job i do the job that our team does, the Communications Team in the press office, it makes it a lot different from what it was when i first covered the white house in president clintons first term. And even the second time i came back and cover the white house, president george w. Bushs first term. The world has changed quite a lot. Let me ask a couple things about the social media aspect of communications from the president. You and the white house were very pleased with the between two firms interview with the president. It would be inaccurate to suggest that people in the white house have not done things of a similarly informal or conversational way. Richard nixon was on last minute as a candidate in 1960 eight, bill clinton famously showed up on the arsenio hall show. Does the presidency as an institution in any way become diminished as something as kind of a sendup hes . A sendup piece . That is the first question. The second one come yesterday, coming back from the event in oakdale, pennsylvania, the president and Vice President ok selfie in the back of the beast the president ial limousine. That suggests a ubiquitousness of the president and the social media universe. Any of those things as over saturating the public, the president making his constant presence on social media . Is that something you worry about or try to drive . And talk about how you probably anticipated the reaction from the fuddyduddy media me and what you actually found in the real world. Question, irst think saturation would be a firstclass problem we dont have. The fact is the president could come here today and give a speech covered by cbs, all the cables, everybody, and most americans wouldnt even know what happened. Thats just a fact. They certainly wouldnt see it or hear it. They might come if they watch the evening news, see 30 seconds of it, maybe. Maybe. You know how it works. Most speeches you guys dont even put on the evening news. Even the cables dont necessarily carry them live. And then they will get covered, maybe on the inside if at all, the major newspapers come original. Which is not a critique of the media. Whereust a statement of we are and the media environment of anybody who is trying to break your has to deal with. You have to find ways to communicate, to reach people. When it came to the decision to showe between two phones with zach galifianakis, we obviously look at ideas and we have some ideas we dont take please name one. [laughter] but i think there is an advantage to pushing the envelope. Did they approach the white house or did you approach them . There was a conversation about wanting to help and do something. It was their idea. It was presented to the president. He has pretty good compass on his own. The ability to judge what is right for him. But he also has faith in his team. We knew there was some risk associated with it, but it was also a smart thing to do. Im hoping that almost all of you solve this, but the numbers would suggest you did, but we were trying to reach you. Diepeople watch funny or and the between two phones interviews in your age group than the evening news or the morning shows. It was an opportunity to get that message out and talk to young adults about the need to enroll in health insurance, the wisdom of having health insurance, the fact that none of you are invincible, though some days you probably feel like you are because you dont have the aches and pains that major and i do. But, obviously in retrospect, we all think it was a brilliant idea. It worked. And it also worked it worked in what metric . In terms of reaching people and getting a lot of views and clicks. We also have metrics that show that it drove a lot of direct traffic to healthcare. Gov and contributed to some of you some of you may know, a huge surge in enrollment in march. You probably know less about that then how bad it was in october, but the good news does not get the kind of coverage bad news does. It worked, and it also worked because we asked the president because we knew he would be good at it. You have to understand when you are doing these things, you have to have the right principle, if you will, somebody who can pull it off. We were confident he could, and he did. And his team, zach were fantastic doing it, but what it wasnt and never was presented as was a Political Interview with the media. I remember we had some discussion during 2012 about, well, is it appropriate for the sitting president and candidate to give interviews to john stewart and others. The answer was yes, again, because the young voters are more likely to watch the the daily show than some other news shows, but also i think if you look back at 2012 in the series of interviews the sitting president of the United States probably the most subsequent interview he had was jon stewart. It was with the anchor of the daily show. What does that tell you . Uh [laughter] i think you all should examine it and write about it. I think its a broader discussion about where the traditional media are today. Its also a reflection of the fact that somebody like jon stewart is a very smart, sophisticated, good consumer of an percent are of the news. He presents it in a way that young eyeballs, which is what were looking for. The ubiquity of social media . I wish we were ubiquitous. What were you trying to tell people with a selfie in the back of the president ial limo . Well, which im sure it is. I think the purpose of that is the same as the purpose of a photograph of the president and Vice President that might have been released in the 1940s or 1970s or 1990s. Including a casual one as opposed to a stiff meeting. But it is translating that into the way that pictures are taken and distributed in 2014, as opposed to the way they used to be done. I think it also was a great way to show you know, i was not in the limo when they took that picture. That photo capture the relationship, which is an amazing relationship. Of twore men generations, remarkably different backgrounds and experiences who have forged a very powerful working relationship and partnership, but also a true friendship. I think what appealed to me about that photo when i signed off on it was it seems so real. Did you think for a moment how Hillary Clinton might react to it . No, not for a minute. [laughter] spend the press, we dont a lot of time picking about 2016. Im sure thats true. Talked to us about the briefing book. I will confess something that im probably sure other reporters have told you, sometimes we feel there is something less spontaneous when we are questioning. Having you read from the briefing book. As you know, we sometimes go back and forth at you, to try to pull you out of the contours of what is in the briefing book and do everything in our power intellectually and persuasively and every other way to get you off the talking points and Say Something more revealing about whats happening within the building or the administration. How are you doing with that . [laughter] i would say lukewarm success is probably the best i have ever achieved with that. How is that put together . Why do you sometimes have to parameters,those and do you even flirt even momentarily with the notion of jumping outside the lines of whats in the briefing book . A few things about it. The briefing book exists because on any given day this is yesterdays i could be asked, this is just a compilation of subjects that i might be asked about, based on what we are getting in terms of incoming questions during the day, what is the news of the week. There are probably 60 subjects here. I think i have a pretty good imntion, and yet i know not going to remember everything about what our policy positions latest all the incremental developments on a particular news area or subject. So it is basically there for me to refer to if needed if i get a know, thebout, you plane in malaysia. I have not talked about it in a few days. I may have had a brief verbal update on it in the morning, but there may be specifics about what kind of assets from the Defense Department we are deploying that im going to have to look in the book to find. You have the exhaustive potential list defensively, just so you are prepared yes, a matter of being prepared. There is a little percentage i would imagine of the things you have there that we ask on. Well, when you say percentage, i would say, you the, some days all of questions are on subjects within here, but it could just be two subjects. Even though my briefings last close to an hour, if it is a grab bag day and there is not anything or any subject or set of subjects that are driving the news, i could get 20 different subjects in a briefing. What often, as is the case the day before yesterday, i think, i think 80 of the briefing was ukraine, and in many ways the same three questions posed differently. Thats because ukraine was driving the news. The other thing there are subjects because they are alive everyday, the Affordable Care act, economic issues, development, ukraine, havekind of stuff that i and i can speak comfortably about in terms of discussing where the president is, new developers, what our objectives are. And you will see that i will open the book less on things like that. If there are things, specific things i need to say, and this can be especially true with National Security, or the wing which sometimes has to be very precise where the light which has to be very precise, i will in order to be precise consult the book. That will not be on every subject, but it will be an objective on a particular issue i want to achieve, and the language can be especially on Foreign Affairs very important in terms of what you are telegraphing to allies were opponents allies or opponents, and what you are not. That is one of the purposes of having the briefing book. Lets go to a recent example. Monday we asked about something that i think more than half of us did not think you would necessarily be able to confirm, john brennan, the cia director, was in kiev. Typically when we ask a question like that, it is we dont discuss the travel plans of the cia director, check with the agency, a brushoff. But internally you made a decision to communicate that, confirm it, and push back on whatever russian characterization had been made of it. Walk us through that process. Its true that we dont of the the travel director of the cia as a rule. In this case it had been pretty wellpublicized he had visited. So you do, and making decisions like this, sometimes we have to conceding the record what Everybody Knows or acknowledging what Everybody Knows. But the broader purpose of doing that was to point out that the russian response to that and attempt to use that as something that it wasnt, it needed to be knocked down, in the same way that some russian government officials have said lately about events on the ground in ukraine have been fictional, fabricated. The kind of sort of heavyhanded propaganda that you used to see at a time long since passed in the soviet union. So that was the reason. Needed to there, we explain what was and wasnt. Services,ntelligence ours and others, meat and travel all the time. It was just an