Among the worlds most dishonest people. The one thing we have done, we have exposed the credibility of the press. They have the lowest credibility. Given trumps reliance on free publicity and the access to plenty of news shows, including this one, it is worth remembering the joke someone cracked during the campaign. Donald trump complainingbo media is like an oil man complaining about the smell of crude. So this morning, we will take a close look at this love hate relationship between donald trump and the press. I will talk to the editors of the New York Times and the wall street journal. To a group of top media critics from around the country. But i will start with three people whose job it has been to work for a president and deal with him every day of the week as well as deal with the relationship between the president and the working press. Joe lockheart who was bill clintons press secretary in the second term. Nicolle wallace, Communications Director of george w. Bush and ari fleisher, president bushs first press secretary. I asked them about the art of working with a president and what they think we can expect from a president trump. Lets dive right in. All of you have had to move from a campaign to the white house. How hard is it to transition from being a campaign sort of advocate to suddenly the spokesperson for the United States of america . Its a very different reflex. And theres three phases to it, frankly. When you are in the primary, you talk to the party voters. The general election, you talk to the nations voters. At the white house, you are talking to the world. Its a very different need for how to communicate what to say, how to be nonpartisan at appropriate times and finally you have to know a lot of policy, because the job is politics, spin, but theres a lot of policy and you better learn it fast. I guess i would say how hard is it to kick the partisan thing at the beginning of this when you go in when you transiti . How hard is that . Well, i mean, we worked for someone whose top priority after winning an election was really bringing the country together. The first time he ran as a uniter. He came in after the recount which was excruciating for the country. He was acutely aware of that. So he didnt have an urge to continue campaigning after he had won. Reelection was even more so. We were a country engaged in two wars with uneven trajectories at the time of his second inauguration. So there was no resistance on his part to sort of refocusing the countrys attention on governing. I think its an exercise in as a candidate you are responsible for nothing. All problems are made by someone else. All solutions are magically doable. You can implement that. You say it. You just say it. All candidates know that. Then the transition period i think is sort of delaying taking responsibility. Everybody comes in and their first instinct is every problem is the last guys fault. You wake up one day and sometimes its in january, sometimes its in february, sometimes its later and you realize, nobody is blaming the last guy anymore. Then you it gets to the policy and to the fact that this is much more important. The stakes are higher. The words you use, the way you say it, the where the comma is matters. It is a much more difficult job. My boss president bush instructed me, never look backwards. No matter what happened, it doesnt matter. Its up to us to lead. No blaming. No looking back. Its an instinct you have, blame everything on the other guy. Now it doesnt matter, because it is up to you. You got different advice than i got. I walked into the oval office between the reelect and becoming white house Communications Director and he said, are you ready for the big league . This is the stuff that really matters. I think president s realize that what you said, that what happens in a campaign is when its over, poof, it vanishes. But what happens when you are president is permanent. This is a unique challenge for the Trump Communications team in this white house because there is an already an antagonistic relationship between the press corps and the incoming president , because the incoming president wants to have this. I think theres always antagonism and particularly with the president theres no president who ever woke up in the morning and called their press secretary and said, you are doing a great job, i love the way im being covered, everything is fair. Even the criticism is helping me grow as a president. Never happened. Im shocked. But i think theres a real difference is this time to were on opposite sides of the parties, but i think our transitions were really similar, because we shared a couple of things. We shared the idea that the press president relationship was mutually beneficial. The reason people sit down in the Briefing Room every day is because both sides get something out of it. I dont think thats the case coming in here. I think that will the second is, while we might use a strange spin in some cases, traditionally for the last 50 years, weve operated on the same basic fact set. Ari and nicole will look at the facts and i will look at them and we will have a great argument about who is right and who is wrong. Were really in a place where we havent seen this i think since the 60s with nixon where they use they create their own facts. Somewhat or wellian, you redefine the past and you are define pres eent and the future and that is going to be very difficult for both sides to come to grips with. I think theres a different trend going on. Its two parts to it. The first is its a Double Barrel hostility. This press corps cant stand donald trump. And donald trump is happy to return the favor. He uses it to his advantage. He can use it to his advantage because as the gallop poll indicated, confidence in the press to report the news fairly has never been lower. They have lost the trust of the readers and the viewers. This is on the press . Absolutely its on the press. I understand that. Why doesnt why isnt there any responsibility on the partisans . I didnt say there wasnt. Partisans have to a gallop poll which is something the media has to grapple with. Should it matter to the democratic and republican actors in here that they have helped delegitimatize it . We are staring at the trees missing the forest. We have elected a man who bullies female reporters at his rally as an applause line. A man who started a hot war with a female anchor instead of attending a debate she moderated. We are in a new place. I dont think its good. I dont think it has any parallels to the past. I dont think that trump needs the press, but he craves it like an addict craves their drug. The press corps is one of the least re the most reluctant institutions to change. Technology has changed. Everything is changing. The White House Press corps is still largely dominated and defined by the habits of people in the 90s. It hasnt changed much. Lets make some changes here. You could make changes. I have my own ideas. I will wait until you what are some changes in the relationship between the White House Press corps and some traditions you think deserve theres been talk of upending some of them. What would you like to make . Ill start with you, nicole. Im most intrigued by the notion that trump doesnt think he needs or wants to have a protective pool. The protective pool exists so that on days like 9 11, a president can speak not just to his press or to this country but to the world. I think changing his mind about the need for the protective pool, and maybe getting the press to be more inventive and modern iwhat thaprotective pool is made up of. I would make a suggestion for the press. You dont need to follow the president around you dont need to put every word he says on tv and have a story every day about what he said yesterday. Its easy to find that. All you have do is put on twitter or facebook live. Its all there. If more resources were put into not just what was said today but whats actually really happening, i think it would be much Better Service to the public. I would make two changes. One is i would take the briefing off of live tv. Embargo it, and make it much more serious, and make it a tv show where both sides are postureizing. The second is i would democratize the room. Change the room makeup. On monday, let it be the Traditional Press corps. Tuesday, business journalists. Wednesday, foreign journalists. Thursday i would love to put breitbart and think progress right next to each other, and ask questions. And friday polling question day. Let them ask questions. It would be social media day. On friday, go back to the White House Press corps. You will get more substantive. I was the unpopular guy among my tv colleagues. I am i believe televised briefing destroyed the white house briefing. So has mike mcmurray. So does everybody involved. The reality i miss the gaggle. You get more information out of you at the gaggle. Thats when you should go and you and you. Thats why i would take it off of live tv. I would keep it so they can use clips. After ptember 11th, this country needed to hear the live messages from the white house. There is a room and a time and a space for can i stop this. Does anybody think that the press secretary is going be in there standing the room and trump is going to be sitting in the oval tweeting something that might make bigger news or cona tra dikt the think the critiquing the press secretary. I dont know that this conversation will hold up 60 days into the Trump Presidency. The idea that he will be able to tolerate watching someone at a podium delivering news that he thinks he can do better from his whatever he tweets from is an assumption im not comfortable making. By the way, thats something you guys all i think never have had to experience, which is a principal that will go off the reservation a lot and not tell you the people in charge of sort of its his reservation. He is never off, and the staff needs to catch up. With what the staff thinks is the reservation, and the guardrails that they were trying to put up. The difference is probably the most part of having the job is staying close to the president so you know what he is thinking, you know what he is doing. At least following him on twitter. In this case, the president this president is not doesnt like to share his views with his inner circle. Try it there. He wants to share it with the world first. Everything is a trial balloon. Nothing is real. Theres nothing that gets that he tweets thats written in stone, because everything he does is to get a reaction and to judge. People didnt like that, i wont do that. Ats not operative anymore. It does go back to i think the nixon days where poor ron ziegler you are too young. But had to go out and someone would say, you told us yesterday this. He said, yesterdays news is not operative. The real communicator here is donald trump. We are talk staff. We have to see how donald trump handles the huge power he will have as the president and communicator. Theres one other job you have that people dont realize unless you are a member of the White House Press corps and go overseas. You go overseas, were all on the same team. Theres fights that take place overseas when it comes to press access, more in the small d democratic way. Every press secretary has fought for this in different ways. This is something that i will be honest some White House Press corps are concerned, is that going to be there with this team. Are they going to be the protectors of the American Press freedom in china . I remember fighting with some members of our press corps sometimes. And i said when they would get their back up, i said, dont yell at me because when i walk back through that door, im the only person that gives a hoot whether you get what you want before 5 00 p. M. Today. Theres a phrase that all president s eventually get when they look at their spokesman or communicator. It is your friends in the press. Like you own them and it is president is playing you as if you work for us, right . There is a bigger thing here which is you do have to fight for access. Not to get too serious here, what we do here does have an impact around the world. We do believe in democracy. We do believe in a free press. And when we undermine it the rest of the world is watching. When we go to russia, which is always a fight, china, always a fight, on access things, it senda message to the people there that a president of the United States will say, im not going into that eting unless my press corps can come. When were doing that here, thats a problem. One of the little known parts of the job is your desk sits between the front door of the oval office and the podium in the Briefing Room. The press secretary is paid to represent the president. But you also have to work with and represent the press corps. Its a terrible balancing act. I think its harder for these guys. It gets harder because he made so many of them our own correspondents personal targets. One of the things im most hopeful will start is the will stop is the targeting by name of individual journal iist in the room. Because going people dont understand its the one thing i asked of him. Hit the organization, not the person. The people that cover him will wake up every day and go to work at the white house. Thats their place of business. Their desks are under the Briefing Room. People dont realize that. They dont work in a far away bureau. The real down side for the president is, he helped his election bid by undermining the press and having people trust the press less. He is going to find a time where he needs the press to send this message both here and around the world. And thats the real trick. Thats a transition he is going to have to make. Give him credit. He goes around the press and through the press. Since election day, he has done interviews with today, with 60 minutes, New York Times, wall street journal, time. In every one of the interviews, there was the Important Message was, people out there trust me. Dont trust what you read or you see. The problem is that theres going to be a point at which at a time of crisis he does need a press to get his message out. I believe. You guys delivered. This was a fascinating discussion. I will get yelled at by my television colleagues for wanting to get rid of the televised briefing. A lot of fun here. Turning the tables. When we come back from press secretaries to press critics. I sit down with four people whose job it is to cover the people who cover the president. In other words, us, the media. Glad forceflex. Extra strong to avoid rips and tears. Be happy, its glad. G new cars. You smart. You already knew that. But its also great for finding the perfect used car. Youll see what a fair price is, and you can connect with a truecar certified dealer. Now youre even smarter. This is truecar. Welcome back. Throughout the campaign, we at nbc news sent a team of yoger journalists to cover all the candidates running for president and all the states where they were running. It was a 24 7 job literally. If you are a Young Political journalist, there may be no better way to get into the political world. So we thought we would ask them to reflect on their journey throughout 2016. The hardest part about the campaign in so many ways is that its sensory overload from morning to night, theres so much information coming at you. It was nonstop for seven days. A different city every night, sometimes three cities every day. One of the things that i liked best about the campaign trail was watching candidates get grilled by voters in places like New Hampshire where people would just be able to walk right up to them and ask them the most pressing questions of their lives. The kindness of iowa voters was one of my favorite parts of the campaign trail. There was this one time i remember i was at the iowa state fair, very much lost and confused. A farmer came up to me and showed me around, helped me understand where i was inside the pig barn at the time. He said, i want to do this for you because i hope if my son ever goes to new york, someone would be kind enough to do the same for him. My most memorable interaction with donald trump was when i was taken into the buffer area around the stage over a rally during christmas and asked to shoot cuts of the candidate up close, which is a normal piece of being on the campaign trail. As i got up there, i was holding my camera. And donald trump in the middle of his speech turned and pointed to me and said look, here we have nbc. Theyre supposed to be back there. But thats okay. That was probably the most memorable and definitely the most bizarre interaction. One of my favorite moments from the campaign trail happened in New Hampshire as governor bush was on a bus tour. It was in the middle of a snowstorm. Im outside the bus with my camera raised ready to film him. As he is walking by me, he bends down and he forms a snowball and throws it at me. He gets this big laugh out of it. It was this moment that i will always remember his personality really shining through. You cant do anytng about it. Thats not fair, actually. The night mike pences plane goes off the runway, new york city, rain coming down, the plane lands. It veers, started to smell the rubber come up. Its one of the moments where you still got a job to do. You pick up the camera and start filming. You realize, you cant believe this is happening. Having a room full of voters who are there to see dr. Carson at a Campaign Event in iowa, break out in a happy birthday song for me at a staffers direction was one of the most memorable moments on the campaign. You are going so many places and sometimes you are giving up your birthday. That made it special. This was absolutely the best year and a half of my life. Both professionally and personally. And i think what will make it so special is that i probably will never do it again. At least not this way. Never do it again, but you will never forget. Unbelievable group of young journalists. Were very lucky here at nbc. We will be back with our panel of media critics. Flawless. His signature move, the flying dutchman. Poetry in motion. And there it is, the baby bird. Breathtaking. A sumo wrestler figure skating . Surprising. Whats not surprising . How much money heather saved by switching to geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. Welcome back. Lets face it, the press has had a roug