Consider This from NPR - White House Reporters Reflect On 4 Years As 'Enemies Of The People'

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

President Trump once told veteran CBS journalist Lesley Stahl why he attacks the press. "I do it to discredit you all and demean you all," he admitted to her in 2017, "so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you."Trump made attacks on the press a central fixture of his campaign for president, and of his four years in the White House. As his term comes to a close, three members of the White House Press Corps reflect on what it's been like to cover the 45th president since the beginning. NPR's Tamara Keith, Jeff Mason of Reuters, and Yamiche Alcindor of the PBS NewsHour spoke to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A little more than four years ago, Donald Trump sat down for his very first interview as president-elect. Well, congratulations, Mr. Trump. You're president-elect. Thank you. How surprised were you? Well, I really felt we were doing well. pressed Trump on his campaign promises, whether he would separate his business interests from his new job, and what he and then-President Obama discussed when they met at the White House for the very first time. You looked pretty sober sitting there in the Oval Office. Did something

wash over you? No, I think I'm a sober person. I think the press tries to make you into something a little bit different. In my case, a little bit of a wild man. I'm not. I'm a sober person. I think the press tries to make you into something a little bit different. In my case, a little bit of a wild man. I'm not. I'm actually not. I'm a very sober person. Of course, during his campaign for president, Trump often took a different tone, especially when it came to the press. Most of it, 70%, 75%, is absolute dishonest, absolute scum. Remember that. Scum. On the road to the White House, Trump infamously mocked a disabled reporter.

He said debate moderator Megyn Kelly had, quote, blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. And he barred reporters he didn't like from covering his campaign events. I would never kill him. But I do hate him. And some of them are such lying, disgusting people. It's true. Turns out there's a very specific reason Trump talks about the press this way, which brings us back to that 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl.

Before the interview, I met with him in Trump Tower. More than a year after her interview with Trump, Stahl spoke about it in front of a group of journalists at an event in New York City. She described a conversation that she and the president-elect had had off-camera before their interview. And at one point, he started to attack the press. And there were no cameras. there was nothing going on. And I said, you know, that is getting tired.

Why are you doing this? You're doing it over and over and it's boring and it's time to end that. And why do you keep hammering at this? And he said, you know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you. I said that. So put that in your head for a minute. Yeah. Now are we ready for questions? We're all absorbing what you just

said. Stahl's story made headlines at the time because, as you can hear from the audience, it was shocking to hear something like that about the president. Now, with Donald Trump about to exit the job, we wondered what might change about how journalists do theirs. So we put that question to three veteran reporters on the White House beat. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly. It's Friday, December 11th. This message comes from NPR sponsor, BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers licensed professional counselors

who specialize in issues such as isolation, depression, stress, anxiety, and more. Connect with your professional counselor in a safe and private online environment when you need professional help. Get help at your own time and your own pace. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist. Visit BetterHelp.com slash consider to learn more and get 10% off your first month. Ideas about the history and future of finding financial stability. That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. In January of 2017, there was some notion that things might change after Donald Trump became president.

He was about to take an oath, after all, to protect and defend the Constitution. And the very first amendment spells out the importance of a free press in American democracy. Before I get to the news of the day, I think I'd like to discuss a little bit of the coverage of the past 24 hours. Now, anyone wondering if the Trump White House would strike a different tone with the press got their answer less than 24 hours after he took the oath of office when Press Secretary Sean Spicer spoke to reporters in the White House briefing room. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe. Trump had spent his first day as president

obsessing over reports that the crowd on his inauguration day was somewhat smaller than in years past. These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm of the inauguration are shameful and wrong. The Sean Spicer briefing came hours after Trump himself set the tone when, in his first full day as commander-in-chief, he spoke at the CIA, in front of the agency's Wall of Stars, honoring fallen officers. And the reason you're my first stop is that, as you know, I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. That is how the Trump presidency began. He would go on to attack the press in even more extreme

terms, saying for the first time in February 2017 that the fake news is the enemy of the American people, something he repeated many times in the days and years that followed. Well, now as Trump's presidency nears its end, we have asked some of the men and women who've been writing the first draft of history to talk about what that's been like, and where the relationship between the press and the presidency goes next. I spoke to NPR's Tamara Keefe, Reuters' Jeff Mason, and Yamiche Alcindor of the PBS NewsHour. Welcome, all three of you. Thank you. Good to be with you. Yeah, thanks. I want to start by asking, was it clear to each of you from the very beginning quite how unconstrained by precedent and norms and facts this president would be, and how challenging it would be to cover a president

engaged in, as we just heard him say there, a running war with the media? Yamiche Alcindor, you first. I felt like it was pretty clear that we were going to be dealing with someone in President Trump who was not going to be constrained by the facts. It was pretty clear that we were going to be dealing with someone in President Trump who was not going to be constrained by the facts. It was also clear that he was not going to pick his battles and make them big battles, that he was also going to go for small battles. And that was part of his war. So when you saw Sean Spicer, that first White House press briefing, making something up, saying something that we know was demonstratively false. We knew that we were in for a sort of ride. I will say that, of course, I didn't know how rough of a ride we were going to be because the president later on and the people around him

said that they wanted to make the media the opposition party. The media is a big, I call it the opposition party. The media is a big part of the problem. This is really the fake news. They wanted to overwhelm the media to try to make us scramble and really appear as though we're the adversary of President Trump. Jeff Mason, an opening thought from you. What was clear from the very beginning in terms of how this presidency and its relationship with the press would unfold? Well, I would start by saying I was in the press pool that day and so was there for the CIA speech and then for the initial quote-unquote briefing by Sean Spicer. I put that in quotation marks because he didn't take questions. He just basically ranted at us

on behalf of the president. And I think the impression it gave me and all of us in the pool that day was these are the president's priorities. This is what he's going to be focusing on. It was going to be about some of these petty arguments that Yamiche referred to and focusing on crowd size, despite all evidence to the contrary of what he wanted to believe he had seen. This White House has been a machine of disinformation. But Tim, let me ask you about access. Because on the one hand, yes, a lot of disinformation and canceling White House briefings and busting all kinds of norms. On the other hand, this president has been, I don't know, do you think the most accessible ever? You never have to wonder what he's thinking. Yeah, there is no thought that goes unuttered in President Trump's mind. He either tweets it or tweets it 50 times or says it. China should start an investigation into the Biden. The walk from the White House to Marine One was not a media event until it became a media event.

And now President Trump always stops and talks. You know, it's got a name. It's now called Chopper Talk. Unsolicited ballots. There are unsolicited millions being sent to everybody. The bane of radio's existence. Certainly the bane of radio's existence. It's helicopter chopper noise behind everything he says. The thing is, it's all on his terms. Certainly the bane of radios exists. It's helicopter chopper noise behind everything he says, yeah. The thing is, it's all on his terms.

He likes to have us shouting questions at him. But you didn't answer my question. You didn't answer my question. Because it sort of feeds the narrative that we're unruly beasts and part of the opposition party. He wants the shouting. Jeff Mason, you know, I was going to ask what has been your most challenging moment. And I turn this one to you because I wonder if you and I share one. Thank you so much. We were both at the presidential palace in Helsinki for the infamous Trump-Putin press conference. Distinguished Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen.

How did you think about just what is your job in that moment? Yeah, it's definitely something that will stay in my memory for a long time. He had started off the day with a tweet in which he essentially said any of the issues between the United States and Russia that have led to a weakening in the relationship are the fault of the U.S. So the first question for many U.S. journalists goes to Jeff Mason from Reuters. I believed my job in that moment was to press him on what he had been saying. Thank you. Mr. President, you tweeted this morning that it's U.S. foolishness, stupidity, and the Mueller probe that is responsible for the decline in U.S. relations

with Russia. Do you hold Russia at all accountable for anything in particular? And if so, what would you consider them that they are responsible for? Yes, I do. I hold both countries responsible. I think that the United States has been foolish. I think we've all been foolish. We should have had this dialogue a long time ago. President Trump, of course, made the news there, but I had also asked Putin if he had wanted President Trump to win and if he had supported or directed his people to support that. Did you want President Trump to win the election, and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that? This came in the throes of the Russia investigation, and it was finally a chance to ask President

Putin that, and his answer was yes. It was yes. I remember that. Another just stunning moment. Yamiche, when you have questioned the president, famously gotten under his skin so much that at one point a hashtag, we love Yamiche campaign was trending on Twitter. I want to play the moment that led to that. This is you questioning the president at a coronavirus task force briefing in March. You've said repeatedly that you think that some of the equipment that governors are requesting, they don't actually need.

You said New York might need, might not need 30,000. You said it on Sean Hannity's Fox News. You said that you might. Why don't you people act? Let me ask you. You said some states. Why don't you act in a little more positive? It's always trying to get you.

My question to you is. Get you, get you. And you know what? That's why nobody trusts the media anymore. My question to you is how is that going to trying to get you, get you, get you. And you know what? That's why nobody trusts the media anymore. That's why people, excuse me, you didn't hear me. That's why you used to work for the Times and now you work for somebody else. Look, let me tell you something. Be nice. Don't be threatening. Don't be threatening. Be nice. Yamiche Alcindor, a lot of people listen to that moment, watch that moment, and similar moments where The president has lashed out at Peter Alexander of NBC as a white man. He's lashed out, of course, at Jeff Mason, who was a white man. He's lashed out

at Abby Phillip, who was a black woman, and April Ryan, who was a black woman. I'm not sure if I see racism because I think more than racism is this equally nefarious agenda, which is that he does not want to take at all responsibility for his handling of this pandemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. So what now? Tamara Keith, when President Trump exits the White House, do things go back to how they were? I just don't necessarily think that President Trump walks out of the White House, gets on Marine One, and everything snaps back to the way it was. You know, just because the new administration probably isn't going to call us enemies of the people or fake news doesn't mean that we just take it easy. There will continue to be an adversarial relationship between the press

and the White House. There always is. I would guess that we will not be having chopper talk. I would guess that there will not be as many opportunities. I mean, based on what we've seen from the transition, there will not be as many opportunities to question the president as we've had for the past four years. I think it is going to be different. Anything any of you will do differently, having experienced these last four years, in terms of how you cover the incoming Biden administration? This is Jeff. I mean, one thing I won't do differently is in formulating my questions. I think it's our job, regardless of who's in office,

whether it's a Republican, a Democrat, a woman, a man, it's our job to ask hard questions and it's our job to demand and push for answers. And I think that the last four years has in many ways strengthened the White House press corps. We will approach this new administration with the same vigor that we approached the last one. And I think that's important because it goes to neutrality and

it goes to mission. And our mission is to report the news and to get the facts. Jeff Mason of Reuters, Yamiche Alcindor of the PBS NewsHour and NPR's own Tamara Keith, three members of the White House Press Corps. Thanks to all of you and good luck these next four years. Thank you. Thank you. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.