0:00

I'm glad we have Deborah Saunders on today because

0:02

I was decrying the media earlier. Of course,

0:04

I suppose I do that every day if I were to be honest,

0:07

but it's too honest. I

0:09

was tuning into the Trump Hayton channels yesterday,

0:11

You're MSNBC and your CNN, and they were

0:13

leading with the Trump story

0:17

firing the polster or

0:20

in having his rally but didn't do what

0:23

a various aid rumored to be thinking of leaving.

0:25

Yeah, exactly, that's sort of crap, and not

0:28

leading with the And we're sending a thousand troops

0:30

to Iran and we've

0:32

got senators calling for military action,

0:34

which seems like a pretty big story to me. And

0:37

it just it just bothers me that we're

0:39

so obsessed with the daily Trump this

0:41

and that and pull numbers five hundred

0:44

days out, that we don't

0:46

even cover that level of foreign policy story,

0:48

right, never mind domestic policy

0:50

and the gigantic elephant in the room,

0:53

which is debts

0:56

and deficits. As the Fabulous

0:58

Devor J. Saunders points out in a rec piece

1:00

for the Las Vegas Review Journal, the

1:03

headline is the deficit in media questioning,

1:05

And I love the first sentence

1:08

trade secret. We in the news media often

1:10

hate the media to Deborah J. Saunders

1:12

joins us. Now, Debora, how are you hello?

1:16

How are we today? We are fine.

1:18

Let's all join together and talk about how

1:20

we hate the media, the

1:23

media. I mean, that's what people don't know. We people

1:26

can can go after certain news organization

1:28

and uh, they go after Trump

1:31

and he talks about figures. But the truth is we

1:33

hate ourselves to look at

1:35

the people who do things that we really can't

1:37

stand. It drives us nuts. Well,

1:39

I love the example you lead

1:42

with. You're talking about the Peter G. Peterson

1:44

Foundations annual summit where

1:47

CNN Senior Congressional respondent Manu

1:49

Raju was interviewing Nancy Pelosi.

1:51

The topic was supposed to be fiscal sustainability.

1:54

How did that go? Well,

1:57

he hardly noticed that there is a

2:00

funny two trillion dollar national debt

2:02

and we have annual deficits

2:04

now of a trillion dollars or more. And he

2:06

just sort of seemed like in the side, all he wanted

2:09

to do was talk about impeachment, and he wanted

2:11

to talk about, you know, Trump's tweets and impeachment.

2:13

That was it. And people and the audience

2:16

were going nut in Pelosi.

2:18

Now, let's say that we know that her

2:20

party is not exactly the party of fiscal

2:23

prudence, right, and she gets him, but let's

2:25

talk about the deficit. And he wouldn't do

2:27

it. He had two questions it had

2:29

to do with it, and they weren't even that good.

2:32

But it's really disappointing. But the audience

2:34

didn't seem to be into the impeachment stuff, no,

2:38

because this was people were there to discuss

2:42

federal spending. I love this fiscal

2:44

sustainability. It's a nice way of saying,

2:46

oh my god, we're like tons of

2:49

fifty dollars in debt for every man,

2:51

woman and child in the country. It is a

2:53

problem. How are we ever going to pay it back?

2:55

And it keeps getting bigger every year. It's

2:58

it's like giving it to major a credit

3:00

card. And it just was something that barely

3:03

came up. Well. So I've been just trying to

3:05

figure out so whether it's politicians or

3:07

the media, are

3:09

they are they looking at the ratings

3:12

or are reading the crowds at all? I mean, if

3:14

the crowd is not digging it, then maybe that's

3:16

not what you should be talking about if your ratings

3:19

are down like they're on MSNBC,

3:22

maybe talking about still talking about Russian

3:24

Mueller is not the best way to go. I don't

3:26

know what's driving this. Well,

3:29

maybe I could have mentioned that CNN aired

3:32

about seventeen minutes of that lie. And

3:34

of course CNN is all about impeachment,

3:36

about Trump tweets. It's about

3:39

that Trump. So what did Monta Roger

3:41

do? He did what the people back in the control

3:43

room want, and that's Trump, Trump, Trump. And

3:46

I mean, by the way, there is a Trump issue, it's called

3:49

the deficit, but that

3:51

just didn't seem to interest them. It was all about

3:53

the Trump show. Yeah. Wow.

3:56

You know it's funny because we've

3:58

been beaten the draw of the death

4:00

spit, the deficit in the over spending. We're talking

4:02

to George Will just a few minutes

4:05

ago about how

4:07

of what the government does, we're heaping the

4:09

bill on the unborn and how

4:11

utterly utterly immoral that is. But

4:14

man, I just don't think you can get people to pay attention

4:16

anymore. I wonder if CNN

4:19

was right in that decision, because they

4:21

think, hey, we're going I've been hearing about the deficit

4:23

thing most of my adult life. We're

4:25

still fine, We're still spending boring.

4:29

Well, I'll say this. Aimon Javers interviewed

4:32

mcmilvanny later, and he is the accent

4:34

chief of staff for the White House. He was the

4:36

omb director. He knows, he knows

4:38

the budget in and out, and he gave

4:41

a really good interview that gone into some of

4:43

the tweets and and the other issues

4:45

like that. But it also talked about

4:47

federal spending and Okay,

4:49

it's it's a it's a ruthful of policy walks.

4:52

So obviously in that kind of situation,

4:54

uh, we're gonna eat it up. But um,

4:58

I also think tax are

5:00

sort of wonder hey,

5:02

they actually might like a discussion

5:04

about overspending or

5:06

under taxation, as Nancy Pelosi would

5:09

put it under taxation.

5:11

There you go. So

5:13

I think I think, you know, I think people are

5:15

hungry for that sort of thing. And

5:17

uh, and I can tell you that it was

5:19

just what the audience was clapping

5:22

when Pelosi kept saying, oh, a policy

5:24

question, how did that get in there? Then we're

5:27

not going for this. And again,

5:29

I mean, it's not like we can't hear this over

5:31

and over and over again whenever we

5:33

turn on cable news. So why

5:36

not actually discussed the

5:38

topic of the summit, which is federal

5:40

spending? Right? God, you'd think if anybody

5:42

would or anywhere it would be

5:44

discussed, that would be a good place. Deborah Saunders,

5:47

white house correspondent for the Las Vegas Review Journal,

5:49

on the line, old old,

5:51

what's her name? Sarah there? Huckaby

5:54

Saunders taken off? I guess, huh.

5:56

Now she's a Saunders and she's

5:58

a Standard and on the Sun you're a she's a Saunders,

6:01

she's Sanders, right, Sorry, my mistake. And

6:03

the press secretary who wasn't doing a lot of press

6:05

secretary and is gone. Does it make any difference

6:07

that they even need to replace her? Yes,

6:10

they do. And the question is will

6:12

the next press secretary do briefings?

6:15

Um? I tend to think not,

6:17

at least not a lot. I think the daily briefings

6:19

are gone. I think whoever the next president

6:22

is isn't necessarily going to do it. Although

6:24

you know, I could really be wrong, because why

6:26

don't we have briefings? I don't believe it, Sarah

6:29

Sanders for a minute. I believe it's Donald Trump.

6:31

Donald Trump wants to be his own spokesman. He

6:34

wants to be his own press sect. Is there any reason why

6:36

he why why that doesn't make sense?

6:39

Well, he gives the answers. He often

6:42

comes out and answers questions for a very long time.

6:45

Yes, but you can't really have the kind

6:47

of um uh

6:50

okay. So he is really

6:52

accessible. He has pool sprays

6:55

in all the time, and he talks at length. When

6:57

he goes to Marine one, he takes questions,

6:59

but you're not You can't get follow ups when you've

7:01

got a helicopter in the background and

7:04

you can't really get into the kind of conversation.

7:07

George Stephanopolo was, I've had an incredible

7:09

interview with Trump over thirty

7:11

hours, and that was that had follow

7:14

up questions and that got deeper. And

7:16

when you have a briefing, you sort of have a administrations

7:19

think about how things are going to be portrayed.

7:21

I think it does help shape policy, and

7:24

I think that it's times President

7:26

Trump would be better served by having someone

7:29

sort of not gives that pushed snappy answers.

7:31

He gives for the reason something's happening. And

7:34

the other thing, of course, is it's not all

7:36

but unusual for Donald Trump to contradict

7:38

himself within a paragraph.

7:42

Very complicated. Debora Saunders, White House correspondent

7:45

for the Las Vegas Review Journal, on that,

7:49

Yeah, well, Deborah, it's always fun. Thanks

7:51

for a couple of minutes, and let's talk again soon.

7:53

Okay, thank you and

8:00

FO