Speaker 1: So the stay of the unions back on yippy pointless
Speaker 1: exercise than monarchy. It's back. Okay, that's one take. Always
Speaker 1: a joy to welcome Deborah Saunders, White House correspondent for
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas Review Journal, to the Armstrong and Getty Show. Deborah,
Speaker 1: thank you for honoring with us with your presence once again.
Speaker 1: Good morning, gentlemen. There was a huge controversy last time
Speaker 1: you're on. I'm not sure you're aware of this. Did
Speaker 1: it reach your ears? I Joe Getty stumblingly and rushingly
Speaker 1: introduced you as white Horse white Horse, white House correspondent.
Speaker 1: I said, I've been accused of accusing you of prostitution,
Speaker 1: which was obviously spread to the tongue merely my own,
Speaker 1: you know, mush mouthed slip of the tongue. So in
Speaker 1: case that comes up on Twitter or something like that,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to hear it from me. It's incompetence,
Speaker 1: which should not be a surprise. And competence, isn't it
Speaker 1: lack of annunciation? Or here it is? So was the
Speaker 1: White House happy to hear or scared to hear that
Speaker 1: the story that Mueller might be wrapping up as an
Speaker 1: investigation zone you have any idea. I'm sure they were
Speaker 1: happy to hear it, but you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how true it is. I just I mean, we know
Speaker 1: that that that's um what Whittaker said, the Acting Attorney General.
Speaker 1: But uh, there are reasons to think that things are
Speaker 1: going to keep going on for a while. The fact
Speaker 1: that he just indicted Roger Stone, that case is going
Speaker 1: to continue. Now it's possible that that the d o
Speaker 1: J will take over that case. Um, So I don't
Speaker 1: you know. I think I think that the White House
Speaker 1: has always believed that the investigation will not find Russian
Speaker 1: collusion with the campaign, and if it does end soon, um,
Speaker 1: that may well be the case. I'm astounded at how
Speaker 1: long I have to be reminded at how long the
Speaker 1: Muller investigation has been going on. It's really been dragged on.
Speaker 1: What is it? Is it two years? It's well it started,
Speaker 1: Uh the four Mula of course headed it, and it
Speaker 1: started in right, Yeah, that's right. All the congressional committees
Speaker 1: were going over and I heard Devin Nunia's point out
Speaker 1: the other day that they said Roger Stone did not collude.
Speaker 1: They've already figured that out. So's he's thinking the trial
Speaker 1: should be really really interesting, but so deb you hang
Speaker 1: around and talk to people and everything like that. If
Speaker 1: if I read the Washington Post or various other publications,
Speaker 1: they have a story, it would seem weakly of how
Speaker 1: the president's in the worst spot of his presidency and
Speaker 1: now he's hunkered down in a room yelling at you know,
Speaker 1: the gold fishing a bowl. I mean, he's just really
Speaker 1: lost it, feeling the pressure. No friends, um, and there
Speaker 1: were stories like that last week. What's the mood there?
Speaker 1: You have any idea? Well, I mean it is as
Speaker 1: as I said the last time, it's been weird to
Speaker 1: go over there. During the shutdown. The door to get
Speaker 1: into lower press is often locked. Uh, it was locked.
Speaker 1: I did pull this weekend. It was locked the whole
Speaker 1: time I was there. You just don't have any the
Speaker 1: openness that one once saw is not there the way
Speaker 1: it was before. And I'm sorry comes back or not,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to jump in, but for those of us
Speaker 1: who are not hip to it, is that like I'd
Speaker 1: watched the West Wing and the reporters had wandered down
Speaker 1: and talk to the press people and just have informal
Speaker 1: chats and ask him a question, and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Is that what happens down there? Well, okay, so you
Speaker 1: you see Sarah Sanders when she comes out for the
Speaker 1: the the monthly daily press briefing, right, and she comes
Speaker 1: in through a door and that door leads to what
Speaker 1: they call Lower Press, and that's where some of the
Speaker 1: press people work. That's where the wranglers work. The wranglers
Speaker 1: are the people who organize everything when the when the
Speaker 1: press go somewhere, they take care of that. And then
Speaker 1: you walk through some more stairs. There's a secret service
Speaker 1: guy there, and then there's Upper Press. And that's where
Speaker 1: Sarah Sanders office is. Um. She has a fireplace by
Speaker 1: the way. Awesome. Nice yeah, nice and um and so
Speaker 1: so you will see people lighting up there. Do we
Speaker 1: just sort of chat? No, that the deal is that
Speaker 1: you have to sort of They don't like you wandering
Speaker 1: all over of the place, right, but you do. You
Speaker 1: can go out there and ask questions, which we do.
Speaker 1: So then what has changed that you say, is less
Speaker 1: access than you had before? Well, locked doors. For a
Speaker 1: large part of the shotdown, they just and there was
Speaker 1: and the place was not fully staffed, so you just
Speaker 1: didn't see people and there's just seemed to be and
Speaker 1: you know I'd go in looking for someone, there'd be
Speaker 1: no one in the lower press. You go up to
Speaker 1: upper press and the doors are closed. Uh. There, you
Speaker 1: know they were there. They were meeting me. Obviously. It's
Speaker 1: sort of you get, I think, into a siege mentality
Speaker 1: when when something like this happens, like a shutdown, and
Speaker 1: everybody is wondering what's going to happen next. So your
Speaker 1: question is does it come back the way it was before?
Speaker 1: They in kind of a permanent siege mentality, it never
Speaker 1: comes back to the way it was before. I mean
Speaker 1: that that's the thing that that I've learned. For example, Um,
Speaker 1: so everybody's what happened to the daily briefing, right, and
Speaker 1: during the mid terms, the president would travel, which means
Speaker 1: that there would be a gaggle with the president or
Speaker 1: more likely press secretary deputy press secretary, and the White
Speaker 1: House would say, well, we're not going to do a
Speaker 1: briefing because we have a gaggle today, and that gets
Speaker 1: expanded so that if Trump starts talking to the pool
Speaker 1: when he goes on his way to Marine one, well
Speaker 1: we don't have to do it that way. That everything else,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, they're just gone, and
Speaker 1: we just don't have daily briefings anymore. Yesterday's was the
Speaker 1: first nineteen. It was the first December eighteen, and I
Speaker 1: just don't think we're ever going to get back to
Speaker 1: the way the first daily briefing in a month. Do
Speaker 1: you see the term daily's right there in the name. Wow.
Speaker 1: So we're talking to Deborah Saunders, the White House correspondent
Speaker 1: for the Las Vegas Review Journal. You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: so troubling. It's well documented and off discussed that the
Speaker 1: Bush administration became fairly closed compared to the Clinton administration.
Speaker 1: Then Obama made the Bush administration look like you're great
Speaker 1: aunt who won't shut up. And then now the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: for various reasons, is more closed than than Obama's shop was. Um,
Speaker 1: this is not good for America. Well, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: look at I know a lot of people listening. They
Speaker 1: hate the media and they hate people like me. I
Speaker 1: get that. Uh, And and I'm not gonna get on
Speaker 1: my high horse about how everybody should communicate with us.
Speaker 1: I'll just say I don't even I don't think it's
Speaker 1: that great for this White House because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people who want to cover this White House
Speaker 1: and tell the story about what's going on, and they're
Speaker 1: not they're not being given the chance that they that
Speaker 1: they would like to have to do that, So um
Speaker 1: and and and it's just sort of it's sad to see.
Speaker 1: Uh and you know, look at Trump does talk to
Speaker 1: the press. You saw him in the Rose Garden on Friday,
Speaker 1: and he talked extensively, rash. He didn't take questions city right,
Speaker 1: that was another time, the time before. That was the
Speaker 1: time before he did not take questions because of course
Speaker 1: he just lost the shutdown. And I think that they're
Speaker 1: you know, they're trying to regroup, and they're and they're
Speaker 1: trying to see what happens next. Obviously the state of
Speaker 1: the Union will give them a chance perhaps to reset
Speaker 1: or not. Your point though, about how you don't think
Speaker 1: it's good for the administration. It was funny as you
Speaker 1: were saying that, my eyes were flicking down. A list
Speaker 1: of headlines in the Huahwei story popped up, and I
Speaker 1: pictured Sarah Sanders forcefully making the case that we're through
Speaker 1: being abused by the Chinese Communist government and its Lackey corporations.
Speaker 1: And this is why we're in a wrestling match with
Speaker 1: the Chinese. And and this is something the President is
Speaker 1: doing that I happen to agree with completely. Um, it
Speaker 1: seems like a great opportunity to hammer that point and
Speaker 1: grab some headlines. But you know, like you say, they're
Speaker 1: hunkered down for for better and worse. And I mean,
Speaker 1: look at the stories that are happening right now. During
Speaker 1: the briefing yesterday, they talked about Venezuela and the sanctions
Speaker 1: against Medoro, right, and that's that's a big story. And
Speaker 1: that's something that I think a lot of people from
Speaker 1: the left and the right can hear. The White House sport. Right,
Speaker 1: We've got these negotiations with Afghanistan, and uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: amazing how posensible policy could seem. You know, we don't
Speaker 1: know what's in it yet, we don't know how it's
Speaker 1: going to work out, but how much they can seem
Speaker 1: when it's not announced on a tweet. Right. And and
Speaker 1: then you're right, this wild way story they're really getting
Speaker 1: tough with with China in the middle of these trade talks,
Speaker 1: and and and this these are all great stories. Um,
Speaker 1: but there's all I mean. But the thing is, it's
Speaker 1: hard to take your eyes off the Trump presidency or
Speaker 1: the Trump Show, right, the Trump Show. If you're going
Speaker 1: to cover one story in a day, it's hard to
Speaker 1: get to the other stuff when you when you have this, uh,
Speaker 1: when you have all these things happening before your eyes,
Speaker 1: and and and and how Trump handles the shutdown, I
Speaker 1: think is going to really give us an idea, some
Speaker 1: insight into how the rest of the presidency will go. Well.
Speaker 1: In a couple of weeks, we'll be talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the ultimate fruit of the shutdown, I guess, with the
Speaker 1: immigration policy and in the fence barrier wall. Final question
Speaker 1: from me, Uh, this is just a gut question, Debrah Saunders.
Speaker 1: Your years of journalism very few years. You're very young. Um.
Speaker 1: The the the John Bolton's pad with a five thousand
Speaker 1: troops to Columbia, my, I say, clearly intended to be seen,
Speaker 1: I should hope. So, Okay, So for if folks are
Speaker 1: not familiar, you know, the big meaning at the White
Speaker 1: House suppress was allowed cameras and stuff, and he's holding
Speaker 1: quite openly a yellow legal pad with practically nothing written
Speaker 1: on it. But one of the two lines was five
Speaker 1: thousand troops to Columbia and initially have to write down
Speaker 1: because you might forget if you didn't write that. I
Speaker 1: just remembered it here and I'm asleep, deprived talk show host.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's it seemed pretty clear. Huh yeah. You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny because there was during uh something in the
Speaker 1: East wing of the White House where they were discussing
Speaker 1: gun control. Trump had somebody give him a list of
Speaker 1: things to do, like basically seeing sympathetic, and they're all
Speaker 1: those things like that. That was not meant to be seen. Yes,
Speaker 1: I have to believe that this was meant to be seen.
Speaker 1: Good one, fair enough. Deborah J. Saunders is the White
Speaker 1: House correspondent for the Las Vegas Review Journal. Debora, great
Speaker 1: to talk to you. Thank you, Thank you, Jack, thank you, Joe.
Speaker 1: Go get them. So they figured out how to play
Speaker 1: the game. They figured out that the press now reads
Speaker 1: everybody's post it notes or whatever, and so you get
Speaker 1: some messages out there that way. That's that's a good one.
Speaker 1: That's funny, funny. Holding the paths quick and be ready.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Did you see that you weren't supposed to?
Speaker 1: Perhaps you want to write about that. Wolf Blitzer called
Speaker 1: that very significant, very significant. Indeed, wolf Blitzer. Let me.
Speaker 1: Here's Joe Getty Theater portraying a wolf Blitzter brainstell. Hello,
Speaker 1: Is there anyone else here