Press Freedom and Government Accountability

That they think of this as a production.

And when they don't, when they don't like how the production

is going,

you know, they, they kick the press out of the White

House.

Mm-hmm.

I was hoping you were gonna get to that today-

Yeah

... because, you know, I think, I think this is, you know, this is like

th- th- this is how, like, democracies start to fall apart, when

the, the free pe- press gets suppressed by the government.

Well, uh, you, you, jumping, um, right to the biggest story

obviously for us, we, along with, um, CNN and their extraordinary

journalists, and our extraordinary White House

correspondents, and Politico's

extraordinary journalists, have all been informed just by a Trump

post, so we'll wait and see what actions they take

after that. But Trump announced this, quote, "I'm proud to announce

that effective

immediately I'm banning fake news CNN, MS Now," who

recently changed their name from MSNBC, thank you for the brand

update, um, "and Politico." Uh,

he goes on to insult all three news organizations.

But to, to your point about, um, his

authoritarian power grab happening in full view and in the context of

daily news cycles, I mean, this comes after a disastrous series

of polls, including from Fox News, which isn't actually on this announcement,

which

is the poll we led with. Um, stories about Iran, um,

that have really in, in large part been driven by great

investigative

journalists from The Wall Street Journal.

I mean, the, the truth is actually starting to seep in from all

over, and I

wonder what your counsel is for people who,

um, are gonna still be trying to get the story

out at a time when Trump is

doing everything to keep the truth from emerging.

Well, I hope you double down, you and CNN and Politico and other news

organizations, on the accountability part of your job,

keeping any government, this one, the one before it,

uh, regardless of who is in the White House.

You know, your, your job is to inform the American people,

and I know that just got

a lot harder for you. Uh, but I hope under these

adverse circumstances that you're in, you will figure out ways,

um, to, to report, uh, to your viewers what is

happening, you know, inside this government.

Um, y- uh, you know, the- these are, you know, challenging

times but, you know, like my wife says, uh, you know, we, we are up to the

challenge. We've got an election coming up in

40-something days.

Uh, we'll have an opportunity after that election, if we win back the House

or the

Senate, uh, to provide some added necessary

accountability. We can, we can start to address some of the

problems that the

American people are having with costs, costs of healthcare,

groceries, gasoline. Um, uh, we can put

some pressure on this president to, to make better

decisions that help the American people, that are not all about

billionaires and big corporations and the 1%.

Um, but Nicolle, I, I, I hope the folks at

MS Now are not, you know, are not getting down about this.

There will be change. We have an election, and we have another one in 2028.