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At Odds In The Briefing Room

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No cameras allowed. Dueling press secretaries. Briefing blow-ups. We’ll look at the increasingly fraught relationship between the White House and the reporters who cover it.

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders talks to the media during the daily press briefing at the White House, Monday, June 5, 2017, in Washington.(/Andrew Harnik/AP)
White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders talks to the media during the daily press briefing at the White House, Monday, June 5, 2017, in Washington.(/Andrew Harnik/AP)

It's been fireworks in the Trump White House press briefing room right from the start. Donald Trump savaged the press on the campaign trail. As president, he went after the press as "fake news" and "enemy of the people." His briefers say they can't catch a break from the news media. They've shut down cameras and microphones. Attacked and attacked. This week, it's really blown up. This hour On Point: What is going on with the White House and the press? -- Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Brian Karem, White House reporter who sparred with Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a recent White House press briefing. Contributor to Playboy Magazine. Executive editor for Sentinel newspapers in Maryland.  (@BrianKarem)

Margaret Talev, senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg. Vice president of the White House Correspondents Association. (@margarettalev)

Major Garrett, chief White House correspondent for CBS News. (@MajorCBS)

Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, 2001-2003 during the George W. Bush administration. (@AriFleischer)

From Tom's Reading List

Playboy: We Stood Up to the Administration Today Because Free Press is Crucial — "The fact is: I like Sarah Sanders. I like Sean Spicer. I like most of the people I’ve met who work in this administration. They’re personable and, as far as I can tell – with a few notable exceptions – decent people. But I don’t like bullies and I don’t like the entire institution of the press and free speech being castigated for no other reason than we either get stories wrong – which happens, and it should be then responsibly corrected – or because we report news the president doesn’t like – which seems to happen even more often than getting stories wrong."

New Yorker: Is Trump Trolling The White House Press Corps? — "In normal times, White House press briefings make for boring television. Robert Gibbs, Jay Carney, and Josh Earnest, the three generic-looking white guys who served as successive press secretaries under President Barack Obama, could walk unmolested through the streets of most American cities. Only on rare occasions was a clip from one of their briefings—for example, a testy exchange between Carney and Jonathan Karl, of ABC News, debating the logistics of Obamacare enrollment—remarkable enough to make headlines."

The Hill: Former WH press secretaries: End live daily press briefings — "Two former press secretaries to Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton said on Wednesday that the White House should embargo all video from press briefings for later use, preventing the video from being broadcast live. Ari Fleischer and Mike McCurry issued identical statements on Twitter Wednesday morning that they support 'no live TV coverage of WH briefing. Embargo it & let it be used, but not as live TV.'"

This program aired on June 29, 2017.

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