Patrick 1
Joseph Patrick
Ling 2761
Performance of Alignment and Style in a CNN Panel Discussion
Schegloff (1982) argues that discourse should be treated as an ‘achievement’ or, in his words “something ‘produced’ over time, incrementally accomplished.” This perspective of discourse is one that emphasizes the interactional nature of conversation, as something created between participants, rather than something that is produced from speakers whole, through linguistic parthogenesis. It is during these cooperative interactions that linguistic phenomena such as alignment (Stivers, 2008), stance (DuBois, 2007; Kiesling, 2009), conversational style
(Tannen 1984; 2005), as well as repetition and other linguistic devices (Tannen, 1989) are embedded into a discourse and are inscribed upon speakers as a kind of pattern of linguistic behavior, style, identity, et cetera. In undertaking an analysis of natural language discourse, this paper follows Schiffrin (1987) in setting certain key assumptions about discourse and language, those being that language always occurs within a context, language is sensitive to that context, language is communicative, and language is designed to be communicative (p. 3). In following those claims on discourse and those assumptions just referenced, this paper analyzes the discourse between participants during a CNN political panel discussion that was televised and ultimately submitted as a short video on YouTube. The focus will be on one participant in particular, Ana Navarro, and will focus on her stance, alignment, style, and use of other linguistic and discursive devices during the discourse event. 1
1 In discourse analysis, we must be careful not to make claims on one’s mental intentions, thus occasionally certain arguments will be in hedged language to avoid this. Also, the transcription itself is part of the analysis. See Antaki et al (2003) and Mishler (1991) for more on these issues. Patrick 2
In analyzing alignment and style as performed in a CNN political panel discussion, a few points must be considered, as they are unique to this medium. First, while the conversation is unscripted, the television cameras bearing down upon the speakers must affect the discourse in some way. The conversation has some amount of pre-determined structure constraining the topics and styles that are permissible for the speakers to mention. They are expected to speak about topics within a wide, but restricted domain (this is, in fact, their job and livelihood). The panelists need to speak about politics and current events and are not otherwise allowed to suddenly switch to irrelevant topics without purpose. For example, a participant on a political show would not be allowed to suddenly begin talking about sports or personal family affairs unless those subjects were related to the topic at hand and even then, the speaker would be restricted to brief comments only. This is a performance and the panelists are performing an act on television for the approval of the ratings-boosting viewers. In this case, the role the speakers play happens to be their own personality and the script is how they think about contemporary news and policy. Each speaker is selected for some reason to appear on the show (whether it’s for their political views, their charisma, or their ability to create ‘entertaining’ television and draw viewers). An interesting, memorable, or popular performance will lead to more views, more clicks, more comments, and more invitations to additional television appearances and will expand the speaker’s ‘brand’ so to speak. Adding to all of this, the ubiquity of the internet and the shareability of videos, memes, GIFs, online commenting, et cetera, builds greater complexity into the life cycle of this particular discourse event.
This interaction consists of four participants- three sitting around a table in-person and one participating via video chat. The host, Don Lemon, is along the moderate-liberal political spectrum and is joined by Ana Navarro (a Republican strategist who is anti-Trump), Scott Patrick 3
Jennings (a Republican strategist who is pro-Trump), and Rick Wilson (also a Republican strategist and also anti-Trump). All of these speakers have appeared on television many times before, including appearances on Don Lemon’s show itself. The show is hosted on CNN, which is typically considered fairly liberal to moderate politically. For this analysis, the focus will be on one of the participants, Ana Navarro, because she is an exciting, outspoken, and strong personality and she has an unusual political (and therefore professional) relationship with most of the other speakers as a republican strategist who is also anti-Trump. The other two participants and the moderator Don will be discussed when important and typically in relation to Ana’s performance and style.
The first thing that might cross a casual viewer’s mind after watching this clip is that Ana seems to have a much different television persona and style when compared to the more reserved, stoic participants in this segment. Tannen (1984) talks about conversational style as something that “results from the need to serve basic human needs in interaction [and that] the linguistic strategies that make up conversational style do not exist in a vacuum but arise in response to the strategies used by others in the interaction” (p. 19). Ana’s TV personality is in some way a response to the other participants engaged in the discourse. Though the same could be said for each of the participants as they orient to the others and respond with their own style strategy. Tannen situates style as a cooperative device that is consistently being re-established and re-negotiated among the participants of a given conversation. Each speaker arrives at a particular discourse event with their typical habits and patterns of style, but those are often re- evaluated in new contexts and environments. For a conversation to proceed felicitously, speakers must be able to cooperate with each other in order to find a shared stylistic ‘space’ in which to engage in the discourse successfully and to demonstrate alignment or disalignment with the other Patrick 4 speakers present. Stivers (2008) defines alignment in the context of story-telling within discourse as supporting “…the structural asymmetry of the storytelling activity: that a storytelling is in progress and the teller has the floor until story completion” (p. 34). For the treatment of this data, each participant in the panel discussion can be said to be telling a story when they take the floor to share their thoughts and opinions.
Throughout the interaction, Ana appears to be demonstrating what Tannen might call a
‘high-involvement style’ (Tannen, 1984; 2005). Scott typically sits very still and very quietly throughout the segment (apart from an occasional smirk or head nod) and gives off the impression that he is separate from the others in some way. Rick’s performance is interesting because outside of his frequent background chuckling, he only seems to respond directly to
Don’s questions, as the moderator, and Rick seems to be unaffected by the presence of Ana and
Scott. Rick is also the only one who is not physically co-present with the other speakers, which likely has some effect on what kinds of linguistic and extralinguistic cues he can use. In planning the structure of the conversation, Don has a set of questions or talking points that he wants to bring up for discussion with the participants. Don is not directly intended to be a central participant in the discourse but rather acts as a facilitator; however, as these things go, he does engage with the conversation fairly often, outside of strict question/answer pairs (though mostly with Ana as this paper will demonstrate). As far as style goes, it is difficult to place Don clearly into one camp or another, but it is possible that the ‘interviewer style’ is an ambiguous style
(maybe it is characterized by whatever is needed to make the guest speakers comfortable enough to talk).
In her style, Ana exhibits an open and comfortable approach to the group interview format. She seems to encourage and enjoy the introduction and discussion of personal topics, Patrick 5 which is one of the features Tannen (1984) uses to differentiate between high-involvement and high-considerateness styles. Speakers using a high-involvement strategy tend to be more comfortable with discussing topics that are personal to themselves and the other interlocuters
(e.g. work, family, relationships, etc.). As the focus of this analysis is primarily on Ana and her conversation style, the secondary question is on how her high-involvement style affects, guides, and contributes to this discussion. When Ana talks to Don about a trip that he took to Florida, she begins with a tongue-in-cheek joke towards Don2:
5. Don: Hello everyone happy new year good to be back good to have you on 6. //(unintelligible) 7. Ana: //I’m sure I’m sure you love being in uh New York 8. You just came from a week in Florida [Don and Rick chuckle] 9. That’s gotta have been so so so tough 10. Don: It was a little chilly in Florida but when I look back 11. [Rick chuckles] at five degrees// 12. Ana: //It was so cold iguanas are falling from the 13. trees (.) that’s how cold it was 14. Don: I still went to the pool 15. Uh so (unintelligible) since the publication of Michael Wolf’s book
In lines (5-6) Don attempts to offer a greeting to his participants and immediately Ana disrupts the structure by not responding to his greeting with the expected response, which should
2 The ‘//’ convention demonstrates overlap between utterances roughly at the moment it occurs, underlining shows a perceived word emphasis, and the brackets on the side identify adjacency pairs that are worth noticing.
Patrick 6 be another greeting, but she responds instead with her comment in (7) about Don being in New
York. For context, it is January at the time of the recording and very cold in New York City, so in (9) she is offering an evaluation on Don’s trip. She mentions that being in New York must be
‘so so so tough’ but she says it using an ironic or sarcastic tone which has the effect of playful teasing (the joke being that presumably Don had an enjoyable vacation in the tropical warmth of
Florida). Don responds to her evaluation in (10) by discussing the cold weather in Florida, which takes up the topic of weather and perhaps serves to deflect Ana’s joke and maybe save face by not boasting about his trip in front of the others. Ana responds with another joke in (12) about a current news story (reptiles in Florida suffering in the unusually cool weather), which shows that she isn’t quite finished with the weather topic. This might be an attempt by Ana to control the conversation (maybe in a ‘she who holds the topic, holds the power’ kind of way). In line (14)
Don replies that he still went to the pool, which serves as a humor device to the effect of “even if it was cold, I still went to the pool.” This also serves as a kind of coda element and doesn’t leave
Ana with an easy way in to continue the banter and given that Don doesn’t leave much of a pause after his statement it supports this act as a way of maintaining control over the conversation. The participants orient to this coda-like statement because they all instantly attend to the topic of Michael Wolf’s new book once Don brings it up. This rapidly paced banter shows that the styles of Don and Ana, while maybe not identical, are at least similar enough for both speakers to access and engage with the other, which demonstrates steps towards building alignment. As the moderator, Don’s ‘actual’ style on its own is not important for this analysis.
What is most important is Ana’s style and how Don’s style interacts and engages with Ana’s.
Interruptions and overlaps tend to be characteristic of Ana’s speaking style as she overlaps with Don six times in the transcript and in response Don overlaps with her five times Patrick 7 throughout. While it’s not clear that the quantity is significant on its own, no one else interrupts or overlaps with any other speaker during this conversation, which gives the Don/Ana interaction a more conversational cadence, whereas Scott and Rick each speak monologically, in long stretches of uninterrupted floor time. The chart below is included to give some numerical sense of the conversational flow between these four participants. Don and Ana have a comparably high number of turns with lower average seconds/turn, which supports the observation of a quick- paced cadence between them. Rick and Scott, on the other hand, have a very low number of turns, but each turn is much longer which seems to demonstrate that their turns are more monologic, rather than dialogic and that these speakers are not as interested or able or willing to engage more conversationally for some reason, though this could be a result of the boundary created by Rick being broadcast via television screen:
Participants Number of Turns Total Approx. Floor Time (sec.) Avg. Approx. Time/Turn (sec.) Don 21 159 7.57 Ana 12 143 11.92 Rick 2 150 75.00 Scott 2 80 40.00
Rick and Scott each have only 2 turns (compared to Ana’s 12 and Don’s 21) and each has a much higher time per turn because they seem to speak in monologue, rather than in any kind of typical conversation.
The introductory lines between (5-15) where Don and Ana are evaluating the weather seems to be a place where they can both align via a shared stance, this sharing of topic and evaluation being what allows the series of jokes to be felicitous. Using a stance diagram
(DuBois, 2007), the cycle of evaluations becomes a little clearer. While it is Ana who appears to Patrick 8 be driving the cycle of evaluations through her jokes, Don engages with her in line (9) by offering that the weather was indeed a little chilly, which seems to be Ana’s goal (having Don take up the topic of cold weather). She can then offer her own coda-like utterance in (13) which wraps up her portion of the weather story.
Line Speaker Stance subject Position/Evaluates Stance Object Aligns
7 Ana Don love SARCASM New York weather
8 Ana Don tough SARCASM Florida weather
9 Don Don chilly Florida weather
10 Ana It expletive cold Florida weather
In this chart, the alignment column is empty because there were no overt alignment markers like too/either, but the important thing to notice is the consistency of the weather topic in these sequential utterances. This series of evaluations allow both Don and Ana to co-create an almost private, mini-discourse between the two of them using their own cadence and choice of topic and the weather allows there to be a common object to which they can orient.
This initial segment is part of a larger opening dialogue in which only Ana and Don are participating. Rick and Scott appear to be sitting quietly waiting to contribute. This is the only time in the ten-minute conversation in which personal, non-political topics are discussed and only Ana and Don engage in this topic. While this exchange is occurring, Rick is on the television monitor chuckling and Scott is sitting noticeably still with lips pursed and not engaging. This interaction seems to be comfortable enough for all the participants (potentially not for Scott though, given his tense-appearing body language) and might suggest that Don and
Ana find personal topics to be a felicitous and permissible device for opening a conversation and Patrick 9 aligning with one another. It is also perhaps part of an opening performance where speakers use humor to establish their performance styles for this interaction.
Lines (6-7) and (11-12) also demonstrate moments of co-speaking between Don and Ana.
There are later sections in which both Don and Ana interrupt/overlap, but no other pair of speakers co-speak with each other during this conversation (not counting back-channel contributions or laughter). Most of these instances should be considered overlaps, rather than interruptions, because the initial speaker continues holding the floor, despite the utterance in question and it seems to be unintentional mis-timing causing the co-speech, rather than an attempt by one participant to take back the floor from another. This supports Tannen’s (1984;
2005) description of overlap in which both Don and Ana are timing each other’s responses and engaging in fast-paced, almost-machine-gun conversation (drawing on Tannen’s ‘machine-gun’ metaphor). They overlap with each other in similar ways in that as they do so, they allow the other to hold the floor, rather than interrupting and taking the floor back for themselves. When they do overlap one another, it occurs at turn-relevant places, such as line (7) where Don has just finished his greeting statement and Ana jumps in (making whatever he was about to say unintelligible). This builds a feeling of synergy between Don and Ana and can be an effect of alignment between them.
The section below shows another interaction between Don and Ana:
34. Don: but that’s not how we judge presidents by their character (Scott nods) 35. I mean because// 36. Ana: //we should (.) why not 37. Don: //you know 38. Don: when Bill Clinton was impeached he would’ve been pushed out of office
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39. instead of doing a-another term 40. Ana: yeah and he had to - he had to pay a very high price //for the things he did 41. Don: //yeah 42. Ana: This president yet has to.
Lines (34-42) demonstrate what Georgakopoulou (2006) might call a ‘small story’ which is being used by Don and Ana to express their opinions on President Trump based on shared knowledge of Clinton’s presidential woes. In line (36), Ana is questioning Don’s claim of how
‘we judge presidents [not by their character]’ from line (34) by using a tag question of ‘why not.’
This as a small challenge to his statement. Her use of the conditional ‘should’ offers comment on
Don’s statement as something with which she disagrees and so therefore she is offering her view on how the world should work. In so doing, she interrupts his I-mean-prefaced utterance in (35)3 and briefly takes control of the discussion by asking Don the question in (36), thus taking on for herself the guise of moderator. Don offers his counter-argument in (38), which provokes a retort from Ana in (40). Don’s use of the continuer yeah in (41) could be an agreement with her point, but whether it is or is not, it supports her maintaining the floor. With this, he is providing a temporary authority which permits Ana to offer the final word on the topic in (42) and close out the Clinton story. By briefly relinquishing his control of the question/answer structure, Don gives
Ana conversational space to expound further on her thoughts and opinions, which could be considered a feature of Don’s interviewer-style, especially since this sort of back-and-forth between host and participant makes for an interesting debate and good television.
3 See Maynard (2013) for an in-depth discussion on I-mean-prefaced utterances Patrick 11
Lines (43-49) show more of how Ana’s high-involvement style influences the structure of the discussion. Don shows a clip taken from another television show- one which happened to have Ana as an invited guest on that episode:
43. Don: Alright I-I-I just want to play this is from Lindsey Graham on The View 44. watch this 45. (clip of senator Graham making a joke then supporting Trump, 1:56-2:28) 46. Don: By the way you’re not seeing things that was Ana co-hosting The View 47. but this is for Scott 48. So Scott //he thinks he makes 49. Ana: //I think I’m wearing the same outfit 50. Don: (chuckles) yeah
51. He makes fun of ‘em and then he flips (.) is this sorta
52. do you think he’s trying to get back into his good graces or what?
Don acknowledges Ana’s presence in (46) because she was in the clip that he just shared, but then explicitly states that now he wants to hear from Scott in lines (47-48). Don ends (46) with a clear directive on how he wants this segment to go. He begins line (48) by addressing
Scott, but leaves a small pause through which Ana jumps in. By responding in place of Scott,
Ana asserts herself as the primary speaker to which Don responds with a laugh and a yeah in
(50). The sideplay provided by Ana allows her to remain an active participant in this part of the discourse, even when she is clearly not the intended participant. Don’s comment also seems to provide the bare minimal acknowledgement due to Ana. Line (51) then takes a sudden turn back to Scott by asking him a direct question, possibly to prevent Ana from dominating this round of the conversation. Ana’s style in this segment recalls Tannen’s (1984, 2005) discussion of ‘high- involvement style’ in which speakers throw out comments or questions one after another, Patrick 12 knowing that not everything will be picked up and that the other speaker has the permission and ability to ‘out-shout’ and speak over the original speaker. This seems to be what Ana is doing- she doesn’t appear particularly offended when no one attends to her comment on the outfit she wore, but that doesn’t stop her from engaging in the discourse.
The use of small stories seems to be a trait of Ana’s personal discourse style and this might feed into her ‘high-involvement’ style. In lines (166-169) Ana uses a hypothetical situation involving the presidential limo (nicknamed ‘The Beast’) and Trump’s potential re-election campaign as a way to give her evaluations on Trump as a president in lines (169-174). She highlights his disinterest in policy, his lack of ideology (maybe compared to other presidents with strong ideological stances), and she focuses on his age as a ’70 plus year old man’:
166. I think his I think his you know he should put a bumper sticker on the back 167. of the beast that says I’d rather be golfing I promise you I won’t be more 168. than 5 minutes in the oval office that day and you know that might be his 169. reelection slogan look um he’s not in the weeds on policy he’s not terribly 170. interested in policy he’s not a guy who’s uh you know rooted in ideology 171. he’s not a party guy uh you know he’s 70 plus years old 172. it’s very hard to change a 70 plus year old man 173. it’s very hard to change a man after he’s finished teething okay 174. God knows I’ve tried
Lines (171-174) are interesting because she really emphasizes his age as it relates to his professional weaknesses as a president. She once again brings up a personal topic in (173-174) in which she suggests how difficult it is to change a man and how she has experience in attempting to do so in her personal life. By doing this, she claims insider access to a particular realm of knowledge (maybe the changeability or difficulty of men) and establishes herself as some kind of Patrick 13 authority on how men behave. By generalizing like this, it is possible that Ana is seeking empathy from viewers and/or some of the participants on the show who can tap into that shared experience. By claiming this kind of special access, this allows her to directly attack Trump’s abilities in (175-178) as someone who is not used to working much (because he’s from the New
York real estate sector, a highly profitable professional arena):
175. so you know he’s not going to change his habits 176. this is a guy who’s used to his work habit or not much work habits 177. from uh all these years in New York and in the uh real estate business 178. and in the private sector
Lines (175-178) could also be considered a kind of small story that Ana uses to bolster her claim regarding Trump’s presidency. This is also the longest stretch of talk that Ana has in the segment, occupying lines (163-187) before Don steps in with a comment.
Tannen (1989) talks about repetition and how it “serves an over-arching purpose of creating interpersonal involvement [and] gives the impression…of a shared universe of discourse” (61-2). The moments of overlap in lines (193-194) seem to be repetitions between
Don and Ana, in which Line 194 shows Don demonstrating that he is ratifying and paying attention to Ana by mimicking her structure, which permits Ana to continue in line 195. This moment also shows that both participants are engaged in a tug-of-war to claim the floor:
187. Don: //can that last for all four years? 188. Ana: Yes (high tone) (Ana chuckles) 189. I mean maybe not 190. Let’s ask Bob Muller who’s got all sorts of interviews coming up 191. (Don chuckles) 192. with him but I mean can it last all four- Patrick 14
193. Ana: you //think you think 194. Don: //I just //I just 195. Ana: //you think Donald Trump is gonna begin working 15-hour days 196. Don: yeah no no no 197. Ana: at //72 73 74 years of age? 198. Don: //I think most people- I think many people don’t have a problem with him… In (195) Ana picks back up on the ‘I think’ structure in order to present Don with a question (one particularly geared to produce an anti-Trump answer). It leads to Don’s agreement/continuer yeah in (196) that is immediately followed with no no no to signal that he agrees with Ana that
Trump will not suddenly begin working long days.
After these last few lines, the discussion is more or less over. Throughout this segment,
Don and Ana continually share exchanges that have the effect of relationship-building through conversation. They share jokes, they overlap with one another, and they go back and forth in short, quick turns (probably not quite ‘machine-gun’ but not too far from that either). They seem to be working towards style-sharing and alignment with one another. This is felicitous through the combination of Don’s interviewer-style and Ana’s high-involvement style, which works well to build a sense of alignment between Don and Ana. This alignment allows the performance of style, particularly Ana’s, to shine in this kind of televised debate environment. Certainly, these interactions may all be performative and not accurately representative of the participant’s typical conversational style, but the genre of ‘televised political panel discussion’ is a recent one as far as the history of conversation goes and as such, might warrant additional attention in future research.
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References
“Ana Navarro: ‘The Less Time In The OVAL OFFICE, The SAFER Our Country.’” YouTube,
YouTube, 9 Jan. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_-3ovb2wKo.4
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Georgakopoulou, A. (2006). Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity
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Scheglof, Emmanuel. 1982. Discourse as an Interactional Achievement: Some Uses of ‘uh
4 As of December 30, 2018, this link is no longer active. Patrick 16
huh’ and Other Things That Come Between Sentences. In Georgetown University
Schiffrin, D. (1987). Discourse markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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University Press.
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Transcript 1. Don: Republican leaders and Trump administration officials rallying around the
2. president insisting he is fit for office
3. here to discuss (.) senior political commentators
4. Scott Jennings and Ana Navarro and republican strategist Rick Wilson
5. Hello everyone happy new year good to be back good to have you on
6. //(unintelligible)
7. Ana: //I’m sure I’m sure you love being in uh New York
8. You just came from a week in Florida [Don and Rick chuckle]
9. That’s gotta have been so so so tough
10. Don: It was a little chilly in Florida but when I look back
11. [Rick chuckles] at five degrees//
12. Ana: //It was so cold iguanas are falling from the trees
13. that’s how cold it was
14. Don: I still went to the pool
15. Uh so (unintelligible) since the publication of Michael Wolf’s book
16. president’s advisors have been out in full force
17. defending his mental fitness including you saw Chris Ruddy uh moments ago
18. watch this
19. (Clips showing politicians stating Trump’s mental health is good, 0:40-1:03)
20. Don: Alright so Ana republicans seem closer to the president than ever now
21. uh what kind – and they keep saying crazy- I didn’t- I I (ha)d read the book
22. and I never heard crazy um in the book but what kind of message do you think Patrick 18
23. this sends?
24. Ana: -h uh the message is very clear (..)
25. he’s unfit
26. he’s a kook
27. but he’s our kook
28. and therefore we are going to work him because if we can get some of our agenda
29. items through we will -h
30. look the fact that we are all talking about his fitness -h
31. and to me I can’t even begin to talk about his mental fitness (.)
32. I think he’s unfit character-wise
33. I don’t think he’s got the character (.) to be president
34. Don: but that’s not how we judge presidents by their character (Scott nods and smirks)
35. I mean because//
36. Ana: //we should (.) why not
37. Don: //you know
38. Don: when Bill Clinton was impeached he would’ve been pushed out of office
39. instead of doing a-another term
40. Ana: yeah and he had to - he had to pay a very high price //for the things he did
41. Don: //yeah
42. Ana: This president yet has to.
43. Don: Alright I-I-I just want to play this is from Lindsey Graham on The View
44. watch this
45. (clip of senator Graham making a joke then supporting Trump, 1:56-2:28)
46. Don: By the way you’re not seeing things that was Ana co-hosting The View Patrick 19
47. but this is for Scott
48. So Scott //he thinks he makes
49. Ana: //I think I’m wearing the same outfit
50. Don: (chuckles) yeah
51. He makes fun of ‘em and then he flips
52. is this sorta- do you think he’s trying to get back into his good graces or (.) what?
53. Scott: I think the republicans are rallying around the president because in the last
54. couple of months of last year we saw what happens when the republicans get
55. together on stuff
56. They confirm judges they pass tax cuts uh and they show that the country
57. uh they show the country that hey we can govern and do the things we ran on
58. and I think what the republican party at large is doing right now is saying
59. if we’re gonna stave off the democratic wave we have to be unified
60. we have to work together
61. and if that means the Lindsey Grahams and the Donald Trumps of the world
62. are on the same page (.) you know that’ll be good politically for them
63. if you’re a republican who intends to see agenda items accomplished
64. there’s no way to do that with division (.) unity’s the path
65. Don: So Rick what do you think uh
66. republicans are sticking together
67. if there’s any truth- I’m not saying that there is to (.)
68. you know what it is in this book
69. is it the right thing for them to do Patrick 20
70. stick together to get things done or be honest about the president’s fitness?
71. Rick: -h well look I think in terms of wanting to pass the tax cut the you know they
72. would have tolerated Donald Trump walking around the White House naked in
73. everything but a pair of flip-flops if they could pass the tax cut
74. they wouldn’t care (.) that was the number one two and three agenda item
75. um both Senator McConnell and and Speaker Ryan’s agenda
76. and no matter what they wanted to push that through
77. that was the number (.) like I said that was the the-the absolutely –
78. that was the pinnacle of the agenda for them
79. um the president’s -you know and-and (.) look ah Wolf hasn’t characterized
80. the president uh in a way that-that-that many, many other reporters
81. haven’t noted that his character- that his aides characterize him as um
82. but I-I think that the biggest part as Ana touched on it
83. this is a man with a- with a sort of very shallow intellectual grasp
84. of- of-of- the of issues and policy
85. he is not a guy who is particularly uh granular in his thinking about these things
86. and republicans have seen an opportunity on the hill
87. to say well we’re gonna drive our agenda through
88. because look this tax cut wasn’t engineered by Donald Trump
89. he was a passenger on this train
90. this was an army of lobbyists the speaker and the-the majority leader
91. who pulled this tax cut off
92. and so if they can use that sort of you know (.) very narrow intellectual grasp
93. of things that very short attention span to their benefit Patrick 21
94. they’re certainly gonna do that um
95. but I do think there will be a point where the president’s character
96. and the difficulties he has in actually maintaining interest and focus on
97. agen-agenda items uh starts to have a negative political impact on republicans
98. in the country
99. Don: alright everyone I want you to stick with me
100. when we come back a new report about the list of President Trump’s daily duties
101. getting shorter. What’s behind it and what exactly does he do during what’s
102. called (.) executive time
103. (Don makes air quotes with his fingers around the phrase ‘executive time’)
104. (video ‘cuts to commercial’ and comes back at 5:15)
105. Don: Tonight the White House pushing back on a report about President Trump’s work
106. schedule uh access reporting his official day has been shrinking
107. he now gets to the oval office at around 11 am
108. (Don quoting from report) “The schedule says Trump has ‘Executive Time’ in the
109. Oval Office every day from 8 am to-to 11, but the reality is he spends that time in
110. his residence watching TV making phone calls and tweeting.”
111. So back with me now Scott Jennings Ana Navarro and Rick Wilson
112. So h- Rick let’s talk about executive time
113. (the recording always freezes here for 5 seconds)
114. uh why does President Trump need so much executive time to tweet
115. and watch television if these reports are true?
116. Rick: -h well look I mean e-executive time is-is the worst possible euphemism
117. for what Donald Trump is clearly doing which is rage-tweeting Patrick 22
118. and-and watching three screens of television
119. Uh you know I know Americans signed up for Trump to make America great
120. again but apparently it’s uh Donald Trump uh uh obsessively watching the news
121. to see which-which network mentions him
122. either most favorably or unfavorably so he can tweet about it
123. i-it’s disturbing and it oughta be it oughta be a concern
124. I mean look George Bush was in the oval office by around 6:30-6:45 every
125. morning
126. and and you know Barack Obama a little later but still pretty consistently
127. in the day and you know you don’t get more time back as president
128. every-every day that passes is one more day you’re not president any longer
129. and so you need to focus on these things and get to work
130. and get up at the crack of dawn and maybe he doesn’t like doing that
131. and maybe that’s not his work style- but it strikes me that engagement
132. and constant sort of presence in the in the in the management of the government
133. is sort of what you sign on for a president to-to to to be when you’re a president
134. Don: Well Scott hinted the White House pushing back in this statement that
135. um (Don quotes from report) “the time in the morning is a mix of residence
136. time and oval office time but he always has calls with staff, hill members
137. (Don clears throat, ‘excuse me’) cabinet members and foreign leaders
138. during(uh)this time
139. The president is one of the hardest workers I’ve seen and he puts in
140. long hours and long days nearly every day of the week all year long.
141. (Don chuckles a little, still reading from quote) Patrick 23
142. It has been noted by reporters many times that they wish he would slow down
143. because they sometimes have trouble keeping up with him
144. but when you look at the the president’s public appearances and tweets
145. does that seem to be the case here?
146. Scott: Well I can tell you I’ve personally spoken to United States senators
147. and congressmen (Don clears his throat) who have told me personally
148. Donald Trump is on the phone with them and their colleagues
149. all the time night and day early morning late at night weekday weekend
150. so it does ring true to me to borrow a phrase that’s in the news today
151. that the president is working the phones all the time
152. (Scott shakes his side slightly)
153. the other thing that is clear he’s clearly not incurious about the world around him
154. I mean what’s happening is he’s a voracious consumer of news and information
155. now he’s not reading it necessarily in clips that are being handed to him
156. he’s watching it but that’s how a lot of people get their news
157. and we know he’s watching it because he is commenting on it from time to time
158. as has been noted so
159. I don’t really have a problem with the President being engaged with the news
160. and talking to other government officials on the phone
161. if that’s what he’s doing (.) fine with me
162. Don: Ana?
163. Ana: Oh honey the less time he’s in the oval office the safer this country and this
164. world is
165. (Don and Rick chuckle, Don clears his throat) Patrick 24
166. I think his I think his you know he should put a bumper sticker on the back of the
167. beast that says I’d rather be golfing I promise you I won’t be more than five
168. minutes in the oval office that day and you know that might be his reelection
169. slogan -h look um he’s not in the weeds on policy he’s not terribly interested in
170. policy he’s not a guy who’s uh you know rooted in ideology
171. he’s not a party guy uh you know he’s 70 plus years old
172. it’s very hard to change a 70 plus year old man
173. it’s very hard to change a man after he’s finished teething okay
174. God knows I’ve tried
175. so you know he’s not going to change his habits
176. this is a guy who’s used to his work habit or not much work habits
177. from uh all these years in New York and in the uh real estate business
178. and in the private sector
179. this is who Donald Trump is and I think that’s part of the reason why you
180. see so many republicans still sticking with him
181. because ((WH)) they’re taking advantage of the fact that he’s not into the
182. details ((WH ends))
183. that he’s not in the policy and that they can fill in the blanks
184. they can fill in the agenda
185. they can work with John Kelly
186. they can work with the cabinet secretaries //(says something unintelligible)
187. Don: //can that last for all four years?
188. Ana: Yes (high tone) (Ana chuckles)
189. I mean maybe not Patrick 25
190. Let’s ask Bob Muller who’s got all sorts of interviews coming up
191. (Don chuckles)
192. with him but I mean can it last all four-
193. you //think you think
194. Don: //I just //I just
195. Ana: //you think Donald Trump is gonna begin working fifteen-hour days
196. Don: yeah no no no
197. Ana: at //72 73 74 years of age?
198. Don: //I think most people- I think many people don’t have a problem with him
199. uh consuming television but I think they all of us would want our president
200. to be well-read and to know policy and to //know what’s going on that’s…
201. Ana: //You know what? I mean that
202. gorilla channel sounds so good to me (.) I think that if he can you know spend the
203. time watching gorillas (Ana makes her hands move in front of her)
204. Don: I’d have to explain that I think most people get it
205. It was a a fake thing sent out about the gorilla channel
206. Thank you all I appreciate it
207. This is CNN Tonight I’m Don Lemon
208. (Don signs off and previews later segments, not important for this analysis)