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Home , Ben Smith (journalist), Bob Schieffer, Carl Bernstein, Ed Henry, Jake Tapper, James Rosen (author)

Center for Strategic and International Studies

Bob Schieffer’s “About the News” with H. Andrew Schwartz Podcast

Subject: “ and Trump’s First Press Conference”

Speaker: Jake Tapper, Chief Washington Correspondent, CNN

Hosts: H. Andrew Schwartz, Senior Vice President for External Relations, CSIS

Bob Schieffer, CBS Political News Contributor; Former Host, “,” CBS News

Date: Friday January 13, 2017

Transcript By Superior Transcriptions LLC www.superiortranscriptions.com

(Music plays.)

BOB SCHIEFFER: I’m Bob Schieffer.

H. ANDREW SCHWARTZ: And I’m Andrew Schwartz.

MR. SCHIEFFER: And these are conversations about the news. We are in the midst of a communications revolution. We have access to more information than any people in history. But are we more informed, or just overwhelmed by so much information we can’t process it?

MR. SCHWARTZ: These conversations are a year-long collaboration of the Bob Schieffer College of Communication at Texas Christian University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

(Music plays.)

MR. SCHIEFFER: Jake Tapper is our guest this time. He’s one of the lead anchors at CNN, moderator of their Sunday talk show. He’s won many, many awards over the years, worked at ABC before coming to CNN. He’s reported from Iraq, , and has covered big stories domestically, including , as well as the work he’s done from Washington.

Jake, welcome. Let’s start with your latest big one. You were a part of the CNN team that broke the story about the intelligence agency’s briefing President-elect Trump on Russian hacking – a briefing that included this information from non-intelligence sources that claimed the Russians had information that could possibly be used to blackmail . This obviously set off a whirlwind of discussion. And when the website then published the document itself, it really stirred up a controversy – not the least of which came at Mr. Trump’s recent new conference when he denounced CNN and refused to take questions from CNN reporter . So what’s the latest news here on all this?

JAKE TAPPER: The latest news – first of all, let me just say, it’s great to see you, Bob. And as a fan, we miss you on Sunday, even though I don’t miss you beating me every Sunday.

MR. SCHIEFFER: (Laughs.) Well, you’re nice to say that.

MR. TAPPER: But the latest news is, when we reported this on Tuesday night it was a team – a real team effort – me, , Evan Perez, and – first time I ever shared a byline with Carl Bernstein, which was always, of course, fun.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Not a bad thing.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah. And the thing that we weren’t sure about when we reported this was we knew that this was in the briefing materials, this two-page synopsis of these charges and allegations that came from a source not from intelligence – from U.S. intelligence. The one thing we didn’t know was did they present this verbally? We knew that it was in the materials. We thought that they had presented it verbally, but we were not sure about it on Tuesday night.

So we said that in the story. We said this is in the materials and, you know, we weren’t sure if it had been presented verbally. We now know that it was presented verbally. And we reported yesterday, Thursday, that it was in a pull-aside. FBI Director Comey – after all four of the briefers met with President-elect Trump and his team – Comey, Brennan, Clapper, and Admiral Mike Rogers – there was a separate moment with Comey – FBI Director Comey and President-elect Trump in which they talked about this synopsis.

I had been told that. And I had one source on that before we broke our story Tuesday, but we didn’t get a second source or a third source until yesterday. So that is the latest. So he was actually given the material verbally.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Why did you not publish the document itself? You obviously had it.

MR. TAPPER: We thought about what to say and how to say it and what to say. And we decided that what was most important was stick to the facts, stick to what we know. We couldn’t corroborate any of the allegations in that – in those series of memos by the former MI6 agent – not one of them. And some of the stuff was pretty out there. And, you know, a lot of organizations had seen those memos, including CNN. But what made this news was that the intelligence community – the leaders of the intelligence community had presented this to President Obama and to President-elect Trump.

So we felt like it was unfair and incendiary to put the uncorroborated allegations out there. And we should point out that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper issued a statement after our story saying that this was not the work of the intelligence community – the U.S. intelligence community. And they had made no judgement on how reliable the information was. They didn’t say it was wrong. They didn’t say it was right. They said they had not been able to ascertain it. But that wasn’t – you know, that’s not good enough for us. We knew that – we knew that that’s what their opinion was of the information.

And so we decided to stick with what we knew and to – and to basically report on the synopsis that they included in their presentation to President-elect Trump and President Obama, and not the underlying document because that underlying document was full of uncorroborated raw – you can call it raw intelligence – raw information, some of it gossip. And, you know, people who are familiar with the situation say, you know, there are things in there that are true – I mean, benign things, that this person talked to this person. But then there are things in there that nobody knows if it’s true or not.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Shortly after you broke this story, BuzzFeed published the document. And the editor, Ben Smith, said he did so in the interest of transparency. He thought that the American people needed to know what people were talking about. And so they published the document. What was your reaction to that?

MR. TAPPER: I was upset about that. I was upset that they published the document. And let me just say, first of all, I’ve known Ben Smith for a long time. I like him a lot. I think that BuzzFeed does a lot of really good journalism. They have really – you know, they have excellent reporters there who do sourced stories. This decision really upset me. And I don’t think I’m talking out of school because I’ve said this on air. I thought it was irresponsible. I conveyed privately to Ben that I thought it was a bad decision.

I thought it was a bad decision for a few reasons. One of them is this idea that, like, well we have this information so we’re just going to let the public decide, that’s not what we do. That’s not our job. We’re . We are supposed to suss out what is true, what is not true. And if something – if we can’t ascertain that something is true, then we don’t go with it. It doesn’t matter if that would be clicks or viewers or whatever. We don’t. And there are any number of mistakes that media organizations have made throughout the years – CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC – in which that happened and it was scandalous, and it was inappropriate, and it turn the news organization. So that’s one. I thought that it was just – that’s not what journalists do.

Two, I knew that this was going to be able to be used as a way to dodge our, CNN’s, solid reporting on this, that there was going to be – that any politician would conflate the two. Look at all this crazy stuff. And then, you know, say: Look at all this crazy stuff, and then not answer any questions about any of it, such as did the intelligence officials present you with this information, what was your response, is there anything in there that has you concerned, et cetera. I mean, James Clapper said in his statement that part of their job is to also provide information, even stuff they didn’t produce, that might have national security implications. That’s when he basically confirmed our report, this two-page synopsis. What national security implications are there? I mean, that’s from the director of national intelligence.

So I suspected that President-elect Trump and his team would use this as an effort to conflate bad journalism with good journalism. I was unfortunately right. And so, I mean, those were the – and the larger theme – and, Bob, you and I’ve talked about this – is bad journalism undermines good journalism. People lose faith in us. When there’s one bad decision by a journalistic enterprise we all get lumped in with that. You know, I’m getting accused of doing things in my report that I never did, of making charges that I never made, of providing information I never did. Some of that is, you know, people doing it for a political reason. I think there are probably a lot of people out there who actually think I did those things and that CNN did those things. We did not.

So this is one of the reasons why I think – and I don’t want this to be the focus of my feelings about our journalism this week – but this is one of the feelings why I think that the media really needs to get its act together – (laughs) – in the Trump era, because he is so adversarial with the press, more so than any president probably since – although was pretty adversarial, people forget. But people – you know, the media really needs to make sure that when you go with something it’s true, it’s accurate, it’s on target. And our behavior – people need to watch what they tweet, what they say. You know, there’s a big trust chasm. And what BuzzFeed did, that decision that they made, hurt us.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Let me – I want to get back to Trump and how we reacted to this information. But I want to also talk about the steps you took to make sure that you had this story you thought as correctly as you could get it. I mean, how long have you known about this? How long have you been looking into this?

MR. TAPPER: Well, the dossier – I mean, these – I put dossier in quotes. I mean, this series of memos has been around for months. And a lot of people have seen it and a lot of people have had it. I’m sure CBS had it. I know CNN had it. And people had it and didn’t use it, didn’t run with it, because none of the information could be run down in any credible way. There was one story in Mother Jones by David Corn in October in which he talked about the existence of it. But even then, that story was fairly circumspect, didn’t go into details, et cetera.

When this became news was after Friday, when – the day of President-elect Trump’s briefing, because that day when CNN learned that some of the information in one way or another had been provided to President-elect Trump, that’s when this became, oh, this is something that we need to report on. I have never been involved in a – and, you know, I’ve broken a bunch of stories. I have never been involved in an effort that was this diligent. I mean, I’ve never – you know, it was me, Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez, and Carl Bernstein. We had repeated conference calls. We had repeated discussions. This was sourced over several days by many, many people.

This was not just phone call reporting. This was shoe leather reporting. This was going to people’s houses and talking to them. This was – these were not sources of, like, a cousin of a friend of a source. This was going to sources. And we – you know, I’ve never been involved in an effort this diligent. And to this moment, there’s not been one thing that we’ve reported that anybody has challenged in a factual basis that they were right and we were wrong. Not one word has been – everything has been proven to be true, from what Clapper has said and what Vice President Biden has said. The story is still solid.

MR. SCHIEFFER: You were telling me that – before we began this – that you even wrote out yourself the banners that CNN puts across the screen – the Chyrons, as we call them.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah. You know – yes, exactly. Well, you know this from CBS. We at CNN, since we’re on 24/7, experience the pain of this more than a network news organization, just because we’re on more. But, like, a bad banner can undermine a lot of things. I had a bad banner on my show a few weeks ago. I wasn’t even on, but I had to get involved because there was a bad banner. And you know, a lot of times – dirty little secret – these banners are written by producers who are 25, 26 years old, and maybe just don’t have the experience of –

MR. SCHIEFFER: And they’re hearing something on the air and they’re trying to codify it, shorten it into six or eight words, and then it pops up on the screen.

MR. TAPPER: It pops up on the screen, and you’re like, what? Get that off. (Laughter.) That happens. And it’s – you know, it’s usually almost always not with ill intention, but, you know, they’re just trying to write something that will make people who are flipping around say, oh, what’s this, and watch.

So we went through – and this is not so unusual, but I’ve never seen this – the diligence to this degree. We went through to make sure that the banners were written ahead of time, so that when this story broke there was no freelancing. Here are the banners that we’re using. And we went back and forth. I mean, we – this – the line editing on this story and the script writing on this story was diligent. I’ve never been a part of anything this precise.

And in fact, CNN, I’m pretty sure, in the day or two, and I don’t even know – I think since, we haven’t really had major discussions about this story, other than with the reporters who broke this story, because it’s so important to have all the facts right. This isn’t something that we’ve, like, thrown and just let a general panel of, you know, pundits at the street have at, because it is such a sensitive story and you need to be right.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Let’s bring in Andrew.

MR. SCHWARTZ: Jake, it’s great to have you here. Thanks, Bob.

With this story, clearly the threshold at BuzzFeed for publishing was lower. But as you said before, and not to pick on Ben Smith – who we all respect and think is a terrific editor – there’s a new digital landscape out there. And maybe the threshold in this new digital landscape is lower for publishing this stuff. I mean, do you see evidence of that?

MR. TAPPER: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of this has started with Gawker and what Gawker did. You know, if it’s true then – if it’s true, or we think it’s true, or if it exists, then run with it. And that’s just a different standard. You know, it’s probably not fair to attack Gawker, because it doesn’t really exist anymore because it was sued because of what it did. But, you know, those are just not the journalistic rules that I adhere to. I mean, just because somebody is gay doesn’t mean, in my view, that I have a right to out that person – even if I am 100 percent certain that that person I gay.

I mean, we all might remember a few years ago – I think it was Gawker – did a story about the brother of somebody famous and powerful who was gay, and allegedly involved in something. And I mean, that’s not news. That’s just prurience. And I think – Gawker, I should also say, has done some very solid journalism. But when you – just if it exists, it’s news, is just no a philosophy that I subscribe to. And I think it undermines journalism. And, look, we’re all in a horrible place right now in terms of the public trust of us in the media. And we need to rebuild it. And while I found this dossier and so I’ll let the public decide whether or not it’s true is not – that’s not – that hurts. It undermines all of us. It undermines BuzzFeed. It undermines CNN. It undermines CBS. It undermines all of us.

MR. SCHWARTZ: Let me ask you about where we are now. We are in a difficult place, with and misinformation floating everywhere. And we do need to rebuild the public trust. Do you view this as actually a national security issue?

MR. TAPPER: Fake news?

MR. SCHWARTZ: Yeah.

MR. TAPPER: It’s such a complicated – I consider it a very serious issue. I mean, look, one of the most hideous examples of fake news – and let me define what I think is fake news. Fake news is completely invented, out of nowhere, based on nothing, made up, put out there just for whatever reason – for clicks or for trouble – you know, to create trouble, for meddling, maybe even a foreign government or foreign trolls made it up. Who knows.

The best example is pizzagate, which is this insane, delusional theory that there was a Satanic child pedophile sex ring at a local pizza parlor, Comet Pizza, in Washington, D.C., and that and her team were part of it, and that sort of things. This popped up on a whole bunch of, like, insane websites I’d never heard of. And, you know, without Comet attached to it, without the pizza parlor attached to it, the National Security Advisor Mike Flynn retweeted one story. This is one claiming that the FBI had found evidence of this Satanic pedophile ring – or maybe it was just a pedophile ring without the Satanism – on Anthony Wiener’s computer. And, I mean, Mike Flynn the national security advisor retweeted this – General Flynn. His son was out there, Mikey Flynn, who they had put in for a security clearance for him, pushing this story – with the Comet-related.

That, to me, is dangerous. And we saw it be dangerous when somebody with a few guns walked into Comet looking for these dungeons or whatever. That, to me, is very dangerous. Is it a national security issue? I don’t know if it’s risen to that yet, but it’s certainly – I mean, I’m so relieved that that story didn’t end with either that deluded man or, even worse, one of the innocent families just enjoying pizza at this, like, neighborhood pizza parlor, that does not have any basements, dead. I mean, that very easily could have happened. That man who read that story, walks into the place with guns because he’s legitimately concerned, because he believes this stuff, and he ends up dead because he just this incredibly dangerous thing.

MR. SCHWARTZ: Does it make misinformation, fake news – and fake news as you define it – does it make it harder for policymakers to make policy?

MR. TAPPER: I think it does, because the – you know, to be candid, President-elect Trump and his team have embraced fake news. I mean, starting with – as a candidate, starting with his – and he still apparently thinks this is true, that there’s this claim – and there’s no evidence of it – that there were thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11 that day. There’s just no evidence – none. I mean, thankfully, that didn’t end up, as far as we know, resulting in somebody taking matters into their own hands and doing something in New Jersey. But, yeah – and, I mean, look, this is a guy, the president-elect, who was talking about how Ted Cruz’s father may have played a role in the Kennedy assassination. I’m bringing up Bob’s first big scoop, this interview with Marina Oswald – is that who it was? Yeah.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Marguerite.

MR. TAPPER: But you didn’t see Rafael Cruz anywhere around there?

MR. SCHIEFFER: Didn’t see him, no.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah, so.

MR. SCHIEFFER: (Laughs.)

MR. TAPPER: There we have the expert. You and Jim Lehrer. We’ll bring you in to have a discussion about whether or not Rafael Cruz was around.

But, I mean, this is – he embraces fake news. He cites the National Enquirer as a source. And so, yeah, it’s very difficult. And also what’s difficult is there are all these very important policies going on, and Cabinet officials being confirmed and things that are going to change about the – for good or for ill, whatever your feelings – just policy things about trade and international relations and tax code and everything. And a lot of this other stuff, you know, you can say it’s a distraction, but if it’s coming from the president-elect is it?

It’s not the same thing as, you know, used to refer to cable catnip and Mark Halperin used to talk about the freak show – just the weird stories that would pop up during a campaign that are kind of like silly and, like, you know it’s not consequential but everybody runs to it. This is a different level, because we have the president-elect elevating it. It’s not just some state senator somewhere saying something outrageous or, you know, somebody’s daughter doing something silly. I mean, this is elevation. So do you cover it? Do you not cover it? How do you cover it? It makes it very challenging.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Let’s go back to the president-elect’s news conference. I mean, he really came down hard on CNN. And when your reporter, Jim Acosta, tried to ask him a question he said no. And they got into a row there. Is this a preview of things to come?

MR. TAPPER: I think so. And I think that – look, I mean, first of all, let me just say that – and I’m not comparing the two – but there were times during the Obama administration – and again I’m not making this – I don’t want anyone to say you’re doing false equivalence. I’m not saying they’re equivalent. But the Obama administration declared war on .

And there were a number of times when people in the press corps, like me, stood up for Fox News – whether it was at the time, who’s now with CBS but was then at Fox News, or , or whomever – James Rosen. And there are a number of us who did stand up for Fox News – not because we liked them necessarily, although Major’s a friend of mine, but not because we approved of everything on their air, but because it was not a good precedent to set and not appropriate for a to say: This credentialed media organization is not real, we’re not going to take it seriously.

It’s important for us to stick together, all of us, in this. You don’t have to defend the behavior of a media organization if you think they’re being irresponsible, but the basic norms of, you know, you’re – a politician attacks a media organization and then doesn’t let a reporter from that media organization ask a question or probe further, that’s inappropriate. And the press corps needs to band together on this because today it’s CNN, but tomorrow it’s CBS, and the day after that it’s NBC. And, you know, we’ve seen that ultimately there are going to be attacks on almost all of us. I mean, Donald Trump was perfectly willing to attack several times, who’s no longer with Fox, of course. But it’s important for us to stand together on this.

And I thought that what President-elect Trump did was – I thought he should have at least – if you’re going to say something like that about an organization, then let the media organization at least ask a question. And perhaps more importantly, he was conflating what we did – CNN – with what BuzzFeed did. I don’t know if he was doing that because he’d been misinformed, that he was told that we had printed the memos, the original memos, or referred to them in any detail, which we did not, or if he – or if he was purposely conflating – purposely misstating what he did so as to distract from all of it. But that was distressing.

And, yeah, I think it’s a preview of what’s to come. I think a lot of it’s not going to happen in front of the cameras. I think there’s going to be a lot of blackballing – I mean, I hope I’m wrong. This is just my feeling. But I suspect there’s going to be a lot of blackballing and bullying. Some of it just the same way that the Obama administration, the Bush administration, Clinton, et cetera, did behind the scenes. But maybe some of it even tougher.

MR. SCHIEFFER: You know, I have always had this rule. And when people ask me, you know, what is the most secretive and manipulative administration you covered in all your years in Washington I always said, the current one, because they always –

MR. TAPPER: (Laughs.) They keep getting worse.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Every administration learns from the previous one. And they figure out how to – and I’ve never seen anybody that said, OK, we’re going to be more open. It becomes more closed, it becomes more structured. This administration – I have to say, I mean, it’s – (laughs) – there is no template, I mean, from what we’ve observed from them so far. I think it’s really impossible to know how this is coming down. But I think – I think what you’re talking about here, I think, is something we’re all going to have to be dealing with here.

MR. TAPPER: And remember, the Obama administration has used the Espionage Act more than all other administrations combined to go after leaks to reporters. That’s just a fact. And that’s a fact that I brought up any number of times in the White House press room and on air. And if – you know, you talk about how they keep getting worse. This is also one of the reasons why it bothers me so much when I see – you know, the night that BuzzFeed printed this stuff, this uncorroborated material, there were also a number of BuzzFeed reporters – it was the night of Obama’s farewell. And there were also a number of BuzzFeed reporters and editors online talking about how they were crying watching Obama’s speech.

Now, I’m sorry – I mean, I can appreciate the historic moment of the Obama presidency. But I think, Bob, you and I are – you know, we’re cynical SOBs. We don’t get emotional about this kind of stuff. I mean, we can get emotional of Sandy Hook or about, you know, a warrior being injured or that sort of thing, but –

MR. SCHWARTZ: You could get emotional about getting the Medal of Honor. I think that’s the one acceptable thing.

MR. TAPPER: I didn’t. (Laughter.) I mean, Joe Biden is a – you know, he’s a likeable guy and all that. I’m sorry, I didn’t choke up. It’s just not my nature.

MR. SCHWARTZ: Sure. And you’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to be a .

MR. SCHIEFFER: I have to confess, nor did I. And I’ve known Biden for years.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah, I mean, I like him.

MR. SCHIEFFER: And like him a lot.

MR. TAPPER: The loss of Beau Biden, that moves me a lot. Beau was a really good guy.

MR. SCHWARTZ: Sure.

MR. TAPPER: But, no, actually, I’m sorry. We were actually sitting around. We were preparing for the town hall and we were make jokes about – not about Biden or Obama, but about – because he got the Medal of Freedom with Distinction, right? The Medal of Freedom with Distinction. That’s not just the highest civilian honor, but the highest-highest civilian honor. And were making fun of what’s the decision like when you’re trying to decide whether or not to give Bob Schieffer the Medal of Freedom or the Medal of Freedom with Distinction, you know? Nah, just give him the regular – just give him the regular Medal of Freedom. (Laughter.) That’s – because we’re just cynical. And that’s how we’re supposed to be.

MR. SCHWARTZ: Right. It’s true.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Well, there’s also this. I mean, once you become president or vice president, what does any – what does any award mean?

MR. TAPPER: I know, seriously.

MR. SCHIEFFER: You’re already the president. You’re already the vice president. You know, so someone’s going to give you an award? I mean, I think it’s sweet. I think it was a nice gesture for the president to do.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah, sure.

MR. SCHIEFFER: But I think it is in some – keeping in some context there.

Let me ask you this question, Jake, to see how do we handle this. You know, we’re in this – the Oxford English Dictionary has chosen the word – their word of the year is post-truth.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah.

MR. SCHIEFFER: We’ve heard some of the Trump surrogates actually say that really the truth doesn’t matter anymore, it’s what he meant. We heard that the wall –

MR. TAPPER: Yeah, don’t go by his words. Go by what’s in his heart.

MR. SCHIEFFER: And that – and that the mistake we made is that we took him literally during the campaign. And I can’t remember which reporter it was, but the one who said – and I think it’s one of the most important things said in the campaign, that those of us in the media took him seriously – I mean, took him literally but sometimes not seriously, his supporters took him seriously but sometimes not literally.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah, Salena Zito came up with that. She’s great.

MR. SCHIEFFER: So how do we – how do we handle that, when we hear a statement from people in the administration, we know it’s false. Do we put in there, but I don’t think he really meant it?

MR. TAPPER: No.

MR. SCHIEFFER: This is the one we think he didn’t really mean.

MR. TAPPER: No. I don’t think it’s incumbent upon us – I know you know the answer to this question – I don’t think it’s incumbent upon us to adjust our standards or lower our standard in terms of what facts are and what the truth are – the truth is to accommodate some notion of post-truth, post-facts. There are facts and there are truth. I think to a degree it matters when they’re not telling the truth, but it doesn’t matter if they ever acknowledge it.

I think that’s where – I think that’s where we need – we don’t need to – Anderson asked me last night, you know, now that our story has been proven true – went on his show the night before and made a whole bunch of allegations that were just demonstrably false. CNN, she said, in our CNN.com story about this intelligence story about this intelligence matter, linked to BuzzFeed. No, we didn’t. It’s not true. It’s not true. We never did. We linked to a CNN.com story about what BuzzFeed did, because it was very criticized and everybody was running stories about the journalist propriety or impropriety of it. But never did we link to it.

The moment that BuzzFeed did this CNN sent out an alert – I know CBS does the same kind of thing – do not link to it. Do not refer to the details. Like, just telling the entire staff of CNN, do not touch this. She said this. It’s not true. She’s never going to acknowledge that when she said that – you know, I don’t know if she thought it to be true or not when she said it – but she’s never going to acknowledge that it wasn’t true. That’s just – she’s never going to do it. They just don’t acknowledge it.

But we just have to make it clear what is true, what is not true. And this is why it’s so important that we in the media keep our credibility or try to regain our credibility by not crying on when Obama’s giving a speech, as the BuzzFeed people were doing, like, within the same few hours of their releasing that series of memos. By being impartial, by not weighing in emotionally on Twitter on every single thing that happens. We need to be a beacon of what is true and what is not true, whoever it helps or hurts. You know, if we get embarrassing information about Chuck Schumer, we need to – you know. I just picked a Democrat. I have no evidence that Chuck Schumer’s done anything embarrassing. But we need to do that. I mean, and if we don’t understand that, then we undermine ourselves.

MR. SCHWARTZ: I want to go back to something you were talking about before, sticking up for Fox in the White House briefing room, media banding together. When first took office, there was a lot of noise about, you know, you can’t give a question to a reporter from the Huffington Post. You can’t give a question to the reporter from BuzzFeed. Well, what happens now when you may be giving a question to Breitbart and –

MR. TAPPER: Oh, he will.

MR. SCHWARTZ: He will. And what does the mainstream media do with Breitbart?

MR. TAPPER: Well, I mean, Breitbart, for instance –

MR. SCHWARTZ: Or other people like Breitbart.

MR. TAPPER: Let me just also say, Breitbart publishes a lot of stuff that I don’t like. Breitbart also publishes journalism. They do. I mean, Brandon Darby is down at the Texas border writing about the drug wars in Mexico and it’s solid journalism. Charlie Spiering, who is a Breitbart White House correspondent is a good White House correspondent. He’s perfectly fine. He’s perfectly in the mainstream. I think that – look, I mean, has been a credentialed media organization at the White House and has been doing pool reports and the like, has been part of the rotation. As long as they are doing their job, as long as there are actual reporters that are part of that, I don’t have a problem with it. I think we need to acknowledge that.

And, again, I don’t like a lot of what Breitbart does. I mean, they attack me all the time. But by the same token. I recognize that they do a lot of solid journalism. And I think that we just need to adhere to the basic idea that innocent until proven guilty. And if somebody is a decent reporter and somebody is doing their job, then we just have to respect that. If they have been credentialed, accepted by the White House Correspondents Association, they’re doing pool reports, they have a seat I don’t – I don’t personally have a problem with that.

MR. SCHWARTZ: So, Jake, you can separate one journalist’s professionalism and ability to report and be fair with the news organization itself?

MR. TAPPER: I mean, look, here’s the thing. It’s not up to me. I mean, the White House Correspondents Association has a credentialing process. And if somebody’s been accepted by the White House Correspondents Association – an organization or a reporter – I’m not going to protest it. Again, there’s a lot of stuff out there that I don’t like, on all the channels and all the newspapers and in all the publications. There’s a lot of great journalism all over the place. And there’s a lot of not-so-great journalism. And then there’s a lot of stuff that I think is damaging.

I mean, I’ve told you just in this conversation that I think BuzzFeed does a lot of great work, and I’ve also been very tough on decisions – a decision they’ve made. And I could say the same about any number of organizations. It’s just – I don’t think it’s up to me. I mean, if the White House Correspondents Association makes that decision, then I think – then I respect that. I’m a member of the White House Correspondents Association. I respect their decision. I think what’s important is that we band together to make sure that we are all adhering to – that we’re sticking together when the government declares war on us.

And like I said, look, me standing up for Major Garrett or for Fox News when the White House was saying this is not a news organization is not me sticking up for something crazy that somebody said on Fox News in primetime, which certainly happened. My problem is instead of the Obama White House saying we really took issue with what anchor X said and we are not going to do anything with that show and that’s embarrassing, duh, duh, duh, they made an attempt to say an entire – like, hundreds of people were not legitimate reporters. And I know plenty of people at Fox who are legitimate reporters. is legitimate. is legitimate. I could go – James Rosen is. I mean, there are plenty of them, not to mention producers I know.

MR. SCHWARTZ: James Rosen’s a great friend of mine. And I think you’ve really actually hit the nail on the head here. And this is a really important thing for people to understand. We, here at CSIS, we work with Breitbart reporters all the time too – legitimate ones. And, you know, I think it’s going to be more incumbent on policymakers and the American people to really discern what their news is and who they’re getting it from and who they trust. I think you hit it – you know, you said it very – made a very important point.

MR. TAPPER: I don’t – again, I don’t care for Breitbart. It’s not – I’m just talking about my personal choice. But I have read excellent journalism in Breitbart – like I mentioned, Charlie Spiering and Brandon Darby I think are great reporters. So, you know, the point is, the attempt to wipe out an entire news organization. Donald Trump wasn’t taking issue with Jim Acosta because or something Jim Acosta had reported. Jim Acosta didn’t break that story. Jim Sciutto, me, Evan Perez, and Carl Bernstein did.

This was Donald Trump – President-elect Trump attempting to discredit an entire organization – thousands of people – because he didn’t like one story – or maybe he didn’t like a lot of stories. But he didn’t like it. And so he was just trying to wipe off the face of the Earth one – CNN, through Jim Acosta. And this is what, to a much lesser degree – you know, again, I’m not saying it’s equivalent – but this is what I resisted when the Obama White House tried to do the same thing with Fox News. They don’t like some coverage; therefore they attempt to discredit the entire organization. We have to band together against it.

Do I think enough reporters stuck up for Fox? Probably not. Probably not. But I know that I – that when they named James Rosen in that indictment because of a story he reported, I did a segment in my show. When the State Department went after him, and it turned out he was telling the truth, I did a segment on my show. I stood up for him and got a lot of heat from the left when I referred to Fox News as our sister organization – here’s a little – you want a little scoop? My son had just been born a week before and I hadn’t slept in a week. So I probably wouldn’t use the term sister organization – (laughter) – if had slept. I probably would just say like a fellow member – credentialed member of the White House Correspondents Association, but I was grasping at words. You guys have kids; you know what I’m talking about.

But at the end of the day, like, we need to stand up for each other. And it’s been nice to see people like Shep Smith on Fox stand up for us. It’s also been distressing to see other people on Fox say things like, oh, payback is a bitch, which said. And I like Neil a lot. And I was really disappointed that he did that – really disappointed.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you about one thing. So now Fox is – you know, Trump is coming down hard on you. But throughout the campaign, there were people that took the absolute opposite attitude toward CNN. And there were some who said CNN elected Donald Trump because you gave him so much airtime. Talk about that.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah. Well, I think it is true that – especially in 2015 when he announced and the Trump phenomenon started to happen and he was filling these arenas with thousands and thousands of people and other people – other candidates were not – I think it is true that – and Jeff Zucker has acknowledged as much, that CNN ran too many of these rallies unedited, start to finish, without fact-checking, et cetera. I think it’s true – I think MSNBC did the same thing. I think Fox News did the same thing. CNN has been the only one that I know of that has acknowledged that that was a mistake.

By the same token, I think that we have provided some of the toughest coverage of him and did some of the toughest interviews with him. I did the interview about Judge Curiel with him. I did the interview about the KKK with him. In our very first interview, which was in June or July of 2015, I wore a Trump tie to the interview to show him that it had been made in China. I mean, and let me say also, he, generally speaking, until he entered the general election – he was willing to do the give and take and he was willing to do it in the spirit in which it was intended. We challenge him, he responds, and there’s a good give and take. And actually, I gave him credit at the time for being willing to put himself in that position more than anyone.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Well, I mean, and in CNN’s defense, I mean, this was big news. Suddenly this guy comes out of nowhere and he’s getting thousands of people to come out to hear what he has to say. He’s calling in – I asked Mika Brzezinski one time, why is that you guys let Trump call in on the phone? Why don’t you get Hillary Clinton? And she said, getting Hillary Clinton is like getting an interview with Mother Theresa. You know, it was virtually impossible because the Clinton campaign was running by the old rules, control the – control the dialogue, don’t put your candidate in a place where they might get a question that they don’t know the answer to, or that they’re not prepared for. Control that very carefully. And while all that was happening, Trump was just going out and getting himself on television.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah. First of all, we did take call-ins from people who were not Donald Trump, when they started to realize that it was a smart thing to do. I took a call-in from Bobby Jindal. I took a call-in from Hillary Clinton – more than one, I think. I think I took a call-in from . I mean, we were willing to do it. As you know, they were not willing to call in and do the interviews. When I –

MR. SCHIEFFER: Or appear.

MR. TAPPER: Or appear. When I launched State of the Union in June 2015 – you know, you always want a big guest for your big show and then for your last – as you got, I remember. You had like 100 big guests for your last show. Who did you have? You had like every president – every living president.

MR. SCHIEFFER: (Laughs.) Well, I had – I think I had George Bush and Barack Obama. I don’t know if that was the very last one, but we were getting close to it. Yeah.

MR. TAPPER: Yeah, not bad. Anyway, but my only point is my ask – my offer – again, I’ve never said this publicly either – my offer was to , to Marco Rubio, and to Hillary Clinton. The campaign hadn’t even really started yet, so we had no idea who was going to be – but we all knew Hillary Clinton was going to be the frontrunner in the Democratic nomination. We all thought Jeb Bush, wrongly, was going to be the frontrunner. And I had a relationship with Marco Rubio. And I think a lot of people thought Rubio might be a contender too.

I offered those three – each one of them, one after the other – come on my show. I’ll give you the whole hour. I’ll give you the whole hour. We’ll tell your life story. You know – Jeb Bush, we’ll tell why did you go to Mexico? Tell us about meeting Columba. You know, Marco Rubio, tell me about your parents’ history coming from – you know, the whole thing. All the stuff that Hillary Clinton was grasping at straws to make sure the American people knew about during her convention – about the Children’s Defense Fund and thing and that – we’ll tell you story. Yes, there are going to be questions in there that you don’t like. Yes, there are going to be some adversarial moment. But I want to give you the whole hour.

All of them turned it down. Every one of them. And it was like pulling teeth to get a lot of these people on air because, as you know, they all thought that the old formula worked. Only do Sunday shows every now and then, only when you have news to announced, only in seven- minute spurts. You know, seldom in person, usually by satellite. And Donald Trump would do it all the time. And he would take tough questions. And then he would come back. I challenged him about you really weren’t talking about menstruation when you were talking about blood coming out of Megyn Kelly’s wherever? You weren’t? He goes no.

I mean, that’s a question that would not take today, and then he would call me fake news and whatever, but he took it back then. I think that helped him. I think his willingness to get in the mix and engage helped him. I don’t like their press strategy now, but I think they had a different one then that I think worked for them. And as long as we were asking tough questions, I didn’t understand the complaints – other than airing the rallies, as we did.

MR. SCHIEFFER: I mean, I think – to follow on what you’re saying here – I think Trump’s strategy worked. I think Trump got the Republican nomination before the other candidates actually were taking him seriously.

MR. TAPPER: Oh, how about this? The second presidential debate, which I moderated at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley – I knew – I had been saying, this guy is real. And he – at that point he was at the top of the polls. But I said, this is not Herman Cain. This is going to – he’s onto something here. My first question was: Carly Fiorina – you know, Bobby Jindal said that he would be very nervous about Donald Trump with his hand on the nuclear codes. Bobby Jindal didn’t make the cut. He was in the other debate – the undercard. What do you think. And she whiffed. She wouldn’t – she wouldn’t take him on.

And then Trump responded, started yelling about how Rand Paul shouldn’t even be on the stage and other stuff like that. And then I went to Jeb Bush. What about you? Do you think that Donald Trump has the temperament to be president, that you trust his hands on the nuclear codes? Again, that’s up to the American people to decide. I was, like, Trump’s going to be the nominee. These people do not even understand that they need to take him on directly, that he is projecting this alpha image that a lot of Republicans responded to. And they are wimping out. I mean, Carly Fiorina later on said something in that debate, but generally speaking by the time – by the time they realized what they were dealing with it was too late. And then when they switched and started attacking him they looked desperate.

MR. SCHIEFFER: Jake Tapper. Well, we’re going to have your hands full this year.

MR. TAPPER: Oh my God.

MR. SCHIEFFER: And you’re already off and running her. So all the best to you.

MR. TAPPER: Thank you so much. It’s such an honor.

MR. SCHIEFFER: For Andrew Schwartz, this is Bob Schieffer. Thanks for listening.

MR. SCHWARTZ: But that’s not all, Bob. At the top of this podcast we gave you just a tease of the great music from my friend Aaron Neville’s new record, Apache. Let’s hear some more from Aaron Neville.

(Music plays.)

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