A Siege Mentality. Debra J. Saunders talks to Armstrong & Getty

it reach your ears? I Joe Getty stumblingly and rushingly introduced you as white Horse white Horse, white House correspondent. I said, I've been accused of accusing you of prostitution, which was obviously spread to the tongue merely my own, you know, mush mouthed slip of the tongue. So in case that comes up on Twitter or something like that, I wanted you to hear it from me. It's incompetence, which should not be a surprise. And competence, isn't it

lack of annunciation? Or here it is? So was the White House happy to hear or scared to hear that the story that Mueller might be wrapping up as an investigation zone you have any idea. I'm sure they were happy to hear it, but you know, I don't know how true it is. I just I mean, we know that that that's um what Whittaker said, the Acting Attorney General. But uh, there are reasons to think that things are

going to keep going on for a while. The fact that he just indicted Roger Stone, that case is going to continue. Now it's possible that that the d o J will take over that case. Um, So I don't you know. I think I think that the White House has always believed that the investigation will not find Russian collusion with the campaign, and if it does end soon, um, that may well be the case. I'm astounded at how long I have to be reminded at how long the

Muller investigation has been going on. It's really been dragged on. What is it? Is it two years? It's well it started, Uh the four Mula of course headed it, and it started in right, Yeah, that's right. All the congressional committees were going over and I heard Devin Nunia's point out the other day that they said Roger Stone did not collude. They've already figured that out. So's he's thinking the trial should be really really interesting, but so deb you hang

around and talk to people and everything like that. If if I read the Washington Post or various other publications, they have a story, it would seem weakly of how the president's in the worst spot of his presidency and now he's hunkered down in a room yelling at you know, the gold fishing a bowl. I mean, he's just really lost it, feeling the pressure. No friends, um, and there were stories like that last week. What's the mood there?

You have any idea? Well, I mean it is as as I said the last time, it's been weird to go over there. During the shutdown. The door to get into lower press is often locked. Uh, it was locked. I did pull this weekend. It was locked the whole time I was there. You just don't have any the openness that one once saw is not there the way

it was before. And I'm sorry comes back or not, I'm sorry to jump in, but for those of us who are not hip to it, is that like I'd watched the West Wing and the reporters had wandered down and talk to the press people and just have informal chats and ask him a question, and that sort of thing.

Is that what happens down there? Well, okay, so you you see Sarah Sanders when she comes out for the the the monthly daily press briefing, right, and she comes in through a door and that door leads to what they call Lower Press, and that's where some of the press people work. That's where the wranglers work. The wranglers are the people who organize everything when the when the press go somewhere, they take care of that. And then you walk through some more stairs. There's a secret service

guy there, and then there's Upper Press. And that's where Sarah Sanders office is. Um. She has a fireplace by the way. Awesome. Nice yeah, nice and um and so so you will see people lighting up there. Do we just sort of chat? No, that the deal is that you have to sort of They don't like you wandering all over of the place, right, but you do. You can go out there and ask questions, which we do. So then what has changed that you say, is less

access than you had before? Well, locked doors. For a large part of the shotdown, they just and there was and the place was not fully staffed, so you just didn't see people and there's just seemed to be and you know I'd go in looking for someone, there'd be no one in the lower press. You go up to upper press and the doors are closed. Uh. There, you

know they were there. They were meeting me. Obviously. It's sort of you get, I think, into a siege mentality when when something like this happens, like a shutdown, and everybody is wondering what's going to happen next. So your question is does it come back the way it was before? They in kind of a permanent siege mentality, it never comes back to the way it was before. I mean

that that's the thing that that I've learned. For example, Um, so everybody's what happened to the daily briefing, right, and during the mid terms, the president would travel, which means that there would be a gaggle with the president or more likely press secretary deputy press secretary, and the White House would say, well, we're not going to do a briefing because we have a gaggle today, and that gets expanded so that if Trump starts talking to the pool

when he goes on his way to Marine one, well we don't have to do it that way. That everything else, and then all of a sudden, they're just gone, and we just don't have daily briefings anymore. Yesterday's was the first nineteen. It was the first December eighteen, and I just don't think we're ever going to get back to the way the first daily briefing in a month. Do you see the term daily's right there in the name. Wow. So we're talking to Deborah Saunders, the White House correspondent

for the Las Vegas Review Journal. You know, it's it's so troubling. It's well documented and off discussed that the Bush administration became fairly closed compared to the Clinton administration. Then Obama made the Bush administration look like you're great aunt who won't shut up. And then now the Trump administration, for various reasons, is more closed than than Obama's shop was. Um, this is not good for America. Well, you know, I mean, look at I know a lot of people listening. They

hate the media and they hate people like me. I get that. Uh, And and I'm not gonna get on my high horse about how everybody should communicate with us. I'll just say I don't even I don't think it's that great for this White House because there are a lot of people who want to cover this White House and tell the story about what's going on, and they're not they're not being given the chance that they that they would like to have to do that, So um and and and it's just sort of it's sad to see.

Uh and you know, look at Trump does talk to the press. You saw him in the Rose Garden on Friday, and he talked extensively, rash. He didn't take questions city right, that was another time, the time before. That was the time before he did not take questions because of course he just lost the shutdown. And I think that they're you know, they're trying to regroup, and they're and they're trying to see what happens next. Obviously the state of the Union will give them a chance perhaps to reset

or not. Your point though, about how you don't think it's good for the administration. It was funny as you were saying that, my eyes were flicking down. A list of headlines in the Huahwei story popped up, and I pictured Sarah Sanders forcefully making the case that we're through being abused by the Chinese Communist government and its Lackey corporations. And this is why we're in a wrestling match with the Chinese. And and this is something the President is

doing that I happen to agree with completely. Um, it seems like a great opportunity to hammer that point and grab some headlines. But you know, like you say, they're hunkered down for for better and worse. And I mean, look at the stories that are happening right now. During the briefing yesterday, they talked about Venezuela and the sanctions against Medoro, right, and that's that's a big story. And that's something that I think a lot of people from

the left and the right can hear. The White House sport. Right, We've got these negotiations with Afghanistan, and uh, it's it's amazing how posensible policy could seem. You know, we don't know what's in it yet, we don't know how it's going to work out, but how much they can seem when it's not announced on a tweet. Right. And and then you're right, this wild way story they're really getting tough with with China in the middle of these trade talks,

and and and this these are all great stories. Um, but there's all I mean. But the thing is, it's hard to take your eyes off the Trump presidency or the Trump Show, right, the Trump Show. If you're going to cover one story in a day, it's hard to get to the other stuff when you when you have this, uh, when you have all these things happening before your eyes, and and and and how Trump handles the shutdown, I think is going to really give us an idea, some

insight into how the rest of the presidency will go. Well. In a couple of weeks, we'll be talking about, you know, the ultimate fruit of the shutdown, I guess, with the immigration policy and in the fence barrier wall. Final question from me, Uh, this is just a gut question, Debrah Saunders. Your years of journalism very few years. You're very young. Um. The the the John Bolton's pad with a five thousand troops to Columbia, my, I say, clearly intended to be seen,

I should hope. So, Okay, So for if folks are not familiar, you know, the big meaning at the White House suppress was allowed cameras and stuff, and he's holding quite openly a yellow legal pad with practically nothing written on it. But one of the two lines was five thousand troops to Columbia and initially have to write down because you might forget if you didn't write that. I just remembered it here and I'm asleep, deprived talk show host.

So yeah, that's it seemed pretty clear. Huh yeah. You know. It's funny because there was during uh something in the East wing of the White House where they were discussing gun control. Trump had somebody give him a list of things to do, like basically seeing sympathetic, and they're all those things like that. That was not meant to be seen. Yes, I have to believe that this was meant to be seen. Good one, fair enough. Deborah J. Saunders is the White

House correspondent for the Las Vegas Review Journal. Debora, great to talk to you. Thank you, Thank you, Jack, thank you, Joe. Go get them. So they figured out how to play the game. They figured out that the press now reads everybody's post it notes or whatever, and so you get some messages out there that way. That's that's a good one. That's funny, funny. Holding the paths quick and be ready. I'm sorry. Did you see that you weren't supposed to?

Perhaps you want to write about that. Wolf Blitzer called that very significant, very significant. Indeed, wolf Blitzer. Let me. Here's Joe Getty Theater portraying a wolf Blitzter brainstell. Hello, Is there anyone else here