Aamer Madhani Transcript: April 4, 2025
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:00:00):
Well welcome and as you continue to finish, the donuts that graciously brought to you today, he’s feeding you and teaching you along the way. So we’re most grateful. And as all of you know, every organization that covers the White House these days has had to reassess how they do the work. No organization more than the Associated Press. Amer Hanni is part of the APS team of White House reporters who’s covering that place now at a bit of a distance. As you all know. He is however limited as to what he can say about the litigation ongoing now challenging the White House’s ban on reporters and photographers from press pools and other official events. But the reason I reached out to Amer is because he is a total pro. He has all of the skills that reporters spend a lifetime trying to acquire. He has before joining ap, he opened or led bureaus at USA today in Baghdad and in Chicago. So please come with your questions and welcome Hanni to our group.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:01:45):
First, thank you so much. I hate talking in front of groups. The donuts is just sheer bribery by the way, so know that. But I am excited about being here today because of Kevin. I met Kevin almost 20 years ago now when I started at USA today. And I think one thing you can get out of this experience is try to glean something off of him because there’s so much of how to be a reporter in this town and how to be a really good reporter for a really long time. How there’s a lot of peacocks in this town and then there’s fewer diamonds in the rough like Kevin who just get the work done. They’re so solid, they’re so well sourced that will take their colleagues like he did with me 20 years ago and showed me how to at least maybe find a way to have a semblance of a career 20 years later.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:02:52):
Is that why you brought the donuts?
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:02:54):
It’s all a wind up, but I’ll be asking for the loan later. Kevin. Times are tough, but seriously, congratulations about being part of this program. I did actually applied for this program the first time I came to Washington in 2006 and did not get in. So this is God what happened. I didn’t know you then, but yeah, so I came to the AP from Chicago. This is my second go round in Washington and I came to join the White House team in the last year of Trump. As I arrived in October, 2019, the first impeachment was happening. So in a year span we basically had two impeachments, a crazy election C, and then these last four years where it just didn’t seem things haven’t stopped. The pace is incredible. There’s at least three of you I know that I’ve traveled with that know firsthand and you guys are early in seeing this, but you have to build stamina very quickly. I think in this job. That’s like one thing I think being, to borrow a phrase from Tom from succession, like a real value that you could have is being a pain sponge because there’s just a lot of it. It’s a lot of being sort of uncomfortable and sitting in the back of vans and often being, if not mistreated, not thought of very well or highly by some of the people that you’re interacting with at the White House. And it’s crazy competitive.
(00:04:56):
I think to some extent you’re at the tip of every story every day, which is great. It’s amazing beat and that there’s a lot of opportunities just by what it is, but it’s also a lot oftentimes and you have to figure out your ways, how to find your spots, how to navigate and make yourself distinctive when there’s, at any given day you go into the briefing room, especially now when there’s so much interest and there’s literally hundreds and hundreds of reporters that are smashed into this tiny space that’s the Brady Press wing of the White House.
(00:05:51):
And I think where my experience has been a little different and that has helped me is doing different things. It is my second go around both in Washington and my second go around at the White House. I’d done it previously during the Obama administration, briefly for the National Journal and then for USA today and just the thing I’m sure you guys are all dealing with, whatever beat you’re covering with is how much the speed of things seems to increase. And you think there’s a limit of how can things get any faster and how much more can we be doing, but also how could it be possible that the world could be moving this fast? And it feels like the last five years, at least that frame for me in this space in my life in Washington, I absolutely crushing and keeping up with that for all of us I think is very, very difficult.
(00:07:00):
But I don’t see it slowing down either. And I’m curious too of how you all are one, consuming all of it and processing it and taking that to your work, which is something that I struggle with every day. And I think it’s a process that we’re all going to be going through and frankly, most of you just looking around and I apologize if I’m slab you as on the first third of your career as well, I’m now entering the last third of my career and I wonder, I could not imagine what being a reporter is like today, 15 years ago.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:07:56):
I saw a lot of glazed eyes when you arrived today, and I assume it wasn’t from out drinking last night. It’s been from a month. One of the reasons why I love having Amer here, it’s not because he heaps praises on me, helps them, but yeah, it does. But he brings a depth of experience that folks in Washington don’t generally have and who are then applying it to their work at the White House or other places that are institutional Washington. And so I guess my question, and maybe you can share with them is a little bit about what experience for you has been most valuable that you’ve been able to translate to your work here?
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:08:49):
I think it’s the accumulation of experience and that even goes in a few different ways. Having covered a war, I covered the Rock War for an aggregate for a couple of different organizations for two and a half years just being in a war zone. And frankly, I think wars have just the way wars are being fought now, that seems like what doing that was a piece of cake compared to folks that a few years back even covered Syria or even earlier I guess than that Libya. But even now, even with Ukraine and definitely with Gaza where you’re covering it most western organizations kind of from afar, it’s much different. I think it was much easier covering Iraq and Afghanistan, which in Afghanistan I did a little bit of but not too much.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:09:49):
I just want that
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:09:50):
To sink in a little
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:09:51):
Bit easier. Covering a rock than
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:09:54):
Well it is, right? And I think in some ways, and again I’m sucking up to you guys a little bit here, but it’s not, I think that job was a lot more straightforward than a lot of what you’re doing now. So yeah, obviously there’s the danger aspect of it, but there’s kind of the danger aspect with what you guys are doing right now. You guys are all so online, you’re have to be, you’re so out front and you’re taking lots of incoming and the rules of the game have definitely changed a lot. It didn’t just start, but it’s been changing a lot and you’re fair game and one, you have to be, there’s so much pressure on you, and I know I’ve worked closely with Skylar and Stephanie, so it’s very, very weird to be talking to you. I think you should be telling me what I’m doing wrong with my career and my life, but I know the wire service is a little bit better now.
(00:11:00):
And the pressure on you guys just to get stuff right, to get it fast, to get there and to be first is enormous. At the same time, if you screw up, the consequences of that are also enormous. And it’s harder and harder just to be like, I think Kevin and I, I’m sorry to put you in the space, I think I’m the latter edge of these journalists that are able to make careers for ourselves that you probably had to Google, who the hell is this guy when you saw my name on the email? But that type of journalist where you can be kind of anonymous and just do your job and do your job well, I think that’s kind of going away. We’re all so out there now and to stay in the business, you got to be producing and you have to continue to evolve and get better. I’m going to have to for the next 15 years, if I want the last third of my career to be in this business, I’m going to be having to make the same sort of improvements and building on myself that you guys are doing now in the first third of your careers.
(00:12:17):
But the other thing that I think is to your question of what the experience of gained is, what you don’t expect happens. So everything is an accumulation of these experiences, but also the sourcing is an accumulation. One of my best, if not my best source that I have in Washington was someone I met 12 years ago in Chicago who is a campaign hack in Chicago, and you don’t know where things will end up. I remember in sort of the sourcing realm of why it’s so important to do these meetings and go to, you often get invited to these think tank dinners and things, and it could be grinding just going to this stuff. You want to have a life, you want to exercise and you’ve got to do all that stuff and have loved ones and friends, et cetera, and find that balance. But collecting these experiences are so important. You just don’t know when they’re going to pop up. And I think, so my last day with USA today in Chicago, and I was covering a big story in the Midwest and at the time, and for the duration I had been in Chicago was gun violence and Black Lives Matter. Laquan McDonald happened in Chicago and Michael Brown in St. Louis during that period
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:13:53):
Seems anxious.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:13:54):
Yeah, it does. But the last day I was there and I was on my way out, I was literally see you and there was this person that was kind of prominent but insider and in the gun lobby movement to sort of be obscure about it. And I was like, eh, I’m going to Washington, I’m going to be covering Trump. I’m going to be probably mostly covering national security. But I decided to go because I’d never met this person, the person what I knew about the person was kind of intriguing. Fast forward to early Biden administration, probably like 16, maybe 20 months after that. And not in part of my silo of how we cover things within the White House at a PM do mostly almost entirely national security. But there was whispers that Biden was going to name his A TF nominee
(00:15:04):
And people had some ideas that ended up being wrong. And I was like, lemme just call this person who I hadn’t talked to, but she remembered me and we had a pleasant conversation and I was like, do you know anything about this? And first she was hesitant to tell me and then she told me, yeah, they’ve told me that it’s going to be Dick Chipman. And I was like, okay. And she’s like, that’s off the record. And I tried working at other ways and other colleagues tried to get it and we weren’t able to get it. And this was morning when I talked to her by the end of the afternoon, I was able to get her on background and get some documentation as well that that could go with just the one source that he was going to be named. But it’s just the point of that story is it’s like there was nothing special about me in breaking that story. It was just accumulating these experiences and you never know when some of these people that you meet along the way are going to come up again and are going to end up being helpful. And it’s inevitable, especially some of you I’m assuming are on the hill and you may not stay on Capitol Hill, but that is such a great place to build sources because a lot of your sources are people sort of in the same point in their careers as you as well. So you’re literally going to grow up together in your parallel fields.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:16:54):
And sourcing is something that we’ve tried to talk a lot about here or at least promote the idea of sourcing. And just to tag onto what Amer said, and it really is important, I mean all the people that you meet in your Rolodex, which nobody knows about anymore, but in your contact list are people that you can call on. Having covered the Justice department for a long time, I used to call previous attorneys general or Deputy Attorneys general, and I remember having a contact list full of those people when sessions was going to be dismissed by Trump fired and there was a lot of talk about who was going to be the next attorney general. And so I called Bill Barr because I had his number and I talked to him as an analyst and he got on the phone and he said we were scrambling, needed something on deadline. And he said, yeah, it’s me, but you can’t say it that I told you, but you can use it. I can say that now because person, he’s gone
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:18:19):
Intimately familiar with Bill Barr,
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:18:20):
A person who is familiar. But it goes to just what Amer is saying, that there are people that you call now routinely for context analysis. They’re going to come back to you at some point in time, maybe not Bill Barr, but they will in some other life.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:18:41):
And I think it’s sort of in that element as well. I know I early on, and I still do to a certain extent, really beat up on myself about I am not Maggie Haberman, I am not a Shadow or Josh Dossey or there’s these people and it’s just such a competitive field and such concentration of talent in this town and sourcing is really hard and it takes time and you can be good at sourcing without necessarily, you don’t have to necessarily be the best. Maybe one of you in this room is going to be that generational talent, but if you’re not, that’s okay too. Sourcing can still be an important, and it is. There’s no way I think around, I don’t think you get around this talent if you don’t, but it does take time and you do need to give yourself grace, but you also just need to submit yourself to it.
Sophie Hills | Christian Science Monitor (00:19:47):
I’m Sophie Hills, I write for the Christian Science Monitor. Oh
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:19:50):
My god, I see your pool reports all the time.
Sophie Hills | Christian Science Monitor (00:19:51):
Yes. I think maybe we pulled together but at some point nice to see used to pool together. I’m
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:19:59):
Too soon, Kevin.
Sophie Hills | Christian Science Monitor (00:20:03):
Anyways. Oh right. So in terms of calling people who, you have the example of calling the person over the a TF
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:20:14):
Pointing.
Sophie Hills | Christian Science Monitor (00:20:14):
Yeah,
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:20:15):
No. And
Sophie Hills | Christian Science Monitor (00:20:15):
You hadn’t talked to them in nearly two years or whatever.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:20:18):
No,
Sophie Hills | Christian Science Monitor (00:20:18):
It didn’t have a super established relationship. It sounded like with that source, sometimes I struggle, especially not being a big name, I call a source, they don’t know who I am. They sometimes don’t even know what the monitor is. And so how do you call someone for a specific piece of information? How do you have that conversation without just sounding kind of opportunistic? I guess
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:20:39):
You are being opportunistic is the reality. So I think it’s one, you need to be shameless about this, right? You’re asking for information, but I think it’s also why should this person give you this information? Why is it the benefit to give it to Sophie in this case? I think part of the benefit I had was the organization that I was working for and that I think one of the nice things about working for day pizza, this really trusted and we really work hard and we very much back base and when we screw things up we’re quick to correct and we’ve built this 175 year reputation that I get to write on now and leveraging that.
(00:21:36):
The thing is we did have a very pleasant conversation and I think we had a few emails back and forth that were, even though I wasn’t covering guns and I kind of kept in touch, but it wasn’t anything particularly sustained or too significant. Some of it that a little bit of that was just serendipity and luck. And I charmed her a little bit over the course of the day and I made the case of it’s going to get out there, this is a good place for it to be out there and we get out. It’s one thing. Is there any New York Times people in here? No. Okay, good.
(00:22:19):
And in that case, and this is sometimes an argument I make is that yeah, the New York Times, I love the New York Times, it’s the first thing I read every day, but with the AP, you’re getting this message out first also to the world. A lot of people like in Joplin, Missouri, they’re probably not reading the person who’s going to first learn about this isn’t going to end the New York Times. And a lot of what we do also now as a result of the brand is and the way people consume news, it’s going up in your elevator and that crawl, that crawl is from the AP or Reuters or Bloomberg. That’s where that’s coming from. And leveraging things like that of why giving it to you is important, why working with you is important and why you should be trusted and that is what takes time you to, I hate building your brand but building a reputation of being a solid reporter and a solid person.
(00:23:20):
And I think also just going in, you obviously have an agenda. Your agenda is you want the information and you want to get it and you want to get it before your colleagues do. If ideal or at least match your colleagues, which is 99% of what you’re doing is getting back to why don’t beat yourself up. Because in a good year to have, what if you had three or four real scoops? Not like handouts and that’s important too. But look, that’s a fantastic year. If I have three real scoops this year, I’ll call it, and that takes time and I’ve been doing it for 25 years and I’m still evolving in sourcing and if I stop evolving, I’ll probably be out of a job as all of us will. So okay, we’ll go down the line. No questions from Skylar.
Skylar Woodhouse | Bloomberg News (00:24:23):
Thanks for being here. I was just curious how much you are leaning on external, non-White House sources right now and sort of navigating going about external sources. Like you said, you focus on national security and dealing with those think tanks, but then when it comes time to presenting that intel with your editors, how do you have that conversation with them so that way if it’s not a core White House person but they’re in the know externally, just how do you navigate that?
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:25:00):
So I think there’s a couple of things with that and I think both of us have the great advantage of having great colleagues on Capitol Hill, but also I think the secret of the White House, any White House, and this isn’t just the Trump White House, your best game is often an outside game. Even with, so yesterday, I’m typically on most days working on the national security story of the day, and that was the NSC firings yesterday and Laura Loomer not getting into sources. And I think we were a little slow and I put it on me, we were a little slow. We should have had that story first. And New York Times had that story before me and a little bit of it was my fault to be honest because I was hesitant on some of the sourcing. I was like, oh, I think we need more and we should have gone with we had it, but because I was cautious, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you have to be cautious sometimes, but I was kicking myself and I’m sure some of my colleagues were like no as well as they should, but I think they understand the great part of working, looking around all these organizations that are in here, the editors know what’s going on and a lot of ’em have been in the job and they see how things are evolving, but they also know sometimes the way you have to do sourcing and to get the information, not sometimes frequently is more of an outside game.
(00:26:43):
And I think you’ve probably seen this already early on, you’re getting up there into your grizzled veteran White House and Stephanie, you’ve seen this too, I’m sure of where, and I think it’s true with both Biden and Trump and Trump won and Obama, if you come at them with something, they’re more likely to all play ball. I think that’s been universal with all of ’em. So if you have good outside sources that could provide you with actionable information that you could push them on, that is often the easiest way to get them motivated to work with you in my experience.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:27:33):
Go down the line.
Stephanie Lai | Bloomberg News (00:27:37):
Thanks for being here. This is Stephanie at Bloomberg as well. I had two questions. The first one on sourcing, let’s say there’s someone who talk to the press, someone you really want to get to know, but they’ve just been not responsive. How do you break that wall with them? Is it just being persistent or do you have any tips
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:27:54):
On that? Yeah, I think it’s persistent and I feel like we’ve sort of had this conversation in some ways of, Stephanie had covered the campaign, so sometimes you can be on the outs and sometimes you’re not on the outs. And I think persistence, finding ways to them. And it also sometimes just takes time. And I think sometimes people have misperceptions also. Sometimes people are just busy or overwhelmed and it’s impossible not to take it personally I think, right? That’s like that’s my nature and I think that’s often a lot of our natures and particularly in how competitive we’re built to be, but you have to have some patience and just keep going at it, but at some point it just might not happen and you have to accept that and put your eggs in other baskets and find other ways to the information. And that’s the thing too, right? There’s sometimes information you’re just not going to be able to get from the source who’s giving it out. So what are other pressure points? And I think that’s the thing collectively, the faster you can think about that and build your brain, and again, something I feel like I’m still working on, what are those pressure points? How do you get it? How do you get Bill Barr if Bill Barr isn’t calling you up and dining with you like Kevin Johnson with
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:29:31):
Would’ve broken my expense account,
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:29:34):
But yeah, no, but right, Kevin just beat you and you know how he beat you, but how do you get that? And there are always almost always other ways.
Stephanie Lai | Bloomberg News (00:29:50):
Hello? The second question I had was on your point about having stamina, do you have tips on
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:29:56):
Stay young, don’t get old?
(00:29:59):
I think it’s actually, and I may have had this conversation with a couple of you, so weird looking at you guys and I’ve had the great fortune of already getting to work with some of you guys, but I think some of the things that I did early in my career as far as just how I spent my time not making exercise a priority, now I’m having to catch up with, and so don’t do that. I think it’s just obvious stuff. Go to the doctor, eat well, get exercise, try to get sleep, don’t drink too much, find out healthy outlets for the enormous amount of stress.
(00:30:51):
I never covered Capitol Hill, but I think it’s probably a lot like the White House and I think there’s two ways to be not even good at it, just to keep your head above water and not be a total failure at it. It’s totally submit yourself or you have to be really, really well organized. I think last year you had Darlene Superville, one of my colleagues, extraordinarily organized and she cuts out blocks of times. She works extraordinarily, extraordinarily hard, but she has her, I don’t know how much time of day it is or whatever, her hour of day she’s religious about the exercise and she’s, you’ve seen her and if you’ve seen her on TV or something, this woman’s been doing this for 20 plus years, just the White House and has had other big jobs at the AP and I’m sure she’s older than me and she looks way younger than me, but she’s just like a healthy person and I think that’s the better way to go. I think I went the submit yourself to it, that’s one not sustainable. Eventually you slow down and then your bosses are like, he’s screwing off, but it’s not possible. So I think you’re better getting into learning these healthy habits and seeing them as sort of almost an investment in yourself professionally as well that you’re not, this isn’t something that, and maybe that’s the way I should start thinking as I’m talking blabbering about this is that you’re doing this so you can be good at the job.
Audrey Decker | Defense One (00:32:48):
Hi, you’re next. I’m Audrey Decker. I cover the Pentagon for Defense one. But I’m curious about how you kind of navigated covering Biden at the end of his term and just with his decline. Some people have even blamed White House reporters for not reporting the full extent of his decline in order to protect their access. I don’t know if that’s fair or not, but just curious how you navigated that situation and how that affected your coverage and all that.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:33:23):
So I think all of us, our core value should be to truth and I would push back on that the decline wasn’t covered. I think it was covered. I think that the White House, even though it was being shown to them over and over again by various news organizations in different ways, including in three weeks, two of the award winners at the White House Correspondence Association are going to be Alex Thompson from Axios who basically you look at the submission of what he won for, it’s all about his decline and how the White House covered up. So I think you could, the blame if it is on anyone, should be on his advisors that insisted he was okay to do this when he obviously wasn’t or at some point became less capable of performing and the questions became obvious for Americans to question his decline. And then the second, the ap, his inability to be as smooth with how he spoke than he was earlier in his career.
(00:34:46):
And it’s pretty remarkable too. You look at that 20 16 60 minutes and then you look at the end of his time and he did get older, we all get older, but he was an amazing orator for much of his career and definitely wasn’t at the end. And the garbage quote, and we covered it myself and Zeke Miller at the ap, we broke the story when the press office went over the heads of the St Steno group, which is an amazing group of career government workers that go from administration, administration and are purely dedicated to archiving history. We were the ones that pointed that out. So I guess I would push back on that question pretty strongly.
Audrey Decker | Defense One (00:35:48):
I wasn’t trying to blame you at all, I was just,
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:35:50):
It’s my fault.
Audrey Decker | Defense One (00:35:52):
I was just curious how you navigated that and if you saw any other reporters kind of walk that delicate balance.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:36:00):
Yeah, sure. And there’s, in this administration, there’s definitely access whores and there’s people that just the, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. This is on the record, but
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:36:15):
Good color
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:36:21):
And that’s the thing. You have to decide what kind of reporter you want to be and what are the scoops that you want and what are the value. And you can do that. I’m sure there’s a way that you can build yourself to be, if you want the Pentagon warehouse for information. And I’m not saying that all handouts are bad. Every organization gets handouts and I have taken handout scoops before, I don’t remember any of ’em. Those melt on contact. Those are not going to be the satisfying stories in your career. And I think sort of being dedicated to, I don’t know, I think my job, basically it comes down to being truthful and trying to explain things to people clearly so they can have a semblance of knowledge of what’s going on in their world. That’s from my little space, that’s how I see my job and I hope I stay pretty focused on those and I don’t know, it seems like a simple way to approach it. Right.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:37:23):
Actually, I promised Leah we’d go up from thanks.
Lia DeGroot | CQ Roll Call (00:37:35):
Excuse me. Hi, I’m Lia. I’m with CQ roll call. Thank you for the donuts and for being here, I wanted to ask back on the sourcing point. I cover healthcare and this week has been a lot of firings at HHS including in the communications office. And so a lot of the people that we usually will try and confirm things with aren’t helpful, they haven’t been as responsive, it’s harder to get details from ’em. So I wanted to ask if you have any advice about getting in touch with folks at the lower level in some of these organizations and one, how you find them and then also how you make the case for why they should talk to you
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:38:16):
When
Lia DeGroot | CQ Roll Call (00:38:16):
They’re really scared about what could happen.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:38:18):
So every organization obviously has their sourcing rules and what, but I think this is a great time just to not think about the current moment with healthcare and federal government workers. There’s a treasure trove of sources being made right now that are going through this sort of tumultuous period in government and we live like right, you live in the Washington area I’m assuming, and I see it in my neighborhood. I live in Alexandria, not too far from Kevin in a much smaller, not as nice house as Kevin, but too much. There’s too much information coming out here. All of it should be for transparency though, but you’re seeing it around you and I think it’s even looking at it beyond sort of healthcare. So it’s talking directly to these people getting on Twitter, putting, if your signal is open, your dms are open, talk to anybody and everybody, obviously you have to be able to verify the information, but if you get enough, a collective amount of information of people telling you this happened and that you and your editors can come to agreement is enough to be seen as you’re solid on it, then you go back and say, Hey, HHS spokesperson, we’re about to publish this and you haven’t commented, this is your chance and you got to put their feet to the fire, I guess is the best way.
(00:39:58):
If they’re not being responsive, right, if they’re not being responsive, I don’t know. What do you do at that point other than put their feet to the fire?
Linley Sanders | Associated Press (00:40:17):
Hey, this Linley also with the
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:40:20):
Ap. Oh hey. Hi. It’s fine. It’s nice to finally meet you.
Linley Sanders | Associated Press (00:40:22):
Yeah, you’re often busy. I was glad that you brought up the garbage quote story. I did want to ask you a little bit more about that to the extent you’re able, can you tell us a little bit about the behind the scenes of that? Was it something where you and Zeke were like, we have a hunch they might change this? Did someone come to you?
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:40:42):
All right, so okay, can I tell the long version or story time is short Amer, so I was in Vegas, so actually to dial back, so the day, day and a half before I got the tip on that I had asked Cream Jean Pierre about the garbage quote and I pressed her on it hard and her answer was bs. Her answer was garbage. It was complete nonsense and she wasn’t really, I thought very responsive and other people took note that she wasn’t responsive and this led to this source, this government source that I had that was helpful but on some smaller things but not a huge source. But took note of that and call or first texted me at that point I was in Vegas, took it, it was right about a week before, five days, six days at that point before election day. And I was catching on for Harris.
(00:41:53):
I was relieving one of my other colleagues and this guy texted me as I was getting, but I had the full day in Vegas before I was having to work. I got there in the afternoon and I was in line in an out burger when I got the text. So I can admit to this now, I first ate and then I texted him back, he wanted to meet, he lives in Northern Virginia, not too far from me and was like, Hey, can you meet after work? And I was like, no, I’m in Vegas, what’s up? And he was like, give me a call when you have a second. And so I call him and he was in somewhere where he couldn’t talk and then eventually called me back as I was sort of making my way back to the hotel room and tells me what happened.
(00:42:47):
And that was one source and I was solid, a very reliable person who had firsthand knowledge, but at the AP we tend to not rely on one source and so I was having trouble finding a second source and I quickly, and Zeke Miller who we have, and you guys have probably seen his bio, he’s the chief White House correspondent as a savant. There’s no other way. He’s incredible. He is very well sourced but also just very good and fast writer. I think he is AI and he started hunting around and eventually he got a second source. So we had this pretty good story, but what made it great at the end is, so I went back to something and I can’t remember now what it was I was trying to clarify and my source was, let me check the email. And I was like, the email? And he is like, yeah, there’s this back and forth email where they’re fighting about it. And I was like, give me the fucking email. And so he agreed to give me the email because that we wouldn’t publish the whole email that we would just quote from it, which was fine. I thought that was a fair enough agreement. But that’s what I think made that story special was actually having the email and that totally nailed it down.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:44:26):
I promise we’ll get back there. Thank
Hannah Demissie | ABC News (00:44:27):
You. Hi, my name’s Hannah Demissie. I work at a b, C and I cover the White House for the network. And I’m just curious, just following up on Audrey’s question about Biden and his mental fitness, are there lessons that we should take from that and just keep them in mind as Trump, as the Trump administrator years go on. Just because obviously he’s his late seventies, he’ll be 82 while he’s done with the office. I’m just curious just lessons and things we should keep in mind over these next four years.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:44:57):
Yeah, well I one, I think there is so much I’m going to, I don’t think it’s going to be a very satisfying answer and that I think the coverage was there with Biden. I sort of disagree with this notion that it was not covered and I think it’s definitely going to be there with Trump. I think there’s just so much attention. Even Joe Biden as a candidate, reporters were nowhere near the media was nowhere near as interested and you’re at the White House every day, you see it where it’s a mad house and it was a mad house even like in Covid, a little less so because of Covid, but it was still the intensity. He’s just as a result of whether you like it or dislike how he’s governing, he is a transformational president is I think he is going to have a good argument to make that he will end up being the most impactful president of the last century. Which I guess he’s already making that argument, but I don’t think there’s going to be a lack of scrutiny.
(00:46:15):
You guys have a lot more folks that are just covering and the dedication to the White House as a story. I think so I think that’s also sort of the benefit of the White House as well is that organizations kind of always, but even more so now see the value in putting all their eggs in that basket. I think where we’re probably lacking and now catching up though, I think a lot of organizations are doing a great job including USA today with the ed department I think, I don’t know that reporter, but I’ve found him. He’s the go-to guy certainly. Yeah, he’s amazing.
(00:47:03):
But it’s that right if everybody’s covering Trump or covering Biden or Kamala Harris or whoever who’s covering the agencies and that’s sort of the difficult part now going back to your question of how do we keep their feet to the fire when they’re not responsive, when they’re slow walking us, but as not any, I’m not singling anyone out, I’m saying as a whole, as media, we’ve stopped covering the agencies and there may be some cost for that right now, but there’s people like Zach covering education that are pounding it and there’s a lot of opportunities there too. I think
Kevin Johnson/NPF (00:47:50):
We’ve neglected the back row here.
Shrai Popat | PBS NewsHour (00:47:56):
Thanks so much for doing this. I’m Shrai Popat with PBS, NewsHour also covered the White House. My question’s a little bit more existential, I just want to ask you about the way this administration is interacting with the press pool. So do you think the mark that the White House is making when it comes to cherry picking, who is trustworthy news shaping the briefing room itself, undermining the integrity of the press, do you think that is indelible basically for this rest of this administration?
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:48:28):
I hope not,
(00:48:31):
But I think all of us have to just keep doing our jobs and I think if we stay to these guideposts or north stars, whatever you want to call ’em of, for me I sort of see it as truth and trying to make it easier for people who want to understand their country and their world doing that job if we stay and put aside the bullshit, the dissembling, which happens in every White House, but it’s definitely happening in this White House, it’s our job to move past that whatever administration it is, if there are going to heap things that are untrue or that are obscuring the realities, our job is to shine the light on what is the reality. And yeah, it’s frustrating, but I think we all got to stay focused right as best we can and we’re going to have, I’m not saying that I’m not frustrated, but some ways there’s been, I feel like some sharpening of going back to some fundamentals in the last couple of months too.
Cady Stanton | Tax Notes (00:50:00):
Hi, I’m Cady Stanton. I’m a Capitol Hill reporter with tax notes. Something that I’ve always admired about reading the AP is like you were talking about with sourcing and just really sound like journalism fundamentals on that. And when you were talking about kind of the challenges of being a reporter at our agent in new media, something I’ve found is the standards for that have shifted at least for some outlets. And I know I encounter on the Hill just this idea that when I was in journalism school learning if someone’s going to be an anonymous source, they have to kind of have a justification for why they want to be anonymous. And I know at least on the hill sometimes that kind of goes away. And you talked about the idea of handout scoops and not really questioning motivations, et cetera. So I guess do you have any advice on trying to protect the integrity of that when we’re obviously so social media focused and so immediate focused and getting the news first?
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:50:55):
So AP we were required and if you skip it, your editor will note and say, why did you not put why that source was anonymous? But I think the other way to do it looks like that drives me crazy and I’m as guilty of this as well, is this administration. I don’t think it’s saying anything anyways, there’s fewer, the background call where they basically put all of Washington on a background call and I think spelling out, and I tried to do this as much as possible, especially at the end of the, because a lot of the stuff I was like, there’s no reason this shouldn’t be on the record that spoke in a back B as crystal clear as possible. And that’s to your readers or your viewers or whoever that this information under ground rules set by the White House. Be clear, be concise, but be clear. This is why I don’t have a name with this. And I think that gives you greater credibility for me as a reader. I like, oh, that’s why the White House is being ridiculous about this any savvy reader, but a lot of people just don’t have time also. Right? And that’s another story. Yeah,
Cady Stanton | Tax Notes (00:52:16):
I question is also like how do you compete when you have those standards at the AP with other outlets that maybe
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:52:22):
Often there’s lot of stuff that’s wrong every day almost, right? You’re chasing something. I think the hard part that I find in it, and we’re all on Slack or teams or something like this and aps really, really huge and everything, it’s a real honor working, having covered a White House for the ap, but it’s also a place where every question in the world ends up at some point and you get just like, hey media in Syria, some organization you’ve never reported is reporting this. And I think you have to sort of, and we’re always saying now that there’s things we have to skip, but then we don’t do it sometimes. And then you have a boss or somebody saying, Hey, can you check out on this? And I’m sure were you guys covering, I didn’t touch the tariffs, I can’t spell tariffs, but I was talking to some colleagues last night and the questions from financial wire services that were incoming from every country, it’s like, well can you go find out XY on Y Tu is getting tariffed at this rate. And there’s that aspect too that’s sort of going off on a tangent there, but I think you have to, those are not apples to apples at all, but with I think you just have to ignore some stuff on Twitter or apologies.
Praveena Somasundaram | Washington Post (00:54:13):
Hi Praveena Somasundaram at the Washington Post, thank you for being here. Also have a question on sourcing. I was wondering if you can talk about whether it’s because of something you’ve published or whatever reason a source is upset with you or your colleagues and how you get them to a point of wanting to give you information again or confirm something when you have to kind of in this age triangulate
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:54:36):
To get Well, so that story, the garbage story, there were a lot of people in the press office that weren’t happy with me or the story and thought the AP was treating this back and forth and that these were like these den of monks or something that we were treating ’em like. And at the end of the day there’s arguments about it and I’ll come at the end that there’s a protocol and the White House press office decided not to follow it and obscure essentially what should be one of their key guideposts the truth in that situation. You could say maybe it was one bad call they made and okay that’s fine, that’s all I’m presenting, but at a certain point they got to suck it up.
Mia McCarthy | Politico (00:55:39):
Thanks. Hi, I am Mia McCarthy with Politico. I cover Capitol Hill. Similar to Katie’s question, what your advice for both pushing information on background to get it on the record
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:55:57):
When
Mia McCarthy | Politico (00:55:57):
You agree that this shouldn’t be on background and with that getting stuff off the record on background, I think that’s something I’m always trying to figure out more on the hill.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:56:08):
Yeah, so maybe the second question first, I think that’s the argument and that was sort of the case of the A TF nominee, making the case for why it’s in the interest and you have to look at it, try to look at it from the perspective of that person, why they’re nervous, what can you say that would assuage those concerns or minimize those concerns so that they’ll agree to it. And so whatever argument you can make in the case that I made that this is a good place to get to the people who really, you already have the New York Times readers, those people, and that’s more of an argument of why give it to me. But it’s also the same argument of, hey, you want to get this information out, these stories, if you wait till the 6:00 PM news for this announcement to be made, you’re missing out on a good chunk of the day when people are scrolling out on the phone.
(00:57:07):
So that’s a timing issue of why it’s worth, you need to do it now and you need to do it on background and I’m going to protect you that you won’t be named no fingerprints, blah blah, blah. And a little bit of that is just practice I think, and that you’ll get used to over time and it’s hard, but there’s no substitute for just doing it and making the argument and probably failing first. And that might be actually helpful for the longer term is just going through the failure and seeing what you do wrong in making the case and how you can hone in and tighten the case. And then the second question was on the first question, I’m sorry,
Mia McCarthy | Politico (00:57:47):
Getting stuff off. Wait,
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:57:49):
That was getting off the record. Tan off
Mia McCarthy | Politico (00:57:50):
Background background on background to getting them on the record.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (00:57:53):
So this town, I don’t know if there’s a good answer, I get upset. There was at the end, what was it with the Biden administration? It was with the hostage deal in the last few days and Kain Jean-Pierre, they didn’t bring Kirby out to be on the record and a lot of reporters were like, it’s such a big national security day. And he’d been doing all the national security stuff whenever there was, they’d usually bring him out whenever, when it was a day when there was a lot of national security news and it was going to be her last briefing and the decision was made that she would just do it alone and that they were going to do a call afterwards and she named the official who she said was going to be doing an on the record call. And then the call happened and it was Brett McGirk because I’m saying it because she did say Brett McGirk would be on the record who was at the time the senior director from the Middle East and North Africa.
(00:59:07):
And then the call happens and it’s on background and I was the first person called on in that backgrounder and I was like, this is ridiculous. Corinne said this was going to be on the record and they were at the end and I felt bad and I talked to the guy later who was, I don’t think he’ll care that I said, this is already in the past, but he was supposed to already be out the door. They were all offloading or getting ready to leave. And so they were slowly, but he came back to run the call and he was so frustrated with me, he was like, it’s just a background call. And he had no idea. He hadn’t watched the briefing that Rene had said and McGurk was in the Middle East in the middle of the night and it’s like, what is probably like, why is this guy, why is he so stupid? Probably.
(01:00:08):
But I think that it’s, maybe it’s on us all Trump administration does less of these back. I dunno if you’re seeing more of ’em on the mass calls, but individually it’s hard, right? You’re getting someone to finally talk to you then. But I think the other things, so what the ap, at least my boss does, ticket for admission to a full quote is you have to be on the record. So if you want to say, and you can’t give your opinion, which some organizations politico who will just run a full length blind quote from someone that Ma Hani Satan and kind of true.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (01:01:05):
We have time for one more.
Grant Schwab | Detroit News (01:01:10):
Hey, I’m Grant Schwab with the Detroit News, Washington correspondence, so I’m based here. You touched on this with Kevin A. Little bit, but maybe if you can say more about it. A lot of the job one of my editors says is just showing up, which I agree with, but how do you get something out of, or make the most out of being in person at the White House when the briefings are so packed you might not get a question and any time that you spend there is time you could spend doing a zillion other things.
Aamer Madhani/Associated Press (01:01:37):
Yeah, so I think that’s a great question. I think, and it’s not a Washington thing, but I think my favorite jobs were the further away you’re from your boss, the proportion of happiness seemed to increase and just being out there. And that’s just the sort of glib. But it’s true though in some points. That’s the fun part. You guys all seem really bright people that could be doing stuff that would probably make a hell of a lot more money. Part of it’s just like you do it because it’s fulfilling, right? And interacting. And that’s why also with these source buildings and stuff, get up, go have a cup of coffee, take someone out to lunch, do that stuff. And that’s what that human interaction is what makes us not animals. And that’s what makes the job fun and what makes being human human I guess.
(01:02:41):
But I guess presence at the White House even now I think is important because one, we’re not going away. We’re going to cover this administration. I don’t care what they do or I hope this court decision goes our way. And there’s no doubt that this is viewpoint discrimination, but we are committed to covering the White House and we’re going to cover it the best we can. And there are opportunities though. You see people in the hallway and on the hill, that’s the shoe leather on the, it’s literally right. That’s what you guys are doing and it’s so important, I think, I haven’t done this, but one of our best White House reporter is a reporter who’s sung man Kim, she’s legendary on the hill. She still spends a lot of time on the hill. And you got to just find the sources wherever they are, you go to where the information is, right, you go to where the story is. And if, yeah, you’re right in that sense, if the story is not there, go find it. But there is a need to have some presence at the White House.
Kevin Johnson/NPF (01:03:51):
Well, I hate to shut it down, but Amer mentioned fun. That is part of this job. And the fun thing for me was having colleagues like him. And I hope you also have the pleasure of having colleagues that you can go to, not only to build success and find the information that you’re looking for, but also to have people who will support and help you along the way. AM’s one of those people. So thanks.
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