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 The Daily Show Visits The White House Press Corps 3/5/09 — Friday, March 06, 2009 — John Oliver of The Daily Show learns that the relationship between the White House and the press is now stronger than ever. Robert Gibbs | The Daily Show | Video | White House Press Corps | White House Press Secretary Labels: Robert Gibbs, The Daily Show, Video, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 8:37:00 PM  Weekend Roundabout Briefs - Gibberish - 2/22/09 — Sunday, February 22, 2009 — 
Fairness Doctrine Feature of the Week Karl Denninger's response to Mr. Gibbs' statements regarding criticism of President Obama's anti-foreclosure plan: Obama Administration Robert Gibbs Roundabout Briefs White House Press Corps White House Press Secretary Labels: Obama Administration, Robert Gibbs, Roundabout Briefs, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 6:49:00 PM MR GIBBS: I don't know - Press Gaggle by Robert Gibbs 2/17/09 — Tuesday, February 17, 2009 —  Q Has the President had a chance to review the Leahy truth commission proposal since his press conference?MR. GIBBS: I don't think I -- I don't have anything to add to what he said last week. Q Another on the joint address. How much of it will be foreign policy? MR. GIBBS: I think there will be -- I mean, I think you'd have a hard time talking about our economy without talking about our commitments around the world, the health of our force structure, and obviously what is going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan. So obviously that will be a part of the address. Q Is the Afghanistan decision ready yet? MR. GIBBS: Soon. Q There are reports that President Obama is going to keep all 93 U.S. attorneys; he's not going to fire any of them. Can you comment on that at all? MR. GIBBS: Let me check on that report. I don't remember if that's quite right, so before I get out there I will -- I'll check when we land. Q Robert, did the President invite any members of Congress to fly with him today? MR. GIBBS: I don't know -- I don't think there are any members of Congress on this flight. Press Gaggle | Robert Gibbs | White House Press Corps | White House Press Secretary Labels: Press Gaggle, Robert Gibbs, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 5:35:00 PM Video - Getting to Know the Robert Gibbs Family — Sunday, January 25, 2009 — A friend of the Gibbs family gives us some background details on Robert "Bobby" Gibbs and his family. Robert Gibbs | Video | White House Press Secretary Labels: Robert Gibbs, Video, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 8:42:00 PM Final Press Briefing of the Bush Administration - White House Press Briefing by Dana Perino 1/16/09 — Friday, January 16, 2009 — Q What is the message that you are leaving for your successor? MS. PERINO: For Robert? Well, he doesn't need a lot of advice from me. This is a fabulous job. It is a great opportunity to work with all of you. And I will certainly miss the back-and-forth, as I hope you will, too. But it's really good to have -- get new energy and new blood in here. And I think that they've shown that they're a good, professional organization, and he'll have, I think, absolutely no problems. He won't miss a beat when he gets up here. Q Dana, speaking on behalf of the President, is there anything that you feel that perhaps the American people or the press corps has misunderstood about the administration, or about his goals, or something that you would hope would have been clearer in conveying from where you sit? MS. PERINO: Well, I think we've done -- you know, over the past couple of months we've had a strategy to try to get the President out there and talk to the American people on a range of issues, all the consequential decisions he's made and the progress that we think that we've made, accomplishments that we've made. And last night was the President's farewell address and a chance for him to talk to the American people. I don't know whether this is lost on people or not, but let me just repeat it; that one of the things that I've always admired about President Bush is that no matter what anyone says about him, he lets all of the negativity roll off his back, and he cares deeply about every single American, no matter what they believe, if they support him or not. And he has made decisions based on the best interests of the country. Q Do you have any regrets or anything that -- or things you're particularly proud of or -- MS. PERINO: I'm sure that that I'll have -- I'm going to go on a six-week trip with my husband, and I'm sure there will be long enough flights for me to think about all the things we could have done better. Any press secretary always wants to be more proactive, but news happens all over the world. And now with the 24/7 news cycle, in many ways sometimes you feel like you're just trying to keep up with that. And so it's not a regret or a disappointment, it's just a fact of life. I told someone earlier today that on Friday, I had finally cleaned out my in-box, got it down to 997 emails. And when I got here on Monday morning, over the weekend -- and I had been working over the weekend -- I had then 2,172 emails. So it's a brutal pace and a lot of information coming at you. And that was just on a weekend where we didn't have a lot of news. So I think it's time for me to exit stage left. Q Right. MS. PERINO: Right -- thank you. Q What about -- what are your thoughts about us, in terms of -- (laughter.) What are your thoughts about the coverage President Bush got? Do you think -- I'm just interested from your perspective, do you perceive a bias? Do you think he was treated fairly? Do you think that other Presidents have gotten an easier deal? I was just wondering what your thoughts are. MS. PERINO: Well, the tribute today was all in fun, so I hope that no one took it the wrong way. Q Give us something to take the wrong way. (Laughter.) MS. PERINO: Here's the thing. I don't think that I would always be asked about my feelings about liberal bias in the media if there wasn't any liberal bias in the media. If it was a moot question, then we wouldn't always have the discussion. But I will say this about the reporters -- Q For the record, I just asked about bias. (Laughter.) MS. PERINO: For everybody that's in this room, I think that -- and I was on a panel with Mike McCurry about a month ago and we both had the same feeling -- that in this room, and the reporters who show up every morning and are here late at night and work the weekends, that the people that are covering the President out of here, and the presidency, strive so hard to be fair. And you have to fight for us with your other bureaus and with your other reporters, and I really think that everybody in this room, on a scale of one to ten, I give you a nine in terms of fairness and -- in fairness in working with us and then listening to us. I do think that outside of the White House briefing room, think the -- but I think the increase in the amount of commentary, I just think it's quite remarkable that everyone says they want to add more commentary to their news pages. In some ways, I think, well, how is that even possible? It seems sometimes that that's all that there is. But I do think that in this room I think that that's true, and Mike McCurry said the same thing. So I think by comparing Presidents and presidencies, I think it's probably similar. But there's no doubt that your industry is going through a change and a transition and a transformation, and I really do think for the sake of democracy and the sake of our country we need to have more of you. And good, tough reporting takes a lot of money and it takes investment, it takes time, and it takes the willingness from your editors to be willing to go off on assignment and to really hold your elected leaders to account. I don't think that journalism is dead, but I think that we all have a responsibility to make sure that it survives. Bush Administration | Dana Perino | Media Bias | Press Briefing | White House Press Corps | White House Press Secretary Labels: Bush Administration, Dana Perino, Media Bias, Press Briefing, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 7:57:00 PM Turning Down the Lights - White House Press Briefing by Dana Perino 1/15/09 — Thursday, January 15, 2009 —  MS. PERINO: Jennifer. Q Can you talk just a little bit -- nuts and bolts -- about the next two days? I think you've said that the Press Office is going to get pared down to basically Stuart. MS. PERINO: Yes, a little bit. Q Can you talk a little bit about the whole apparatus that will be around the President, say Monday and Tuesday? It will be pretty pared down, right? MS. PERINO: Yes. So we'll have -- the President will be fully staffed to the extent that he needs help. There will be those of us around to do it, there just might be fewer of us, because there is quite an elaborate checkout system. You have to turn in all of your equipment. There is the ethics debrief. You have to turn in any keys that you might have, your parking pass. You have to go through all of that process. And so in order to make sure that that's done in an orderly fashion, some people will have to start checking out. And that really started around Monday of this week. We're going to say good-bye to three of our staffers tonight, although it's not good-bye forever -- they're going to be tomorrow for the press briefing -- but Carlton Carroll, being one of them, who has been fantastic, and he has really -- rose to the occasion. A lot you knew him when he just started out as a press assistant, and now he is a fantastic on-the-record spokesperson. We couldn't be more proud of him. Q Which one is he again? (Laughter.) MS. PERINO: We needed Ken Herman to get us through that moment. But Anthony Warren and Matthew Drummond will also check out this afternoon, a few more tomorrow. Stuart Siciliano and I will be here through -- and I think Gordon, because he checks out through NSC, will be here on Tuesday. Ben Chang, thankfully, will be here for you and help the Obama team transition, as previous deputy national spokesmen have done before. And so you'll have some continuity. But we'll be available, Tony Fratto and Stanzel and I, through the weekend. So the President will do the farewell address tonight. Tomorrow he'll leave for Camp David. It will be a small group at Camp David. I expect that he'll have his daughters there. Secretary Rice usually heads up; the Hadleys; Chief of Staff Josh Bolten. But it won't be a large affair. They had that at Christmas time. And we're going to allow -- I believe we're going to allow that final departure and the final arrival on Sunday, when they come back from Camp David, to be taken live for those of you who care about that. And he'll have his radio address on Saturday; I think he'll tape that in the morning. And then Monday -- we'll be here to provide you some information. I think there are some requests for some world leaders to be able to call and say good-bye to President Bush. We'll let you know about that. So, Olivier, who -- but only if you shave those things off by Monday. (Laughter.) Q No guarantees. I'm the decider. (Laughter.) MS. PERINO: You can make that decision if you'd like. Q And the other offices in the White House that are going to be pared down, too, just like -- MS. PERINO: Yes. Everybody -- everyone has to go through that same process. The Chief of Staff made sure that everything was done in a systematic fashion. We're not going to be running around here like chickens with our heads cut off on Tuesday morning. We're going to try to do this in a real good way. Then there will be some staff that goes out -- as many staff as possible -- go out to Andrews Air Force Base where they will be able to say good-bye to the President. The President will probably make some closing remarks to them, but they will be not open to the press. It will just be a private moment. Then he'll get on the plane and head to Midland, where he will give an -- he'll give remarks at an open press event in the town square there, and then head to Waco, and then on to Crawford. And that'll be it. Q What do you mean by debriefing? You said for debriefing. Can you give us -- MS. PERINO: Oh, those are things that you have to do in terms of making sure that you sign off, that you haven't -- that you know you have to keep the secrets that you were told, and things like that. Q (Inaudible.) MS. PERINO: No. (Laughter.) Bush Administration | Dana Perino | Press Briefing | White House Press Corps | White House Press Secretary Labels: Bush Administration, Dana Perino, Press Briefing, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 7:38:00 PM Dana Perino Interview by Juan Williams on The O'Reilly Factor 12/18/08 — Friday, December 19, 2008 — Dana Perino | Iraq | Media Bias | White House Press Secretary Labels: Dana Perino, Iraq, Media Bias, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 4:11:00 AM Helen has a question - White House Press Briefing by Dana Perino 11/12/08 — Wednesday, November 12, 2008 —  Q I think Helen had a question. MS. PERINO: Helen has a question. Q Yes, I do. You say the President is not at fault for the auto industry problem. Do you think he's responsible for a solution? MS. PERINO: Well, I think that he -- Q And also, is there a quid pro quo on the Colombia trade agreement? MS. PERINO: There is absolutely no quid pro quo for that. And I was able to clarify that yesterday, and I was pleased that the President-elect's team clarified that as well. But I think that the President of the United States believes that companies are responsible for finding solutions. However, this is an industry, as I've said before, that's very important to the American people. And there are a lot of regulations that the government has tried to place on these companies over the years. And so Congress and the administration and the companies have an obligation to put their best minds towards trying to find out -- figure out what we can do to the greatest extent possible to try to keep these companies viable. And if we can do that, we certainly will. Q Is he aware that Michigan has 9 percent unemployment? MS. PERINO: Very well aware of it. And he's been very concerned about it. It's one of the reasons that he agreed to the UI extension from -- unemployment insurance extension that we provided in August. And we'll see what the Congress puts forward on that if they come back for a lame duck. Q Is he aware that Detroit won World War II by retooling in a matter of days to a wartime condition? MS. PERINO: He knows how important Detroit is, how -- its history, the industry, and how many people it supports, not just in Detroit, but all across our country, and the people all around the world who work for those corporations. He's very mindful of it. Automobile Industry | Dana Perino | Economy | Helen | President Bush | President-Elect Obama | Press Briefing | Unemployment | White House Press Corps Labels: Automobile Industry, Dana Perino, Economy, Helen, President Bush, President-Elect Obama, Press Briefing, Unemployment, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 7:56:00 PM Job of the White House Press Secretary - White House Press Briefing by Dana Perino 5/30/08 — Friday, May 30, 2008 —  MS. PERINO: Martha.Q Can we just talk about what isn't true in the book? I mean, you go to the part about weapons of mass destruction and the big threat wasn't great and gathering as the White House said. And you said that's not true? Was there no exaggeration? Was there no hiding? Was there no spinning about the war? MS. PERINO: Not that I'm aware of. But did we communicate about the war? Yes. And I would point you to the President's speeches -- all the speeches that the President made leading up to it; he made several comprehensive speeches making the case for why Saddam Hussein was a threat, which was, based on the intelligence that we had -- and not only the United States had, but that's what the world had. And in addition to that he talks about -- in his speech especially on February 26, 2003, when he spoke to AEI; it was before I was a part of the press office, so I would encourage you to go back and look at it, as I've had to do myself -- where he talks about that the benefit to a free Iraq would be to the Iraqi people and also to the region, and establishing a change in the Middle East when it comes to freedom and justice and democracy. Q But the order of what was talked about at the time in the buildup to the war was largely about weapons of mass destruction. MS. PERINO: I think that that was -- well, I think you could go back, you could weigh it -- you know, I'm looking at it, what I have seen is a comprehensive case for confronting Saddam Hussein, and that's what the United Nations of course was talking about, specifically weapons of mass destruction. But there was also a gathering threat in terms of the nexus of working -- for example, paying suicide bombers, paying families of suicide bombers. And you know better than anyone, Martha, about the buildup to this, the reaction to this. The problem that we have is this -- Q There were no suicide bombers in Iraq. MS. PERINO: But paying them in the Palestinian Territories and in Israel. That's something that Saddam Hussein himself said. Q Just a general question, then, Dana. I mean, one of the things he talks about is spinning, exaggeration, I mean, what goes on at the podium -- which is an indictment of you, as well. Do you think there's no spinning? MS. PERINO: You know, it's a term that I don't necessarily use. I come out here, I answer your questions, I answer them to the best of my ability based on the information and the facts that I have. Q Define your job for me. I know Scott in the book says that his job -- he believed his job was to advance the agenda of the President of the United States. MS. PERINO: Sure it is. That's part of it. And my job is to be his spokesperson. But I also, as many of you in this room know -- especially you -- that I work very hard on behalf of the press as well. I defend the press, I advocate for the press and I make sure that all of you have answers as quickly as possible to the best of my ability every single day -- Saturdays and Sundays included. Dana Perino | Iraq | Press Briefing | Scott McClellan | White House Press Corps | White House Press Secretary Labels: Dana Perino, Iraq, Press Briefing, Scott McClellan, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 5:04:00 PM Scott McClellan Memoir - Air Force One Press Gaggle by Dana Perino 5/28/08 — Wednesday, May 28, 2008 —  Q Did Scott tell you personally about his concerns that he raised in the book? Because I know you said you're a friend of Scott's.MS. PERINO: Never. Q I'm sorry, what? Q "Never" to have what? I didn't hear it all. MS. PERINO: His question was, had I ever heard such concerns? And I said, "Never." Q The President often talks about, you know, history being the judge. And this is somebody who had a position where they could see more than, certainly, the public does. After some years of reflection, perhaps, looking back, thinking out of the limelight in private and everything, and coming up with his first version of history, isn't it a concern that, for you, for the administration, that the conclusions he's come to are the ones of your critics, essentially, rather than the supporters of the administration? MS. PERINO: I think this is a unique situation. I don't think that this is so much as writing history as rewriting history. And when the President talks about "it will take a while," I think that that is just based on historical fact. I mean, it takes a while for any type of administration to be understood, and I think this is an anomaly. Q Even though you don't -- you don't think there are others out there who maybe also were once supporters of the war, looked at the facts as we knew them at the time, and then to have now come around, as he says in the book, that he doesn't think it was the right decision? That's not a question of intelligence. MS. PERINO: I'm not saying that's not the case, and I don't know. I don't go around and take a survey. But your question was, do I think that other people are going to turn around 180 degrees and become this -- have these expressions of concerns that they did not voice when they were at the White House. And so the question is, what did you really believe? Did you believe what you said at the time, or do you believe what you believe -- say you believe now? And I'm not going to be a judge of that. You all have to figure that out, or he'll have to answer for it for himself. I mean, I'm not going to -- as Jeremy suggested, the question being, would we go line-by-line through the book -- absolutely not. We have a lot more important things to do than that. Q One specific factual thing. Scott suggested in the book that it was very unusual for Karl and for Libby to talk together, and that he was suspicious about that when he saw them talk one time. Was it unusual for those two to talk? MS. PERINO: I found that to be strange. People in the White House have to talk to one another on a variety of different subjects. Who knows what the -- if that conversation -- if a conversation took place. Would it be surprising to me if Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, as the Director of Political Affairs Operation and the Chief of Staff to the Vice President, of whom was very important in our reelection efforts and our political efforts, would it be a surprise that they would have a conversation? Absolutely not. What would be a surprise is if they didn't have conversations. So I don't put much stock in that, but I don't know the facts. And I think he admits in the book that he doesn't either. Air Force One | Dana Perino | Iraq | Karl Rove | Press Gaggle | Scooter Libby | Scott McClellan | White House Press Corps | White House Press Secretary Labels: Air Force One, Dana Perino, Iraq, Karl Rove, Press Gaggle, Scooter Libby, Scott McClellan, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 5:07:00 PM White House Press Briefing by Dana Perino 9/17/07 (Dana Perino as White House Press Secretary) — Monday, September 17, 2007 — MS. PERINO: Connie. Q Thank you. On a personal note, what are your goals, your aspirations as Press Secretary? MS. PERINO: Just to get through this. (Laughter.) Q You're doing a good job. And to re-ask what I asked Tony last week, will you try to consider encouraging the President to be more democratic in his choice of people he recognizes -- MS. PERINO: I have sway with some things. I'll give it a shot. Q Thank you. Labels: Dana Perino, Press Briefing, White House Press Corps, White House Press Secretary
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 6:19:00 PM
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