海角大神

Episode transcript

Linda Feldmann: February 8th, 1966, is a red-letter day in Monitor history. The assistant Washington bureau chief at the time, Godfrey 鈥淏udge鈥� Sperling, hosted a lunch gathering at the National Press Club with about a dozen reporters for an old friend who was running for the Senate, Charles Percy of Illinois.

What Budge didn鈥檛 know at the time was that he was starting a long-enduring Washington institution, the Sperling Breakfast, now known as the Monitor Breakfast. (Yes, our first 鈥渂reakfast鈥� was actually a lunch.) The other reporters thought it was so great, they suggested that Budge keep doing them, but in the morning before things got busy. Now, 60 years later, we鈥檙e closing in on 4,000 breakfasts and a few lunches and coffees.

This is a slightly different sort of episode of 鈥淲hy We Wrote This鈥� 鈥� not the anatomy of a story, but the 鈥渨hy鈥� behind a storied Monitor franchise. I鈥檓 joined by Budge鈥檚 successor as Monitor Breakfast host, David Cook, to explore the history, evolution, and some memorable moments at our newsmaker breakfasts.

First, a bit more about Dave. He served as the Monitor鈥檚 editor for seven years, then came to Washington in 2001 to serve as bureau chief and host the breakfasts. Dave retired from the Monitor in 2018.

This is 鈥淲hy We Wrote This.鈥� I鈥檓 Linda Feldmann, guest host of this podcast, and for the past eight years, the host of Monitor Breakfasts. Welcome, Dave.

David Cook: Thanks, Linda.

Feldmann: So first, I鈥檇 love to hear a bit more about Budge, who I also knew, but really toward the end of his career. Who was he, and what made him so well suited to take on this role as, effectively, the founder of the Washington power breakfast?

Cook: Well, he was a relentless, relentlessly competitive, ambitious, friendly guy. He was trained first in journalism and then as a lawyer, went to work for the Monitor after serving in the Army Air Corps where in a three-year period he rose from private to major, which sort of tells you something about Budge and his work ethic and smarts after spending a number of years in Boston.

He started actually as a circulation salesperson, dressed in an Army Air Corps uniform, going door to door, talking to possible Monitor subscribers. So after doing that, we owed him something anyway. He went to work in the newsroom and after several years in the new room, got sent first to Chicago and then to the New York Bureau and then finally to Washington. And along the way, he did just a lot of in the field reporting.

So there鈥檚 some colorful little bits along the way. In 1959, he spent the day sitting with John Kennedy in Kennedy鈥檚 private plane called the 鈥淐aroline,鈥� while Kennedy toured the Midwest, deciding about his presidential ambitions, preparing to run for president, interviewed Truman at his home in Missouri, spent some time in 1966, believe it or not, in the backseat of Ronald and Nancy Reagan鈥檚 Chevy as Reagan toured California thinking about running for governor. So he had a lot of experience [with] in-the-field reporting, and that paid big dividends when he got to Washington because he knew a lot of people, and he knew a lot of the other reporters.

Feldmann: Yeah, no, I mean, Budge certainly seemed to know everybody. I mean I鈥檝e heard stories about, for example, how George Romney 鈥� father of Mitt Romney, former governor of Michigan, former auto executive 鈥� that they were buddies and George Romney used to come to the Bureau and hang out with him, as I understand it. George Romney was the third guest on our list of thousands of breakfasts, so.

Cook: Romney later came to some grief at Monitor Breakfasts because he said at one of them that he had been 鈥渂rainwashed鈥� about Vietnam policy and some nasty critics said, 鈥渋t wasn鈥檛 a 鈥榳ashing,鈥� it was just a light rinse.鈥�

Feldmann: Oh my gosh.

Cook: Yeah. And actually Romney, George Romney as you said, father of Mitt, they were the only father and son team ever to appear together. So there was affection there. There was a lot of 鈥� actually, there was a lot of affection for Budge. One of the that I remember early on in hosting, we were doing a session with Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor, and he walked into the Breakfast room and there was Budge and he threw his arms around Budge, and gave him a hug, which I can tell you never happened to me during my time hosting the Breakfast.

Feldmann: No, I mean, in a way, I almost feel like journalists have to kind of thread a needle between being accessible, friendly, with sources 鈥� friendly in that the source will feel like they鈥檙e getting a fair shake, but not too cozy. I think Budge ... I鈥檓 going to guess that Budge did a good job of finding that balance.

Cook: Yes, now he ... a lot of the stuff that you read about, the stories that you read about Budge, when he passed 鈥� and along the way, there was a fair amount of coverage too 鈥� said that he had sort of genteel questioning abilities, which made people feel comfortable. And as they said, sometimes too comfortable. So he could be 鈥� I don鈥檛 know what your approach is, but mine was to do one or two questions at the top and then turn it over to the group. It wasn鈥檛 鈥渢he David Cook Show.鈥� Budge, on the other hand, could go on with a series of questions at the top. So he was, as I said, trained as a lawyer. But it was always civilized. It was always sort of Monitor-esque in terms of approach, you know. Light, not heat.

Feldmann: Right. No, exactly. And that鈥檚, I know we鈥檒l get into sort of how we get people to do this, but I think promising respect, civility 鈥� light, not heat 鈥� is really the key to the formula, especially in this day and age. So who were some of Budge鈥檚 other most memorable guests? I mean, there鈥檚 so many and what strikes you is like, why were they so memorable?

Cook: Well, I suppose the most memorable were his ability to get American presidents to show or actually post at the White House events. So Gerald Ford had Breakfast with him in February of 鈥�76. And then by the way, just to talk about Budge鈥檚 skill at making friends. When Budge鈥檚 dad turned 103, Gerry Ford called him up and chatted him up on his birthday. Jimmy Carter did a Breakfast, and then invited Budge and the then Monitor editor, a wonderful guy named Earl Foell, to a private dinner in the White House residential quarters. Ronald Reagan, he of taking Budge around in the Chevy, did four Monitor Breakfasts, 鈥�83, 鈥�84, 鈥�85, and 鈥�86, which as someone who鈥檚 also been in the game of trying to get people to come, that was no mean feat to get our president. George H.W. Bush had planned to go to a Monitor Breakfast. Somebody in the Breakfast group wrote a column that George H.W. Bush didn鈥檛 like. And, according to Budge, canceled at the last minute 鈥� a heartbreak.

But then when Budge and Betty had their 50th wedding anniversary, George H.W. Bush invited them to the Oval Office to be congratulated. Bill Clinton did two Monitor lunches, one in 鈥�83 and another in 鈥�95. I can talk more about that later, but that was to celebrate Budge鈥檚 80th anniversary and one that I got to attend as editor of the Monitor. And then he had Vice Presidents Humphrey, Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Dan Quayle, and Albert Gore.

So it was a remarkable 鈥� it was a different time. I can console myself with that, that it was a different time. Newspapers were much more important in sort of the journalistic firmament than they became when cable TV came along. But nonetheless, that took real skill on his part, and also I would say he had many, many friends. It started off as sort of the Breakfast was sort of an old boys club鈥�

Feldmann: Emphasis on 鈥渂oys,鈥� yeah.

Cook: 鈥�and they stayed loyal to him. And so, for example, for that 80th birthday party in the White House State Dining Room, they had said to the president, let鈥檚 do a Breakfast to honor his 80th birthday. So those, I think any fair reading, especially of Breakfasts that turned out well as speakers, those would be the ones. There were also, as you know, a number of places where Budge made people feel very much at home and they then went and shot themselves in their foot.

Feldmann: Yeah, well, tell us about that. I was at two of them, but I want 鈥� give me your take.

Cook: So my take sort of goes back in history, I wasn鈥檛 at these, but they鈥檙e sort of the ones that get mentioned a lot. In 1967, as I mentioned, George Romney, then the governor of Michigan, talked about being brainwashed about U.S. policy in Vietnam 鈥� not a helpful thing to say. Robert Kennedy, in 1968 鈥� one of the early guests 鈥� spent about an hour actually agonizing over whether he was gonna run against Lyndon Johnson. He didn鈥檛 make an announcement there, but the sort of the agonizing got commented upon. And in the end, of course, he did run against LBJ, only to be assassinated. In 鈥�68, Spiro Agnew, who was running then for vice president, called Hubert Humphrey 鈥渟oft on communism,鈥� which was viewed as excessive and insulting. I think one of the ones that you were probably at was in 鈥�93, a GOP political camp consultant, Ed Rollins, talked about passing out 鈥渨alking around money鈥� to suppress the Black vote in an election for governor of New Jersey. And then in 1995, Newt Gingrich, who was House Speaker then and made a lot of Monitor Breakfast appearances, complained about having to use the back door on Air Force One after traveling with President Clinton to Israel Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin鈥檚 funeral. Rabin was assassinated. The New York Daily News responded with a headline calling [Mr. Gingrich] a crybaby. I think most people would. And I know we鈥檝e both flown on Air Force One as part of the White House pool 鈥� I always thought it鈥檚 a privilege to fly on Air Force One. We, the reporters, always go in and out the back door.

Feldmann: As do most of the guests on the plane. I mean, yes, Gingrich was being a crybaby, and I loved the 鈥� not just the headline, but also the cartoon of him dressed up as a baby in a diaper.

And Gingrich himself, I think in his memoir, wrote about that and acknowledged that he had overreacted and that he has no intention of whining and going on and on about how Bill Clinton treated him and regretted [it], obviously, because I think that permanently damaged him, as did the other one you mentioned with Ed Rollins. I was at that one as well. But the Gingrich one, to me, was most memorable. I鈥檒l never forget his spokesman, Tony Blankley, sitting at a separate table, looking at Gingrich with pure alarm on his face, like, 鈥渘o, stop, stop.鈥� But, you know, Gingrich was on a roll and he was just getting out the grievance and, uh 鈥� yeah [laughs].

Cook: But you actually raise an interesting point there. So in terms of selling the Breakfast, we have to first convince the person鈥檚 press person, spokesman, press secretary to do the Breakfast. And I remember talking with Jay Carney. At the time, he was the vice president鈥檚 press secretary. But he later became press secretary for President Obama. And he said one reason that people don鈥檛 like to do the Breakfast 鈥� for those who turn it down 鈥� is that you鈥檙e in the middle of it. And unlike a press briefing that they control, you have no control. If it starts to go south, you can鈥檛 say, 鈥渢hanks very much, it鈥檚 over.鈥� The thing just rolls on for the rest of the hour.

Feldmann: Right, exactly. So Dave, during your tenure 鈥� and you did the math 鈥� you hosted 672 Breakfasts, which is impressive. What are some of your strongest memories as the host?

Cook: Well, it鈥檚 an interesting walk down that lane when you go and you try and figure out what you鈥檙e gonna 鈥� I knew I was gonna be talking to you 鈥� what are you gonna say about the ones that loom largest? To be honest, one of the ones that loomed largest was the Budge 80th birthday breakfast. I was, as I say, I was editor at the time, and I was struck by [what he] had accomplished. There you are. We were standing outside the State Dining Room. Betty Sperling was working the crowd like a pro. There were 40 reporters there. She knew them all. They were all hugging her. And both Clinton and Vice President Gore were there. Clinton, when the thing ends, hangs around probably for another half an hour chatting up reporters. I remember my dad had been a Monitor reporter way, way back when, and I remember calling him and saying, 鈥淚鈥檝e seen the most really wonderful thing, to see the Monitor and a Monitor staffer treated like that at a White House event.鈥� I happened to be doing a Breakfast on September 11th, 2001, with Stan Greenberg and James Carville, who were Democratic operatives. And suddenly word came in that the nation was under attack, and Carville says, 鈥渆verything is different now.鈥� And it certainly was. It was something that you remember, obviously.

In 2002, we convinced Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to have a breakfast. He didn鈥檛 want to come to us, so we went to him at his private dining room at the Pentagon. And it was while the Pentagon was still being rebuilt at the attack on September 11. And so it was memorable both for the time, and for what he had to say about sort of the nation no longer being totally protected by the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean and friendly neighbors in Canada and Mexico. We had Hillary Clinton come in 2003. She was a senator then. She was thinking about running for president. It was notable. You鈥檒l appreciate this; I spent a year trying to line that breakfast up. So it was great when she finally came, as you know, highly intelligent, super prepared. And it was sort of a coda to the breakfast that they had done before he ran for president. The two of them came to a Monitor Breakfast and did sort of preliminary run through on challenges 鈥� 鈥減roblems,鈥� they called them, in their marriage.

After they previewed that story to the Breakfast, they went on and did a 鈥�60 Minutes鈥� piece. I was really taken by two events at the 2004 Democratic Convention. It was held in Boston; we did a bunch of breakfasts at the Colonnade Hotel right across the street from the Monitor. One of them was with Alexandra Kerry and Vanessa Kerry. John Kerry, the Democratic candidate鈥檚 daughters. They were so poised and gracious and intelligent. Just as a dad, I thought, man, those were kids to be proud of.

And then the next day, Barack Obama came. He had done the night before, he had done, you know, the speech about, they鈥檙e not two Americas. As you know Breakfast hosts often greet people in the lobby of hotels 鈥� they drive up in a limo or an SUV or something 鈥� and you go and you greet them and you kind of schmooze them on the way in by yourself. But after that appearance, the night before, they were both hotel guests and. What struck me even more was hotel staffers lining up to watch him come in. It was, given where he went and the proximity we had to him early on, that was great.

We had tried for some time to get Colin Powell to come. Obviously he had been national security advisor, he鈥檇 been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then Secretary of State. He finally agreed to come towards the very end of his term. He was leaving at the end of the first Bush term. And so just before Christmas in 2004, he came for a lunch. He wanted to meet not with the State Department regulars, but with bureau chiefs and columnists. So that鈥檚 who we rolled out for him. You just had the sense that you were in the presence of an historic figure, the first Black national security advisor, general of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State.

He was in a reflective mode. He felt he had been burned by giving probably too much credence to and speaking on behalf of the administration in terms of weapons of mass destruction being present. It was also, frankly, meaningful to me because my wife and three sons were there and obviously he was very gracious to them, so it was a thrill to meet him.

I ought to talk about Joe Biden. He made two appearances, neither of them while he was vice president 鈥� both while he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And the first one ended up being quite a small breakfast. As you know, part of the game of running the Breakfast is you got to get a guest to come. And then the other part is, you gotta get your colleagues in the media to come. They鈥檙e paying to come to the Breakfast. And so we had, I don鈥檛 know, 12 or 14 people, sort of the bare minimum. It was on the second floor of the St. Regis Hotel in a... [it] looked like a big suite, but not one of our normal function rooms.

Anyway, Biden came and was asked questions and was notable for the length of his answers. You know, normally there鈥檚 quite a give and take. And I think 鈥� I don鈥檛 have the precise count, but maybe eight or nine questions on him was he was in a very loquacious mode. He was running for president, one of the many times that he did, in June of 2007, convinced him to come to, actually, a lunch. And normally, speakers are pretty good about showing up on time. And almost always, they stay to the end. I had one or two walk out on me. But Biden arrived late, left early. And I think it signaled to a lot of the reporters [that the] campaign apparatus [was] not quite ready for prime time.

Feldmann: Yeah, I was at that one. I remember thinking that he was actually quite rude, frankly.

Cook: Yes.

Feldmann: And yeah, a little bit full of himself.

Cook: That, too. It鈥檚 been known to happen. Then the other thing I want to mention just real quickly 鈥� two things real quickly. One of the areas I tried to expand while in that chair was coverage of military or defense issues. So we invited and several came, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, actually four of them came, Air Force General Richard Myers, Marine General Peter Pace, Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, and Army General Martin Dempsey, just fascinating to hear.

There were lots of privileges, I thought, in hosting the Monitor Breakfast. I was grateful to have had a shot at it. And one of them was watching other reporters, watching subject experts do their thing. So when you had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you had military reporters in the room who were just awesome in terms of what they knew and their technique, what they were able to draw out. And then, closer towards the end of my time there, we had the former [Secretary of Defense] Robert Gates, and he served as secretary of defense both for Obama and previously for George W. Bush. And before that he had been head of the CIA. And as I mentioned, I have a couple sons and two of them were in the military. And so I found it quite moving. Gates had just come out with a book called 鈥淒uty,鈥� and he was talking about how hard it was to make the Pentagon do what it needed to do to protect the troops, to get, and this was called up-armoring vehicles. But it was, I was just so struck with his sense of duty, of how he cared deeply about the men and women that he was sending into harm鈥檚 way 鈥� or the president was 鈥� and how hard he worked to get them better protection. And then one of the things you get to do as you know, is watch people grow in office.

So early on, Nancy Pelosi did 10 Monitor events during my time in the chair. She started when she was Whip, and the first Breakfast, she was sort of explaining to us 鈥� I don鈥檛 want to overstate this 鈥� but there was a strain anyway of, 鈥渉ere鈥檚 why you should take me seriously. Here鈥檚 why I鈥檓 in the job and why I am good for it.鈥�

And obviously over time, the fact that she was a master at politics, both as sometimes a speaker, sometimes as minority leader. She was just extraordinarily supportive of the Breakfasts. You know, the Monitor is always looking for a way to reduce the cost of the Breakfasts. And so for a while 鈥� short while 鈥� we had sponsors, they didn鈥檛 get to control anything, but they were in the room for events. And she was 鈥� she went out of her way to both greet them, and let them know how valuable she thought the Breakfasts were. Something if you鈥檙e in the job I had, you don鈥檛 forget.

I must say that I also enjoyed, greatly, Breakfasts that we had with Speaker John Boehner, you know, not the typical, what you鈥檇 think of as the Monitor guests, Merlot drinking, cigarette smoking, wonderful guy, just wonderful sly sense of humor, had a sense, you know. Boehner was somebody whose emotions were on the surface. He cared deeply about stuff, and would tear up and as someone who had鈥�who occasionally has to fight that myself, I found it endearing.

Feldmann: So you鈥檝e already touched on this a little bit, but what, just briefly, what goes into getting someone to appear at a Monitor Breakfast? How do you talk them into basically trapping themselves in a room with 25 reporters for an hour, right? I mean, how do you talk someone into doing that?

Cook: Well, with greater and greater difficulty. Being Breakfast host was a wonderful privilege, but the hard part of the job was, as you say, getting people to come. It got harder and harder because, in some ways, it was because the Breakfast had been successful. So press secretaries who had done their due diligence knew that people had sometimes come and shot themselves in the foot. So the first thing you have to do is figure out who do you think your colleagues in the press will want to come in and hear, because otherwise you end up being embarrassed and having to cancel the breakfast, which is not a great experience. So, one, who would be of interest? Two, who鈥檚 the best person to contact? Some of that鈥檚 gotten easier. There used to be books, you know, listing contacts, but who鈥檚 the latest contact? Who鈥檚 the contact, the person that you want would actually listen to? Who do you need to talk to at the White House because I found, especially as things went on, that more and more of the speakers had to get clearance from the White House.

Now you might have a great contact at, you know, HUD or the Department of Defense, wherever, but if the White House wasn鈥檛 wanting to have somebody trot out to a Monitor Breakfast, it wasn鈥檛 going to happen. And then you have to know enough, learn, often in my case, learn enough about the subject to write an intelligent pitch letter and talk about whatever the issues you were that you wanted them to talk about, then you send the invitation out, and then you try not to be a pest, but you keep coming at them and talking to people that you think might be helpful. Every once in a while, another person at the Breakfast would have a good contact, could help. Every once and a while someone at the Monitor, especially if it was a person who was on a beat, could help you. But as I said, Clinton took a year. You know, I spent. Several years trying to get both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and Barack Obama and Joe Biden to come without success.

Feldmann: Yeah, no, it鈥檚 hard and today it鈥檚 even harder for a variety of reasons. It鈥檚 all on the record. We should have mentioned that. I guess you mentioned that the very first breakfasts back in the day were actually on background, on deep background. I didn鈥檛 know that. I thought they were always on the record.

Cook: So the way the Breakfasts were run changed over time, both as the group got bigger, probably more importantly, as the media environment changed, the rise of cable TV, and then internet publications, you know, Politico and Axios. So they started off as being off the record, so you couldn鈥檛 say who was actually speaking. And that was the way it was in the very beginning, and by the 1970s, they were on the record. But Budge was not technologically savvy. Even cassette recorders could be a challenge.

So we took a, we at the Monitor Breakfast took a while before we thought tape recorders were here to stay. So in the 1970s, they were on the record, but no use of tape. And the Breakfast actually got a little bigger. You know, as you said, when it started, it was 10 or 12 people. By the time Gerald Ford came for the 10th anniversary presidential breakfast, 40 reporters would show up and 20 or 25 at the more typical ones. By the 1980s, all of the Breakfasts were taped. And at the end of Budge鈥檚 career, those tapes were donated to the University of Illinois College of Communication.

Budge still didn鈥檛 allow radio or TV reporters. There were occasional exceptions, one for the longtime host of 鈥淢eet the Press,鈥� Lawrence Spivak, and for Joe Harsch, who had worked for ABC then, but had started at the Monitor. We kept having an embargo, which favored newspapers. Basically you could go to breakfast in the morning but you couldn鈥檛 use it until the next morning鈥檚 newspaper. So you could file in the afternoon or the evening but it couldn鈥檛 appear before then. That was dropped but not until 2006 when that embargo went away. We still had rules against, and we still do, filing during the break.

So one of the major changes was letting in electronic media, first just the reporters and then cameras. So we started letting C-SPAN tape things in 2012. We started letting the networks tape in 2014. And as more and more of, as you know, the advent of the internet dramatically changed the Breakfast. So the Breakfasts began as an all-boys club and [the attendees] wanted stories, but there were also people who would show up just for an educational session. They didn鈥檛 have to be somebody who was gonna automatically deliver news that morning because they were gathering string and they could use it later on. That changed in a number of ways. When newspapers had their advertising decimated by the Internet. Newspaper economics got a whole lot grimmer, and so there was pressure to have guests who were going to deliver news. I didn鈥檛 feel that I could offer, you know, 鈥渃ome and meet somebody interesting, you may not get a quote for the story,鈥� but no, that was not going to happen. And then, in a way, we all became internet reporters.

Feldmann: Yeah, wire reporters.

Cook: Wire reporters, yes, said much more clearly. The Monitor鈥檚 website 鈥� we had sort of a preliminary launch when David Rhode was held captive in 鈥�95 [after his reporting on the mass killing of over 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica], but we actually launched in June of 鈥�96, our website, CSMonitor.com. And then, everybody wanted to have the Breakfasts up on their website[s] as soon as possible.

Feldmann: Right, right. No, the rules, you know, yeah, we鈥檝e sort of entered the modern era, slowly, but surely, for example, with C-SPAN. Yeah, we invite them, but only if the guest is willing to have C-SPAN there. Some guests like Russell Vought, who I had last summer, Trump鈥檚 budget director, he鈥檚 an introvert and didn鈥檛 want to do this on camera. It definitely changes the nature of the event to have TV cameras in the room. So he didn鈥檛 want 鈥�

Cook: What would you say, Linda, what鈥檚 the major change, in your view, having TV cameras there?

Feldmann: When there鈥檚 a camera on, people are performing. So the Breakfast before Russ Vought was Steve Bannon. And I asked him, do you want me to invite C-SPAN? And he was like, 鈥渉ell yeah.鈥� He鈥檚 like the MAGA performer. But that doesn鈥檛 mean C-SPAN is going to come. I mean, they only have so many camera crews. And if Congress is in session, that鈥檚 their mandate. It鈥檚 to cover what鈥檚 happening in Congress. So saying okay to C-SPAN doesn鈥檛 necessarily guarantee that. Another important thing to know is that the guests cannot dictate which reporters are in the room.

So I had one during the first Trump term where I had, you know, a prominent Cabinet secretary and had a robust list of reporters. And as we always do, we send the guest鈥檚 communications team the night before. We send them the list of the reporters who鈥檚 coming just as a courtesy. And I heard back. 鈥淪o-and-so can鈥檛 be there,鈥� from this cabinet secretary鈥檚 press person. 鈥淪o-and-so can鈥檛 be there.鈥� 鈥淲hy?鈥� I asked. 鈥淏ecause we don鈥檛 like a story they wrote.鈥� I said, 鈥渨ell, I鈥檓 sorry, but that鈥檚 not how we do this.

We determine, I can pretty much guarantee this will be a civil, respectful event. I don鈥檛 allow any鈥�.鈥� And neither did you or Budge allow any one reporter, 鈥渢o sort of dominate or be a jerk.鈥� They said, 鈥淲ell, we鈥檙e sorry, we can鈥檛 do this if that reporter is there.鈥� I said, 鈥淥K, canceled.鈥� So it cost us a lot of money to cancel the night before, but we can, it鈥檚 just for us a rock solid journalistic principle that we decide who can be there. And we only, as you know, we only invite fact-based, legitimate reporters. And I have now in the Trump era where you have so-called 鈥渘ew media,鈥� some of which are a little sketchy. I鈥檝e had people come to me and say, 鈥渉ey, can I come to your breakfast?鈥� And I鈥檓 like, 鈥測eah, all right, maybe.鈥� I don鈥檛 know. I mean, some of them I would absolutely not allow in. I mean there鈥檚 some very strange characters nowadays in the briefing room.

Cook: What is it like trying to get guests in the second Trump term? Where relations, he鈥檚 got such a complicated relationship. On the one hand, four or five people from The New York Times get invited in and they get two hours, they tour the residence. And you鈥檝e been asking awesome, really well done questions. But then others get called 鈥減iggy.鈥�

Feldmann: So, yeah, I mean, yeah. Getting Donald Trump to come would be amazing. I鈥檓 sure I would take grief for that. I mean I took grief for having Steve Bannon. And I鈥檓 like, 鈥渟orry, he talked to Trump.鈥� And in fact, the day after our Bannon breakfast, he spent three hours at the White House, including lunch with President Trump. And then a couple of days later, Trump bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities. And that was the issue that Bannon really highlighted in our Breakfast. So I thought the timing was actually perfect. And it鈥檚 not just because we have a guest...and I hear from readers 鈥� people write to me and just think we鈥檙e terrible for having somebody who they think is like a fascist or just a bad human. And I鈥檓 like, 鈥渓ook, this is 鈥� it鈥檚 journalism.鈥� We鈥檙e not saying we agree with what he鈥檚 saying. We just, if somebody has the president鈥檚 ear, I wanna know what they think because that鈥檚 what they鈥檙e saying to Trump.

Cook: Exactly. What鈥檚 it like getting other guests 鈥� I mean, other than Trump, does Karoline Leavitt, can you, can you stroll down to see her and guess or?

Feldmann: So you may have heard that we can鈥檛 just walk into 鈥淯pper Press鈥� [an area, steps above the briefing-room level, where higher level press staffers work and access improves] anymore. I know, I know. So just getting to these people is more difficult, but it鈥檚 even if you can get to the communications team or the press team and say, 鈥渉ey, we would like to have, you know, any of the following people would have them do a Breakfast.鈥� So they all know about the Breakfast. They know it exists. So, but that doesn鈥檛 mean, even if they say yes, even if Karoline Leavitt or Steven Cheung or some of the other people, even if they say, 鈥渟ure,鈥� that doesn鈥檛 mean so-and-so is going to come. I mean, I did have Russ Vought, who some people have dubbed 鈥渢he shadow president.鈥� He鈥檚 very, very influential within the White House, but that鈥檚 because I had a long-standing connection to him dating back to Donald Trump鈥檚 first term.

He and his wife were my guests at the White House Correspondents鈥� Dinner, and I had kept in touch with his comms people. And so we were able to work that out. But no, it鈥檚 been difficult. I mean, during the record long shutdown, I was not gonna get anybody from either party to come do a Breakfast. And also, in this day and age, I really have to be extra careful to make sure that the guest will draw enough reporters. And I think that challenge gets harder and harder. As you pointed out, other outlets are doing many more events. So you鈥檝e got Axios, Semafor, Punchbowl, they have people in all the time doing these events. And it鈥檚 much easier for a guest to sit down with one reporter or two reporters, or even four reporters from The New York Times, than, say, a room with maybe 30 reporters.

Maybe you don鈥檛 know all of them. You don鈥檛 know what they鈥檙e going to ask. We do not at all provide questions in advance. If the comms team asks me, 鈥渉ey, what are they going to be asked about? What will he or she be asked about?鈥� I鈥檒l say, 鈥渨ell, whatever鈥檚 in the news, all topics are on the table.鈥� We don鈥檛 allow them to dictate, okay, he鈥檒l only talk about this, this, and this. It鈥檚 all on the table. I don鈥檛, we don鈥檛 screen the questions in advance. It鈥檚 up to them. And as I said, they鈥檙e, you know, they might feel a little trapped just because it is one hour and you know they鈥檙e in a room full of reporters. So.

Cook: You鈥檙e still in the White House pool. You sometimes fly with the president on Air Force One. Are there still occasions when you鈥檙e doing that kind of thing where you can sidle up to officials and spokespeople and talk about the Breakfast, see if you can get people to come? Or is that not done as much as it used to?

Feldmann: No, absolutely. That鈥檚 one of the reasons to be in the pool and to just be at the White House. I mean, you just never know when you鈥檙e gonna run into somebody. So they, you know, there鈥檚 a lot of, you know 鈥� yes, flying on the plane is one opportunity. Another opportunity is at the White House when they鈥檙e doing those TV hits, you know the major networks all have little stands with a view of the White House. And when they are walking back, I can say, walk up to somebody and talk to them. And also being in the Gridiron Club [the D.C. journalists鈥� organization known for an annual dinner at which politics are satirized] is extremely helpful for that in having contact with high profile people who might make a good breakfast guest.

Cook: So Gridiron, just we should say that, a., Gridiron was the oldest organization of journalists in Washington, [and] that Budge was a longtime member, loved it dearly, stepped aside as an active member so that I could be a member when I was in the job. I stepped aside. And of course, you have to step aside when you retire. And so now you鈥檙e in it. And it has been a very helpful thing. I wanted to mention something, ask you about it, which is when I was doing this in the beginning and for many years when Budge was doing it, there were a lot of regional papers. And one of the things I think that makes it harder to get people to come to breakfast is that there are fewer regional papers that are staffing Washington. Is that something you run into?

Feldmann: Oh, totally. And it鈥檚, in some ways, most valuable for those reporters, because if you鈥檙e from, you know, the Buffalo News or, you know, whatever newspaper in some smaller place, it鈥檚 hard to get access to a top tier cabinet secretary. I鈥檓 sure you saw that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is shutting down.

Cook: I did not see the 鈥�

Feldmann: In May. Yes, it鈥檚 terrible. And a friend of mine writes for them. And so, yeah, McClatchy no longer has a Washington bureau. Dave, you wanted to give a brief shout out to the early days of the Breakfast when Budge had a team of people who set it all up. This is before the age of laptops and the internet.

Cook: He had, yes, thank you. All due deference to Budge. He was wired, he knew people, he was taken seriously. He did not do the day-to-day admin of the breakfast. The people who did that were named Betty Kuemmerling and then Cece Barnett and then Joan Merow. So Budge in a column said that he would give them the names of possible guests. They would invite the guests and then they would the journalists, all this being done on the phone before the age of email and then send out the bills. Think of it. So they 鈥� Betty and Cece and Joan 鈥� knew all these contacts in the departments. It鈥檚 an amazing thing. 鈥淗ello, I鈥檓 Betty Kuemmerling,鈥� you know, 鈥渃an the Secretary of Defense come to lunch with Budge and the group?鈥� They were so dedicated; such smart, capable women. And then I wanna say 30 seconds about Betty Sperling. Talk about marrying 鈥� he married up. She was a diplomat. She was gracious. She and Rosalynn Carter would sit, as an example鈥�she and Rosalynn Carter would be at governor鈥檚 conventions, National Governors Association conventions. Betty Sperling, Rosalynn Carter would talk, and that鈥檚 how Budge and Betty ended up having a meal in the White House, in the residence. And at Gridiron, she was beloved and rightfully so.

And she and Budge hosted a thing for young reporters way back when I was a young reporter and talked about things they had done for the Monitor, including Budge sleeping in a car on some reporting trips, so they were quite the couple.

Feldmann: Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, Betty, whose maiden name was Feldmann, by the way, two n鈥檚, but we weren鈥檛 related as best we could tell. No, Betty was very smart. And I, yeah, no. Those were the days when, I mean in some ways terrible, Betty could have had a high flying career of her own, but she, you know, was the helpmate and, you know, raised the children, et cetera, et cetera. But yes, a tremendous asset to Budge and to the Monitor, so.

Cook: Oh yes, she was 鈥� she was such a wonderful representative. Thanks for letting me spout on about it.

Feldmann: So Dave, I want to just thank you for coming on to talk about all things Monitor Breakfast and for all your work over the years for the Monitor.

Cook: Thanks, Linda.

Feldmann: And thanks to our listeners, you can find more about the Monitor Breakfast in our episode show notes at CSMonitor.com/WhyWeWroteThis. This episode was hosted by me, Linda Feldmann, and produced by Mackenzie Farkus. Jingnan Peng is also a producer on this show. Our sound engineers were Alyssa Britton and Noel Flatt. Original music is by Noel Flatt. Produced by 海角大神. Copyright 2026.