White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

RNC’s Sean Spicer: “DNC buried their debate announcement today”

By

In an interview with WHCInsider.com before the first debate featuring GOP presidential candidates in the 2016 election, the Republican National Committee’s Sean Spicer gave a preview of what to expect at the largest debate in primary history when 17 candidates take the stage.

Spicer also commented on the timing of the Democrat’s debate announcement today. “They’ve got a lot of concern within their own party…with what the DNC has done to help Hillary Clinton out. I think they tried to bury this today for obvious reasons.”

When asked about the additional debate added for candidates who didn’t make the cut for the main debate: “It wasn’t our decision. We had talked to both Fox and CNN about how to be really inclusive in both of the early debates because of the historic number of quality candidates that we had in our field. Fox and CNN said they were going to try and figure out a way to do that.”

Spicer noted that close to 5,000 people will be in attendance, “probably the largest debate audience in history. Folks from Ohio, Republican supporters, friends and family of the candidates. It’s kind of a cross-section.” Audience members will not be allowed to ask questions.

GOP Debate Surprise: Aerosmith​ will be in the audience tonight!

By

11326172_428739093995249_505424269_n

Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler with Tammy Haddad

Aerosmith frontman, Steven Tyler, was spotted in Cleveland on the eve of the first GOP candidate debate of the 2016 presidential election. When asked if Tyler would be able to get a seat in the debate audience tonight, RNC’s Sean Spicer confirmed that “he doesn’t have to worry, he has a ticket and the rest of Aerosmith does as well.”

More from WaPo’s Reliable Source: Aerosmith scored tickets to GOP presidential debate

Countdown to the Republican presidential debate

By

The first debate of the 2016 election cycle will take place Thursday in Cleveland, Ohio. Hosted by Fox News, this highly anticipated event will feature the top 10 Republican presidential candidates according to an average of the last five national polls released before 5 pm on Tuesday. The debate will be hosted by Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace.

Before any candidates have set foot on stage, controversy has already surrounded the debate due to the process being used by Fox News for selecting which candidates will be allowed to participate. The New York Times has predicted which candidates they believe will make the cut. “Donald Trump sits atop the polling average — and has in fact widened his lead over the field — with Jeb Bush and Scott Walker close behind. A handful of other candidates — Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz — occupy a third tier, with a small amount of support but seemingly enough to make the cutoff.” However, “Fox, which is working with Facebook and the Ohio Republican Party to run the debate, has outlined its rules but has declined to go into precise detail, making it difficult to predict who exactly will be on stage.”

Not all is lost for the candidates who don’t make the top 10. The bottom seven candidates will have a shot at airtime during an earlier debate on Fox News, although that event is expected to have significantly lower viewership. According to CNN’s analysis, “at the bottom of the pack, registering less than 2 percent of support in recent polls, are Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, former business executive Carly Fiorina and former New York Gov. George Pataki, all of whom have little chance of squeaking into the debate. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, who only last week joined the crop of contenders, has failed to register 1% of support in the recent polls in which he was included.”

Fox News’ Bret Baier was interviewed by Northeast Ohio Media Group about how he plans to moderate Thursday’s debate. “What I’m looking for and what we all are looking for is something that’s interesting, but illuminating. And that maybe not what you hear on the stump from candidates. So, we’ve been working all the anchors, moderators, to structure these questions in a way that they’re hard, they’re pointed, they’re fair, but it gets them off their talking points.”

All candidates were invited to a “Voters First Republican Presidential Forum” on the campus of St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire on the Monday prior to the debate. The candidates appeared one at a time, answering questions determined by the editors of the Union Leader based on the topics suggested by the public. This event was broadcast on C-SPAN.

The 2016 Republican presidential debate will air at 9 pm ET on Thursday, August 6, 2015 on Fox News.

Global summit in Nairobi celebrates entrepreneurship

By

The sixth annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit took place July 25-26, 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya. Organized by the U.S. Government, the event seeks to bring together entrepreneurs at all stages of business development, business leaders, mentors, and high-level government officials.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who launched the Summit in 2010, co-hosted the event with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. Addressing the increasing terrorism threat in Kenya, Obama said “entrepreneurship offers a positive alternative to the ideologies of violence and division that all too often can fill the void when young people don’t see a future for themselves.”

AI0E0667

Airbnb executives participated in the gathering and used the opportunity to meet with some of their local hosts. Courtney O’Donnell, Head of Global External Affairs, was excited about the “fantastic group from all over the world” and thought one of the best features of the conference was an “awesome pitch contest for women and youth to pitch their startup ideas for different social impact projects around the world.”

GESABNB

Miss America 2014 Nina Davuluri was invited to attend GES as a panelist for the Social Entrepreneurship fireside chat at the Youth and Women’s Day Summit. “I was able to share my story and journey as a young entrepreneur founding ‘Circles Of Unity’ seven years ago as a college freshman and creating my brand around something I was passionate about.”

Davuluri explained more about her GES experience, “I’ve been completely revitalized and inspired meeting with the young woman entrepreneurs. From solving sanitary and clean water issues to textile and fish farming start-ups, these youth entrepreneurs are sparking social change and empowering young women. I’m most excited to create partnerships with these amazing companies and organizations to work together and multiply our messages on women’s issues globally. I’ve been able to see first hand the talent, spirit, and heart of the youth entrepreneurs here — Kenya is a vibrant market and I’m excited to partner with them.”

image2  image7  image8

Through GES, the U.S. Government seeks to demonstrate its commitment to fostering entrepreneurship around the world. Since 2010, when the U.S. hosted the first Summit in Washington, D.C., GES has expanded to a global event hosted by the governments of Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and Morocco.

Press Uncuffed: Living Like a Fugitive

By

mir-studio-lead16.9

The Washington Post has published the first installment in an ongoing series examining the human cost of reporting the news around the world.

As a professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, Dana Priest organized a student project called “Press Uncuffed” to raise awareness of imprisoned journalists and funding for the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Following is an excerpt from the first article in this series:

“The most famous television journalist in Pakistan lives like a fugitive. Hamid Mir tells no one where he is going, how he will get there or where he will spend the night.”

“The attack on Mir and the continuing death threats against him are emblematic of a broad backlash against transparency and independent journalism in many parts of the world.

“Six out of seven citizens have little or no access to insightful reporting about their governments even though the Internet has made other types of information ubiquitous, according to organizations that monitor reporting internationally.”

Read more on washingtonpost.com: Living Like a Fugitive

Washington Women Technology Network honors Megan Smith, White House Chief Technology Officer

By

BVB24352

It was a mix of Silicon Valley and Washington veterans at the Jefferson Hotel for the Washington Women Technology Network (WWTN) lunch honoring Megan Smith, the White House Chief Technology Officer.

Connie Milstein, Hilary Rosen and Tammy Haddad co-hosted the event with Karen Appleton, SVP Industry and Founder of Box.org. Guests heard from Smith, the president’s top technology adviser, about plans to bring technology solutions to some of the country’s biggest challenges.

“We have started a ‘cyber-sprint’…very quickly to audit everything that’s going on and make a couple really fast upgrades that we need to just fill a bunch of holes. … I think what you’re seeing is a real collaborative set of people coming together and starting to work together,” Smith explained.

Smith is also leading the charge to bring more experienced technology minds to Washington: “The great news is we have through…the Presidential Innovation Fellows and U.S. Digital Service…a bunch of rock star people who are at the top of their game.”

GV5A3779

Haddad asked Smith to explain how she is attracting young talent to Washington: “We just did our first map hack-a-thon in the White House, and we were working on MapGive which is the State Department…The community of mappers mapped, in 48 hours, 150,000 buildings and over 40,000 kilometers of roads in Nepal to help responders. So this idea of the crowd and leveraging the crowd to get things done. …Mapping is important for so many things. …The reason I bring this up is that GOTUS (Geographer of the United States)…what does GOTUS want? What does POTUS want? George Washington was an incredible geographer and surveyor. We’ve always had tech. Washington started the Army Corps of Engineers before the country was founded. …We’ve always used technology, we just need to keep remembering that. So constancy of values…constancy of re-invention. …You can go get the American people interested…as long as you’re letting them come do the things they believe will be the right choices and giving them space. That’s why it’s important to make sure we have technical people at the principal level.”

Smith on lessons learned from healthcare.gov: “It’s really to the President’s credit that…the experience they had…to see the more agile way that techies work now…they’re like, ‘hey we’re missing this in the leadership and in government. …So that gave us the ability to establish the U.S. Digital Service which is now rolling out. …What we want is Americans to come and rotate through.”

Haddad asked Smith to explain what they are doing to get better Internet access across the country: “We have a project called Connectivity Deserts, which is where the Internet is missing. …One of the best things is modernization of the E-Rate program…the way Federal dollars are coming out of things like the Universal Fund. …There is this pool that can flow to different things. …One of the things that we’re adding into that conversation as the CTO team is finding tech people who are those connectivity teammates who tend to live in the vendor world, and having a few of them on our team…so we are informed by someone who speaks the language.”

Download the Washington Insider podcast from the event.

WWTN guests included FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, Didem Nisanci, Jen Kuhn, Kelley McCormick, Juleanna Glover, Holly Page, Melissa Moss and Heather Podesta.

Top government technology experts included Box’s Sonny Hashmi, a former General Services Administration CTO; Ann Dunkin, CIO of the EPA; and Christine Harada, acting Chief of Staff at the GSA.

Media was well represented by Betsy Fischer Martin, Jennifer Maguire and Kim Kingsley.

Washington Women Technology Network is a women’s leadership forum founded by Connie Milstein, Tammy Haddad and Hilary Rosen to include women in technology, media and politics.

View photos from the event.

Watch the livestream from the event.

WHCA Election Results

By

The White House Correspondents’ Association election results were announced by the Board and the incoming president, WSJ’s Carol Lee. President for 2017-18: Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev. At-large seat: Margaret Talev. Radio seat: Fox’s Jon Decker. Wire seat: AP’s Julie Pace.

Outgoing president Christi Parsons of the L.A. Times and Tribune: “Over the past year, the WHCA has been using Google lists to help the members of the White House press corps communicate directly with one another. … We owe a standing ovation to Zeke Miller of Time, … who has devoted many hours of cheerful labor to making this possible. …

“I want to single out two volunteers who … make … print pool reports possible. Colleen McCain Nelson of the Wall Street Journal coordinates the print poolers, running a complicated set of rotations … Michael Shear of the New York Times [arranges to fill] the magazine position for the travel pool so that we have a back-up on print pool duty when the president is on the road.”

via POLITICO Playbook

Hail to HBO’s Veep

By

HBO’s DC-themed comedy series, Veep, was nominated in 9 categories during Emmy Awards announcements on Thursday.

The list of categories in which the show has been nominated include:

  • Outstanding Comedy Series
  • Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series (Allison Jones, Meredith Tucker, Pat Moran)
  • Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series – Election Night (Teleplay and Story by Simon Blackwell, Story by Armando Iannucci, Teleplay and Story but Tony Roche)
  • Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Anna Chlumsky)
  • Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Tony Hale)
  • Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)
  • Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series – Testimony (Armando Iannucci)
  • Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series Half-Hour and Animation – Mommy Meyer (Bill MacPherson, Richard Davey)
  • Outstanding Production Design for a Narrative Program Half-Hour or Less – Joint Session (Jim Gloster, E. David Cosier, Jennifer Engel)

Andy Samberg will host the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards on September 20. Fox will broadcast the show live from the Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

Go Veeples!