The American political system is not good at trading sacrifice now to prevent crises later.

Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. But that's unacceptable. As others have observed, talking about how to stop mass shootings in the aftermath of a string of mass shootings isn't 'too soon.' It's much too late.

I do think that there is a very unclear level of conduct in the Trump administration. That's one reason you're seeing this among so many different secretaries. Again, Trump himself has been bending ethics rules left and right.

Maintaining news cycle is the job. It's always been the job. This is just more intense. You find out what the story is, you use the tools you have to get clear on it, you bring the knowledge that you've built up over the past however long. Part of the trick is just having people who know what they're doing. In terms of the pace, yeah, it's exhausting. I feel for all of us in the media, and in the White House and in the country. I mean, this is not a fun time.

The news is challenging right now. One hard thing about it is that often things don't lend themselves to good explanations or we don't have enough information. So we are sometimes in pretty murky waters, as everyone is. But it's an era where people's anxiety about what's going on and need to understand what's happening around them has created a real demand for news coverage that's dedicated to filling that need.

We were badly held back not just by the technology, but by the culture of journalism.

This is a very proud moment for journalism. I think The New York Times and The Washington Post are genuine champions in this moment. The role that they are playing in democracy is the role that you hear about journalism playing in civics classes. Other people are doing great work, but the Times and the Post have really been leaders. The public is watching, and they are hungry. They know something is wrong, there's a lot of anxiety out there. There's a real sense that the mission of journalism is very clear.