USA TODAY Washington Bureau chief Susan Page says Trump has instituted broad change in first 100 days

By Hannah Ivey

The first 100 days of the Trump administration and interviewing notable women such as Barbara Walters were discussed in a program at the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics. Susan Page, Washington Bureau chief for USA TODAY and a veteran reporter and observer of American politics, discussed her journalistic career.

Page last year covered her 12th presidential election. She is currently covering her eighth White House administration. She is also author of several books on powerful women, including “The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters”; “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power”; and “The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty.” 

Charles Overby, chairman and founder of the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics, moderated the event.

Page said that the first 100 days tell us a lot about a president. She discussed what can be gleaned from Trump’s first 100 days in office.

"Some of the things we've learned from Trump is that he has remarkable control over Republicans in Congress," Page said. "That's been a surprise, and he's also pushed the envelope of presidential powers because he hasn't really passed laws. He has usurped some of the powers that traditionally we associate with Congress, and he has dared the courts to stop him.”

Page also discussed some of what has set Trump’s first 100 days apart from those of other presidents.

“Not in my lifetime have we had a president institute change more broadly than Donald Trump has done in his first 100 days,” Page said. “It's like he was shot from the cannon and took all of us with him. I think Trump's attitude is, if I want to do it, I'll do it, and let's see if they stop me. That's a different perception of presidential power than we have seen in this country."

Page also talked about the ramifications of Trump’s actions.

“For the young people in this audience, maybe some of them interested in journalism, for the rest of your lives, we'll be dealing with the consequences of what Donald Trump has done in his first 100 days,” Page said.

Page shared her hope for the country’s future.

“One thing, even today, when you talk to people who are for Trump or against Trump, is that they both love the country,” Page said. “They both want what's best for the country even if they see it as being diametrically different things. That gives me some hope that even at a time when we're seeing historic tumult, we're going to come through it okay.”

Page also talked about interviewing Barbara Walters and shared some of the insight she gained from this experience.

“She struggled with being seen as a serious journalist forever,” Page said. “The way that she proved, I think, her value to ABC and to the world of journalism generally, is that she kept landing these big interviews. She was not, in fact, a very good anchor, but she was great at doing the big interview, the interview everybody wanted. She was great at cultivating sources, and she was a really skilled and meticulous interviewer in certain ways.” 

Page shared some of what made Walters so successful in her interviews.

“I've been a journalist for a while, but there were things I learned in doing this book about being an effective interviewer,” Page said. “She worked endlessly on her questions, on how to word them, in what order to ask them, and she would make them simpler and simpler and shorter because that's the way you get someone to actually tell you something.”

Among Page’s awards are the White House Correspondents Association Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure; the WHCA Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage; the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Washington Correspondence.  In 2020, Page moderated the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris.

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Hannah Ivey is a student assistant in the Overby Center. She is majoring in journalism with a minor in creative writing and an emphasis in political and social justice reporting. She is a senior from Oxford, Miss.