Today's Poll Question: Can Federal Prosecutors Force Journalists to Reveal Their Sources?

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Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

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But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

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Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

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For Independent Minds.

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Hello, hello.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:14)
TGIF, everybody. It's Friday. It's the 24th of July. I am frightened as I tell you that.
It's like July is almost over. Where the hell is summer going? Wow. What have I done with my summer?
Worked too much. The poll question today, is it ever appropriate for federal prosecutors to subpoena journalists to reveal their confidential sources? Is it ever appropriate, ever, ever, ever, for federal prosecutors to subpoena journalists to reveal their confidential sources? It's not a hypothetical. It's based on something that's happening right now. It involves the Qatari version of Air Force One and the New York Times. And I will tell you the story in just a moment.

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The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:03)
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**SPEAKER_2** (2:38)
The Daily Poll Question at smerconish.com.

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A non-scientific social political question designed to spark broader discussions about current issues.

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Get ready to cast your ballot and leave a rating and review of this podcast on your favorite podcast app.

**Michael Smerconish** (2:52)
OK, let me tell you this story. So it begins on July 9
Four New York Times journalists, I think they've all been guests on my program over the years, Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager and Eric Schmidt. They publish a story that had nothing to do with press freedom, everything to do with the president's safety. They cited anonymous sources and reported that the Secret Service had urged President Trump not to fly home from NATO, that summit meeting in Turkey, not to fly home from the NATO meeting in Turkey aboard the new Air Force One, the one that was Boeing-built, a 747, had been donated by Qatar. And the recommendation was to use the older version, the Robin Blue version of Air Force One instead. And then the next day, they went further and they reported that the gifted plane lacked the quote-unquote defensive countermeasures and advanced anti-missile capabilities built into the older aircraft. I for one was not surprised by any of this. I never bought the line from the president that he wanted to give troops the opportunity to view it so he was going to fly home in a different plane. Or I think he was going to, that plane was going to go from Turkey to England and then he was going to meet up. I don't know, whatever the story was, I wasn't buying it. So none of this surprised me. I always thought that he just rushed it into service because he was so eager to use it.
If you strip away the politics, then here's the revelation. The president's own security professionals apparently, according to this reporting, had concerns about a foreign government gift that the administration had championed and that those safety concerns were serious enough that they recommended that the commander in chief not fly in it. Whether a foreign donated jet is safe enough to carry our president, I think is exactly the kind of thing that we would have a right to know. It was also, for the same reasons, embarrassing to the White House and touched on a sensitive nerve for the president because he'd been saying, no, the plane is all ready to go. If you remember, when the gift was made, I remember there were stories at the time that people, experts in the field, said, well, it's going to take years to outfit it. And here we are. How far into this administration are we? 18 months?