When I was at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin last week, I moderated two sessions,

one with reporters that we've already posted and one with a couple of U.S. representatives from Texas,

Democrat Beto O'Rourke of El Paso and Republican Will Hurd of Helotis.

The two, who didn't much know each other a year ago, made headlines in their state. When stranded by a snowstorm, they found themselves sharing a rented Chevy Impala for the 1600-mile drive from San Antonio to Washington. They know each other now. Anyway, I ask them roughly the same question I asked the

reporters. How do the constant attacks by the president on journalism, on facts, influence how

you do your job? How you deal with the press? Does it affect your point of view? This session

starts with Fado O'Rourke, and then Will Hurd jumps in.

I begin by saying that I feel like our democracy,

this country is under the most extraordinary pressure test,

not just of our lifetimes, but perhaps since the Civil War.

And that our institutions you know the courts

the Congress the ballot box but also the press are going to determine whether

we're going to be able to keep going for a 231st year and whether we'll be

talking about this at the 330th anniversary as we've just celebrated the 230th anniversary of the signing of the

Constitution. I have been in so many secret briefings and classified hearings, but in many

cases have learned more by reading the New York Times and the Washington Post about what's

going on at the highest levels of our government. If we don't have

a free independent press, we will not have a democracy. And we know exactly where this is going.

When someone who says he wants to ban all people of a certain religion from coming to this

country, when he vilifies Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, when he attacks

the press as the enemy of the people, there's only one direction that he wants to take

this country.

...