Spielberg's New Film Spotlights Battle Government Attacks on Media
HARLOW: Live pictures of the White House where the president at any moment will sign that historic tax reform bill passed by Congress this week. We'll keep you posted and show it to you when it happens. Meantime, legendary director Steven Spielberg's new movie "The Post" comes out tonight. In it, Spielberg spotlights the newsroom of "The Washington Post" back in the '70s during the investigation into the Nixon White House. Our entertainment reporter Chloe Melas sat down with the director, Steven Spielberg, to talk about a lot including how this film parallels our current political climate.</s>STEVEN SPIELBERG, DIRECTOR, "THE POST": This film has tremendous relevancy now. There are, it's so many things happening with the attacks on, you know, the free press and and the news being basically labeled fake, you know, so often and where there is some kind of a disagreement, you know, everything the news said is dismissed simply with a stamp that just says fake. And and it was just kind of startling that this started to happen with the Nixon administration.</s>HARLOW: Joining me now is Chloe Melas. Fascinating you sat down with Spielberg. You talked about a lot. But first on the film, you know, they started making this thing before Trump was president but very relevant now.</s>CHLOE MELAS, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: You know, Steven Spielberg told me that as soon as he saw the script for "The Post," Poppy, he knew that if he couldn't make it this year because of the parallels between the Nixon administration's conflicts with the press and the current Trump administration with all of the issues with fake news and issues with press outlets, that he felt like the relevancy was more prominent than ever. But he also wants to make sure that people realize that this movie is not meant to be a partisan film, that this is supposed to be about patriotism, bringing everyone together. If we can all agree on one thing, is that we want the truth to be out there and that that was his common goal of doing this movie. And he also said, which I love, he called investigative journalists his heroes.</s>HARLOW: Look at that. For a lot of folks Steven Spielberg is their hero. Let me ask you about this, you also talked to him about the issue, you've not only been covering so much but breaking so much news on, and that is sexual harassment in the entertainment industry following, you know, Harvey Weinstein, for example. What did he say?</s>MELAS: Yes, I mean, Poppy, I was able to segue into talking about the #metoo movement, because this film also not only stars Tom Hanks but Meryl Streep playing Katharine Graham, the publisher of "The Washington Post," the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company not that long ago, just the early '70s, and I asked him, do you feel like a lot has changed and, you know, did you feel like you knew a lot about the harassment allegations that were -- that are so rampant and he had something really interesting to say.</s>SPIELBERG: I -- you know, was I surprised? I wasn't. I was shocked but I wasn't surprised because if you have peripheral vision you're going to sense these things out of the corner of your eye.</s>SPIELBERG: You can't not know that this has been going on rampantly for -- I can't even tell you how many decades, but this is something that is being dealt with today and the courage of these women that are coming forward, I've never seen anything like it.</s>MELAS: Now he said that despite the glass ceiling that Katharine Graham was able to shatter that women -- we still have such a long way to go in how we're perceived and he said that he has never seen change happen so quickly than in the past six to eight weeks.</s>HARLOW: Wow.</s>MELAS: And I just want to tell you, he said that this is a national referendum on morality.</s>HARLOW: Wow.</s>MELAS: I loved that.</s>HARLOW: And they were -- you know, the #metoo movement, the "TIME" Person of the Year reflecting that.</s>MELAS: He said it's a national reckoning.</s>HARLOW: Chloe, thank you very much. Great reporting.</s>MELAS: Thank you.</s>HARLOW: Great sit down as always. So the president any moment will sign the tax bill at the White House then he heads to Mar-a-Lago for the holiday. You'll see it all live right here. Stay with us.