BOB GARFIELD:  This is On the Media. I’m Bob Garfield.

 [DRUMMING SOUNDS/UP & UNDER]

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  And I’m Brooke Gladstone. For months, the press has been buzzing about the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia.

 [CLIPS]:

MALE CORRESPONDENT:  Trump has acknowledged Russia was on his mind when he fired the FBI director.

FEMALE CORRESPONDENT:  Kushner’s contacts with the Russians are a focus of the FBI’s investigation into Moscow's election meddling.

MALE CORRESPONDENT:  There have been intercepted communications involving Russians talking about or with people around Trump.

[END CLIP]

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  At Wednesday's White House press conference, Sean Spicer declared that the White House would now take a new approach to Russia-related inquiries.

 [CLIP]:

SEAN SPICER:  Going forward, all questions on these matters will refer to Outside Counsel Marc Kasowitz.

 [END CLIP]

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  A fait accompli, no more answers from the press secretary about Flynn, about Kushner, about related financial records, about back channels.

 [CLIP]:

MALE CORRESPONDENT:  And so, the White House press briefings, if you can still call them that, will now be even less worthy of news coverage.

 [END CLIP]

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  Maybe, but does it matter? The Russia investigations now in motion will unfold with or without the constant barrage of coverage. Perhaps, the press could seize the moment to focus more on some other pressing issues, like health care or wages, like the fact that the president has repealed or delayed regulations that protect workers from unsafe conditions or wage theft, like the climate.

And then there are the missed opportunities of the Democratic Party. If the media aim to inform the public, the party wants to win the public over, and they both must strive to recover or reinforce their relevance because, says Jonathan Martin, national political correspondent for The New York Times, there's a widening gap between what the political types and regular people care about most.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  If you're in Washington or if you follow politics really closely, then you’re probably following every jot and tittle of the Days of our Lives, Trump version. It's constantly some kind of drama. Some of it’s related to personnel, some of it’s related to the president's latest comments or provocations. And oftentimes, these days, it's related to the investigation surrounding his campaign’s dealings with Russia last year.

Now, if you don't follow politics really closely, if you don't work in and around politics in Washington, you probably are vaguely aware of all of those things but you don't have the kind of encyclopedic knowledge of exactly [LAUGHS] what is happening and, more likely, you are living your own life and you care more about issues that directly impact your own life – health care, the economy.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  You had some interesting data in your piece. You noted that Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey was a lot bigger news for the national media than it was for a lot of other Americans.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  If you look at polling data, including a survey that we saw earlier this month from the Wall Street Journal, you’ve got over 30% of Americans who say that they don't even know enough about the firing of FBI Director Comey to even have an opinion about it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  [LAUGHS] You used the special election in Montana to illustrate the tension between the national priorities, as you mentioned, Russia, maybe corruption, conflict of interest, the firing of Comey, and so on, and local priorities.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  Yeah. The Democrat in that special election chose to close his campaign by focusing chiefly on health care, the Republican health care bill that came out of the House. And right now there is a division in the party between those who were consumed by the president's actions, conduct and his campaign last year and the policy issues that are shaping people's lives day in, day out.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  I’m just wondering, if the Democrats really are wracking their brains trying to figure out what their agenda is, why not take a look at Bernie Sanders? He’s not the establishment and everybody hates the establishment.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  Ah, I think they’re doing more than taking a look. I think they’re borrowing lots of his [LAUGHS] playbook. I mean, if you look at what's happening now around the country with candidates, you see a lot more of them running on $15-an- hour minimum wage, running on free college tuition.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  So why do so many smart strategists seem to act on the assumption that voters care as much as they do about the Trump Russia affair or his conflicts of interest?

JONATHAN MARTIN:   Well, because they think that there's fire, in addition to smoke, and that this ultimately is going to be his undoing as president. But if you talk to the folks who actually make a lot of decisions in the party, they still believe that the health care issue is more potent at this point than the kind of drama surrounding President Trump.

Here is the challenge though. A lot of the sort of Democratic donor base is consumed by President Trump’s conduct and this issue surrounding the Russia investigation. So that can be difficult to navigate when your financial base is more invested in that issue then, say, premium increases or co-pays.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  So how does all this affect the Democrats’ ability to forge a coherent political strategy?

JONATHAN MARTIN:  It's proving a challenge because what can help you raise money isn’t necessarily the best issue for you to run on.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  To what extent do you think the media have contributed to this environment? The chicken and the egg question, who’s driving whom?

JONATHAN MARTIN:  It’s a great question, and I do think that because so much of the reporting about the Russia scandal is generated by the media, that there is then an impulse the next day to ask the politicians about their reaction to your story. And that then sort of drives that story even further.

But that said, even if we weren’t asking the follow-up questions, the politicians themselves would probably be commenting on it anyway. [LAUGHS] It’s the biggest story there is in the world right now. The American president is hugely  controversial and there are questions surrounding his campaign’s contacts with an adversarial nation.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  Bigger than 24 million people losing health care?

JONATHAN MARTIN:  It’s fascinating to see some on the left who say, well, yeah, if the president himself is swallowed by this issue and ultimately is driven from office, then yes [LAUGHS] that is the bigger story than health care because then it's the matter of, of the presidency itself.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  Mm-hmm.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  We just don't know if the issue is that serious, as of right now.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  Fair enough. You quote the political strategist Anita Dunn.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  Mm-hmm. [AFFIRMATIVE]

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  It was really interesting. She said, “The  Trump story happens without us,” noting that the leaks will keep coming, Democrats don't have control over the FBI inquiry or the investigation by the special counsel or the congressional committees that have Republican majorities, but the health care contrast is very, very powerful. What is she saying there?

JONATHAN MARTIN:  I think what Anita is saying there is that you don’t want to pour kerosene on a fire that you don't have to pour it on.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  Mm-hmm.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  It’s the old Sun Tzu maxim, don't get in the way of an enemy who’s destroying himself. And given the leaks,  given the reporting, given President Trump’s response to the reporting and the leaks [LAUGHS], there's no reason for Democrats to sort of fan those flames. That story’s gonna drive itself and they're better off focusing on issues and driving issues that aren’t necessarily going to be organically in the media the same way this investigation will.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  You’ve described how difficult it still is for progressives to present their message while Trump is grabbing news headlines by the hour.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  Yeah, yeah.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  And we recently spoke with a conservative who [LAUGHS] – who had the same gripe. He argued that despite consolidated right-wing power, conservatives feel unable to move the agenda forward –

JONATHAN MARTIN:  Yeah.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  - because he's dominating the ether. So what’s that tell us about the political landscape right now?

JONATHAN MARTIN:  That the sort of As the World Turns, West Wing edition, is, in fact, sucking the oxygen out of the policy agenda of both political parties in this country, that it's harder for Democrats to get their message out about a progressive agenda but it’s also harder for conservatives not only to drive their messages but to actually enact their agenda. And that's why it’s June 1st and they have not passed a major bill yet.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  Jonathan Martin, thank you very much.

JONATHAN MARTIN:  All right, thanks for the time, appreciate it.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:  Jonathan Martin is a national political correspondent for The New York Times.