Editor’s note: On Thursday, President Trump held a news conference in which he “aired his grievances against the news media, the intelligence community and his detractors.” On Friday, Anita Dunn, former White House communications director under President Barack Obama, and Alice Stewart, former spokeswoman for Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign, exchanged views about the news conference and its effects. The email discussion was moderated by Post Opinions digital editor James Downie and has been edited for style and clarity.

Anita Dunn: Happy to kick this off. President Trump’s press conference was a great example of the difference between campaigning and governing. During the campaign, he could go out, do this kind of press conference or event, say whatever he wanted, and the campaign and world moved on with little consequence. It’s different when you’re president, as Trump and his team are learning. When you say something, it is evaluated in the context of actual facts and real policy implications.

This was a campaign press conference, not a presidential one. Politically, there is reporting this morning that I am sure is accurate (and not even fake news!) reflecting that Trump voters responded well and saw the Trump they had voted for — confident, mocking, taking on Washington conventional wisdom and the Washington media establishment. He now goes to two events that will feel like campaign rallies.

The difference is that as president, the narrative doesn’t just move on because you tell it to, or you go out and do a 79-minute press conference with a lot of shiny objects for the press to chase. You still have problems on Capitol Hill, [Affordable Care Act] replacement to be figured out, tax policies to be negotiated, [National Security Council] heads to find and a White House structure that seems surprised every day to discover they are supposed to govern. This was effective politically for him with his base, but certainly didn’t help and probably hurt with three important audiences that were irrelevant during the campaign but count a lot in governing — the press, the Hill and the intelligence community.

Alice Stewart: I agree with you, Anita, that President Trump’s presser did not help his relationship with the press. From a communications standpoint, it’s not a good idea to engage in nonstop warfare with the media. Trump’s comment that “the leaks are absolutely real, the news is fake” does not hold water. But you have to realize that just as you viewed Fox News as “opinion journalism masquerading as news” when you were President Obama’s communications director, Trump views virtually all of the media through that lens. That mind-set is what drives his “fake news” drumbeat.

That being said, the objective of the presser was to change the media narrative from “campaign collusion with Russia” and “White House in chaos” to “Trump takes on the media” and “I inherited a mess.” With that in goal in mind: Mission accomplished.

While the style and tone is not what many are used to — it’s classic Trump. It worked in the primary, the general and he clearly believes it will work in the administration. From Trump’s perspective: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

[Hugh Hewitt and Ronald Klain: How will Neil Gorsuch change the Supreme Court?]

Dunn: I agree with you, Alice, that this worked well for him in the primary, and in the general. And as a short-term tactic to temporarily change the subject for a news cycle, it works for him as president. The base loves the fact that Trump is back and taking on Washington, the way he promised. But the difference is that, unlike the campaign, you can’t make the problems of government go away with a press event or a rally. You knocked “campaign collusion with Russia” off the pages momentarily, but it will come back. You may have stanched the blood in the water on the “White House in chaos” narrative, but you haven’t fixed the problem.

Now by all accounts the White House is feeling pretty good about this and they should — voters far prefer a confident president to a beleaguered one. Clearly he feels like he got his mojo back. And they finally found someone willing to take the communications director job, which is progress and may bring a level of coherence to their planning that hasn’t been evident during the first month. The president, like all presidents, is always going to prefer communicating directly to the American people than through the press filter, and he does a good job talking to his voters. The truth remains that changing the subject is a lot easier in a campaign than it is in governing, which the Trump White House is learning.

James Downie: Alice, do you feel the media focuses too much on his clashes with the media? Does it really matter what his relationship with them is?

Stewart: Yes, they do. No matter how much ink and airtime they devote to the clashes, it is not going to change. President Trump and [chief strategist] Stephen K. Bannon believe the media is the opposition party. They know the media and fact checkers did not vote for Trump; middle America did. That is who they are focusing their attention on and they wasted no time in doing so.

What a difference a day makes. The president goes from fire and brimstone with the press to firing up supporters in Charleston. He was back in his element. As Anita said: Voters prefer a confident president to a beleaguered one. With the classic Trump confidence, he delivered the message supporters wanted to hear: bringing jobs back to America, re-building our military and “Buy American, hire American.”

What’s important in terms of his relationship with the press is that facts matter. When factually inaccurate statements are given, the press should press him on it. Facts matter, being friends with the press does not.

Dunn: I agree with Alice that this White House isn’t going to change — and that reporters shouldn’t take the bait of making it about themselves but should make it about what the public believes matters — true accountability, facts, transparency in government and whether government is being honest. When they make it about press vs. White House, it plays into Bannon’s message and narrative. When they make it about the bigger issues, and not about themselves, they have more credibility with the public.

The president was inaugurated four weeks ago. (Yes, to many people it feels like a lot longer.) His challenge with communicating as a president and not just as a candidate (which he clearly prefers, since he is holding a campaign rally Saturday because you can never start running too early!) is to demonstrate a basic grasp of what the job entails and to broaden his base because he needs to govern, not just win elections. If you dislike Donald Trump, can’t believe he was elected president, and are dismayed at his lack of curiosity about fundamental ways the government works, there was plenty for you in Thursday’s press conference. If you voted for Donald Trump because you wanted change, and a businessman who was going to take a different approach to government and Washington, D.C., there was plenty for you in Thursday’s press conference. And if you are a reporter covering the White House, there was plenty in Thursday’s press conference to suggest where you need to keep digging and probing. Yes, everyone’s a winner! He kept his promise!

Stewart: You hit the nail on the head, Anita. The voters want transparency and openness in government. They deserve that. The media has a crucial role in holding elected officials’ feet to the fire and keeping them honest.

There’s a reason the media is often referred to as “The Fourth Estate”; they are positioned as a fourth branch of government that is important to a functioning democracy.

Downie: How do both of you feel he handled questions about Michael Flynn and alleged ties between Trump and his advisers and Russia? And how much do voters care about the story?

Dunn: My hunch is that his voters are listening for and following other stories — stories about jobs, about infrastructure, about what he is doing to keep his promises to turn the economy around for average workers. A lot of the “chaos” stories they may tune out. But there are plenty of people following these stories closely and they care about this story, and they probably thought his answers were simplistic, shallow, refused to acknowledge a significant and serious problem, and probably weren’t entirely candid. In other words, everything they already believe about this president.

Stewart: President Trump was correct to point out that Gen. Flynn did nothing wrong in his call to the Russian ambassador. It was absolutely within Flynn’s authority at the time to have those conversations. The problem was Gen. Flynn lying to Vice President Pence about discussing sanctions on the call. The coverup is worse than the crime. The vice president is a pillar of credibility in the administration and for Gen. Flynn to allow the vice president to go on Sunday shows and claim sanctions were not discussed, is a tremendous blow to a trusted leader.

My question is why didn’t President Trump tell the vice president about the “incomplete information” when he was told by the Justice Department on Jan. 26? And why didn’t he ask for Flynn’s resignation at that time? The American people deserve to know what the president knew and when did he know it.

Be that as it may, most voters won’t follow the tick-tock of these events, but it does raise eyebrows that all bumpy roads lead to Russia. The Trump administration needs to come clean on the Russia connections. You have to be up front in order to put it behind you.

Downie: Is this the sort of strategy that Trump can go back to again and again, or will he find these press conferences less useful the more he holds them?

Stewart: To question whether this is an ongoing strategy assumes there is a strategy.

Look, Trump will reserve the right to make game-day decisions every day of his presidency. If he feels that his narrative is unraveling, he will take the bully pulpit by the horns and self correct. He does that because it works for him.

I was reminded of one of my favorite Ronald Reagan quotes from a press conference, “Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.” You have to hand it to President Trump: He will answer questions. Maybe not directly, but he will answer them.

I commend the media for their dogged work to get the story. They work very hard, with long hours, under stressful conditions. Most journalists I know strive every day to get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

That being said, President Trump is following through on his campaign promises. He is accomplishing what he set out to do regardless of what the media says. If he can focus on that, instead of media feedback, he will do himself a favor and have more time to play a well deserved round of golf.

Dunn: During the campaign, President Trump rewrote the book on campaign communication, and one month into his administration he is communicating and using communications tools very differently than presidents in the past. He understands television, and uses it well. Try to remember another president holding a 79 minute news conference as freeform as Thursday’s. You can’t. Try to imagine a president announcing that he was looking for a friendly reporter. It hasn’t happened until now. But just as ratings decline for State of the Union addresses the further you go into administrations, the novelty will wear off on this as well, although I believe he will hold more news conferences than the past two presidents, if only because it is clearly a format he enjoys and believes he is good at. What is new, and fresh, and different, at the beginning of administrations isn’t quite as engaging by year three or four for any president, Democratic or Republican. I think President Trump has a shrewd sense of what works best for him — rallies, big events, energy and his own voice — and is going to develop as good a sense of what doesn’t work as well.

During his campaign, different officials held the title, but there has never been any doubt that Donald Trump is his own communications director, and the senior adviser he listens most closely to on communications is also named Donald Trump. His victory on election night has made him believe, as many outsiders who win believe, that doing it his way got him there, and why should he do it any differently now that he is in office. I talked at the beginning of the difference between a campaign narrative and a governing narrative (leaks anybody? Unexpected announcements from agencies stepping on your story of the day? Are you perceived as competent or not up to the job and are unnamed sources from Capitol Hill constantly undercutting you?) and watching this president try to navigate the differences moving forward will continue to be one of the best shows in town, at least in the near future.

At the end of the day, the people who voted for him — and the broader country — will judge him as much on what he does as what he says. He’s off to a rocky start, but we are one month into his administration. Based on his opening statement Thursday, he may believe it is “mission accomplished” but it isn’t.