0:01

Are you like me and tracking the polls

0:03

obsessively this election year? Well, Dan Pfeiffer is

0:05

right there with you and he's taking them

0:07

seriously, but not literally. Take an average of

0:09

the polls, don't forget about any one poll,

0:11

and the thing that we try to tell

0:13

everyone in every episode of this podcast is

0:15

a poll that has Biden up to and

0:17

a poll that has Biden down to, they

0:19

all tell you the exact same thing, which

0:21

is this is a very, very close race.

0:24

The goal of this podcast is how people

0:26

understand polling and freak out about it

0:28

just a little bit less. To explore the

0:30

latest polls, what they actually mean, and whether

0:32

or not it's time to hit the

0:34

panic button, tune into Polar Coaster with

0:36

Dan Pfeiffer, Cricut's latest subscriber exclusive show.

0:39

To get access, subscribe to our Friends

0:41

of the Pod community only at cricut.com/friends.

0:49

Guys, it's been a rough year. It's going to

0:52

get rougher and you deserve a little treat for

0:54

not going insane yet. You could head to the

0:56

local Tiki bar and tell the bartender, do your

0:58

worst. We have a better

1:00

idea for you, which is pick out something from

1:02

the Crooked store. The store is stocked with tons

1:04

of new merch. It's perfect for the spring and

1:06

classics like the Friend of the Pod tees that

1:08

you'll be wearing long after the next administration or

1:10

the next fascist dictatorship, depending on how things go.

1:12

Pick up a new tee for the warm weather

1:14

ahead, a mug that'll remind you to stay involved

1:16

this election year, or a hat celebrating your favorite

1:18

pod. Go to crooked.com slash store to

1:20

shop. Welcome

1:45

to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitori. And

1:47

I'm Jen Psaki. I am thrilled to

1:49

be joined by my good friend, Jen

1:52

Psaki in studio in Los Angeles. I'm

1:54

so happy to be here. Great to see you. It's

1:56

great to be here. See you. Have

1:59

a one week old baby. old baby. One

2:01

week and one day old now. Eight days. It really

2:03

matters in the beginning. You count the days. Okay.

2:06

So we have a 17 month old

2:08

and now an eight day old. And

2:10

just the difference in size. Suddenly my

2:12

daughter looks like a giant. Yes, it's

2:14

so true. And seems very advanced. She

2:16

talks a lot. She has a

2:18

lot to say. Not walking very much. How

2:20

does she like the baby? She sort of

2:22

treats the baby like the dog, which is

2:24

where we don't grip the hair. We pat,

2:26

pat, pat. Gentle. Pat, pat, pat

2:29

is a little more like slap, slap, slap. But

2:32

we're doing good. I think I'm excited

2:34

for him to have a big sister.

2:36

Yeah. Because I think big sisters are a

2:38

good influence and big brothers can

2:40

get you things. I will

2:42

say, because you know, I'm a few years ahead of

2:44

you on the children. But I have a big sister.

2:46

My daughter is eight and a half. My son is

2:49

six. They're a little bit farther apart

2:51

in age. It is the greatest combination.

2:54

Because even now, if he's kind

2:56

of having a meltdown, she'll be

2:58

like, hey, buddy, hey, buddy, calm

3:01

down, you know, she's like a she's like another

3:03

another little mom in the house. We

3:05

love it. It sounds amazing. Honestly,

3:07

it's it is wonderful. I'm so

3:10

glad he's here. And Hannah is doing great.

3:12

Hannah, like, by the way, having a C-section

3:14

and bouncing back 24 hours later, I

3:17

don't know how. No, been there. I don't

3:19

know. She's a she must be like complete superhuman.

3:21

I also think sleep deprivation is a real thing.

3:23

Nobody acknowledges. And when you have children, it is.

3:26

That is the thing. Thank God for a couple

3:28

of nights in the NICU. Let us

3:30

sleep. But anyway, everyone's happy, healthy. We're

3:32

home. Jen, as you guys

3:34

know, has worked in top communications

3:36

jobs in the Obama and Biden administration. She's

3:39

the host of Inside with Jen Psaki and

3:41

MSNBC and the author of a new book,

3:43

which I'm holding up. Say more.

3:45

Thank you. Lessons from Work, The White House and

3:48

the World. Thank you. You've lived through a number

3:50

of these stories. You know, a lot of these

3:52

stories felt very real. I was kind of there

3:54

with you. Yeah. And

3:57

I can't wait to talk about all of them. We

3:59

had a great show. though today. We're going to talk about the

4:01

latest headlines from Michael Cohen's testimony in the

4:04

New York Hush Money case, the way Trump

4:06

is using a novel surrogate operation to get

4:08

around his gas border. That's such a diplomatic way

4:10

of saying it. It must be your time in the NSC. He's

4:13

inviting the dumbest people he knows to come hang out at

4:15

the court, like Tommy Tuberville.

4:17

That guy kills me. We're going

4:19

to talk about the latest from Gaza, the

4:21

challenge of public messaging about private diplomatic discussions,

4:23

something Jen did a lot when she was

4:26

the State Department spokesperson, especially

4:29

with the government like then Yahoo's, which we don't

4:31

always agree with. And frankly, sometimes they want to

4:33

pick a fight with us. We'll

4:35

talk about an Axios report that Biden is in

4:37

denial about that polling and Jen's sense of kind

4:40

of how information gets in and out of the

4:42

Oval Office. But first, Jen, let's have a debate

4:44

about debates. Shall we? Shall we? Because- Should they,

4:46

should they not? I mean, when we woke up

4:48

and when we produced this show, a lot has

4:50

happened. I mean, between when we were texting

4:52

about the show yesterday and this morning, like

4:55

as Earth, the things entirely different schedule. Yeah,

4:57

I have this huge ramifications for you on

4:59

your show and MSNBC for us here. So there

5:02

was a lot of skepticism about whether these two would debate

5:04

at all. This morning, that all seems

5:06

to have changed. I'm still a skeptic a little

5:08

bit. I think it's well, it's well held

5:10

skepticism. But let's listen to a clip of

5:13

President Biden. Donald Trump lost two

5:15

debates to me in 2020. The sense that he

5:17

hadn't shown up for debate. Now he's acting like

5:19

he wants to debate me again. Well, make my

5:21

day, pal. I'll even do it twice. So let's

5:24

pick the dates, Donald. I hear

5:26

you're free on Wednesdays. It

5:28

sounds a little bit like the clip from Home

5:30

Alone, a movie I've watched recently because of my

5:33

kids. Great movie. Make my day,

5:35

buddy. Yeah. Yeah, a little dirty hairy.

5:37

I hear your friend Wednesdays is

5:39

very funny. That's when

5:41

the trial is off. I like that. Yeah. Wednesday's,

5:44

yeah. He's free. So then Trump went

5:46

on Hugh Hewitt's radio show this morning

5:48

and responded in classic Trump style. Here

5:50

a clip of that. You know, he's

5:52

issuing it. I wonder whether or not

5:54

he shows up because, you know, he

5:56

also challenged me to golf. So

5:59

I'm a very good golf. He can't hit a

6:01

ball 50 yards. He said I'll give him three

6:03

a sight, but he knows he'll never play This

6:06

is sort of like that. I think June

6:08

and September would be great if you can agree

6:10

on the size of the table and the moderator

6:13

Just why don't you look at the statement? I

6:15

just put out a statement You should have it on

6:17

your hot wires you get everything gotta love this hot

6:20

wire their golf hot wires It's

6:22

just like golf. Isn't it debating and

6:24

a presidential campaign? Give them three strokes

6:26

and the debate course. I don't know.

6:29

Okay, so Before

6:31

when we woke up to to now the two

6:33

sides agreed to a debate on June 27th at

6:35

CNN Studios in Atlanta with no audience A VP

6:37

debate in July and then there's gonna be another

6:40

presidential debate on September 10th hosted by

6:42

ABC The key detail

6:44

here is these campaigns are now negotiating directly

6:46

They're circumventing the Commission on presidential debates, which

6:48

has set the dates and ground rules since

6:50

1988 Hating

6:52

on the Commission has become a bipartisan

6:54

sport in Washington The RNC pulled out

6:57

of the Commission process in 2022 after

6:59

saying it was biased Biden campaign criticized

7:01

the Commission's original proposal because they

7:03

started the debates after early voting

7:06

had begun and they prioritized in-person

7:08

Audiences over the people watching at

7:10

home. So Jen What

7:12

do you make of this debate curve? Well, and

7:14

then Trump also truths is that the term? Yes

7:17

About a Fox debate in October third

7:20

debate, right which the Biden team at least

7:22

as at the moment of our taping has not agreed

7:24

to I'd be shocked if they do but but I

7:28

Think this is an interesting play by the Biden

7:30

team I mean when he was asked by Howard

7:32

Stern a couple of weeks ago he

7:34

said yes, he would debate and I don't

7:37

think it another choice he had to say that

7:39

because if he hadn't said that it would Have

7:41

sounded weak and one of the challenges they have

7:44

right now is the this feeling of Chaos

7:46

and weakness a lot of

7:49

these issues are so much more complicated I know

7:51

we'll dive into a lot of them whether it

7:53

is protest on college campuses What's happening in the

7:55

Middle East even kind of Putin still being out

7:57

there and crazy, but it feels chaotic

8:00

And I think, and it feels a

8:02

little weak that he can't unilaterally make

8:04

all of these things calm. And

8:06

if he had said, I'm considering it, it would

8:09

have fed into the Sleepy Joe narrative that they've

8:11

done a pretty good job of beating back post,

8:13

of course, the drugs he apparently took the native

8:15

state of the union. Those did help,

8:17

apparently. So they had to

8:19

do that. This was interesting because

8:21

it's now May. It's

8:24

hard to believe, but we're talking about a debate in June.

8:26

June. We were just talking about how that feels stressful.

8:28

How is that possible? Because you have to prep for

8:30

it. But I think internally they

8:32

knew that at some point this was going to

8:34

hit ahead, and they were either going to be

8:37

ahead of it or be responding to Trump. That's

8:39

right. So it was smart in that

8:41

sense. I think it was also smart that they put

8:43

out this letter of their criteria, which basically, none of

8:45

this is on the level, this entire election in many

8:47

ways in terms of how Trump is

8:49

operating. But it did put the Trump team on their

8:52

back seat where they had to just agree

8:54

to that. If they tried to litigate things on there, they

8:56

would have looked a little weak. That's right. Also,

9:00

I think doing this a little earlier, it just

9:02

means it's less existential. Yeah. A

9:04

June debate, I know, a thousand things

9:06

could happen between July and

9:09

the end of the year. Yeah. And

9:11

I know, it talks to some Biden people this morning. They

9:13

just had no confidence in the debate commission anymore. The

9:16

commission completely screwed up in 2020. They

9:19

let Trump ignore its policies on

9:21

COVID testing and masking, which

9:23

nearly infected President Biden. If people watch

9:26

that video now, it will just throw

9:28

you off because Trump looks unwell. He

9:30

looks unwell. And also Melania just

9:32

strolls in with the kids. They're all unmasked. Melania

9:34

tested positive five days later. So they could have

9:37

killed the current president in the United States before

9:39

he was elected. I know that Biden's

9:41

team also felt like the commission

9:43

bent over backwards to create a schedule

9:45

this time that seemed advantageous to Trump

9:47

because they were worried about enticing him

9:50

into this process. Pulling him in, right. It

9:52

was kind of on his game. Yeah.

9:55

And so in a sense, they

9:57

took control over it. Now what's hard.

10:00

Or not I mean I you could argue it every which

10:02

way is that Trump could certainly say

10:05

I never agreed to those Those

10:07

specifics and the letter and he probably will and

10:09

that's how this all falls apart Right,

10:12

even though he's basically said I would debate him

10:14

anywhere anytime So and

10:16

also there is a huge question of who is

10:19

gonna be the moderator Yeah, Trump will be like

10:21

I want the my pillow guy, but I'll settle

10:23

for like Sean Hannity Well in his Fox

10:25

truth, he put out I believe Brett

10:27

bear Oh, yeah, and Martha McAllen

10:29

Martha McAllen. Yeah, let me let me read the

10:32

truth This is what he

10:34

said Please let this truth serve to represent

10:36

that I hereby accept debating crooked Joe Biden

10:38

on Fox News The debate will be Wednesday

10:40

October 2nd. The host will be Brett bear

10:42

and Martha McCallum. Thank you comma DJ D

10:44

hereby hereby Like

10:46

he was doing it like a doctor nation

10:48

or an unroll unveiling a scroll. Yes or

10:51

something along a proclamation a proclamation It's

10:53

a little trickier at CNN

10:56

and ABC Because

10:58

he's attacked probably all of those

11:00

people. Yeah, and you're gonna get a real

11:02

journalist there, right? You'll get a real journalist

11:04

who's gonna ask tough questions. So it's a

11:07

little bit different Yeah, so Trump also put

11:09

in another truth accepting this challenge. Let's get

11:11

ready to rumble I'd be lying if

11:13

I said the prospect of this debate doesn't make me

11:15

a little anxious like these events play

11:17

to his strength as An entertainer a bullshitter,

11:20

you know, sometimes sitting presidents

11:22

get a little rusty as we learned

11:24

when Obama We work in the

11:27

first debate debate which

11:29

I was as it just like a slight aside

11:31

because you're referring to the first debate in 2012

11:33

which President

11:35

Obama who we both worked for was not

11:37

at his best. No, I think it's gentle

11:39

to say it was not a good debate

11:42

Afterwards, I don't think

11:44

he fully knew it wasn't a good debate afterwards. That's

11:46

my recollection So David asked

11:48

our David fluffett to tell him the

11:50

next morning I had the unenviable task

11:53

of doing a round of the morning

11:55

shows including Fox and I very distinctly

11:57

remember a Producer from Fox Getting me

11:59

the microphone and saying. Good luck with the vapors out

12:01

there. Because

12:03

one it was fox but to

12:06

it'd been terrible re oh yeah.

12:08

Yeah. No else remember Obama the next day. One

12:11

I said to him on the plane. Yeah.

12:13

Hi to answer and he's like i am great

12:15

and I was like. Oh. Are you. It

12:18

will also. that's a strange thing that early his

12:20

vibes but then he gave one of the best

12:22

stump speeches at that. They then because I think

12:24

his back was against the wall it in many

12:26

ways it was a wake up call. spear president

12:28

can be rusty so there's some the miscarry. What's

12:30

also interesting though is Trump and his true thing

12:32

this morning. Loves to truth Moses. He's

12:34

also talking about how Joe Biden is

12:36

a terrible debater. Right to become a lowering

12:39

the bar here. Which is kind of as you

12:41

and I have done. When your boss is debating,

12:43

you're like he barely can write a sentence. Got?

12:45

I don't even know. how have we have to

12:48

deliver Alliance? It's remarkable he needed to the stage.

12:50

Settlement of those people said John Kerry was

12:52

the best debaters and Cicero those airline in

12:54

two thousand and four get Trump's like I'm

12:56

no debate the shit out of his corpse.

12:59

He's terrible. see the terrible debaters. So there's

13:01

that it is. It is a good

13:03

sign regards of how this could fall

13:05

apart, which I think it's quite possible

13:07

that Ron Klain, who is the. Seats.

13:10

Debater Prep or your i don't even

13:12

he is. This. Is he had one of

13:14

his many superpower. Superbowl. Yeah, he has agreed

13:16

to do the debate and he is very.

13:19

Close the President's he's practice at nearly

13:21

every candidate for this. He is a

13:23

master of it, so he's agreed to

13:25

do it, which is a good sign.

13:27

Ah, but they're still risks, Of course,

13:29

there. Are gearing? How do you prep for

13:31

this? Besides like get your vaccines up to speed

13:34

I guess is. We'll that at all.

13:36

Yeah, There's a physicality

13:38

other. I mean keep thinking of that. The

13:40

Clintons a big debates as Hillary Clinton and

13:42

obviously Trump wouldn't do that same thing to

13:44

Biden. But. whenever. Looming in the

13:46

background. Looming in the backgrounds. I.

13:49

Also think there is and isn't see the

13:51

shift in how the Biden campaign has been

13:53

attacking. Trump forces how they did it for years

13:55

ago. To think is interesting because four years ago it

13:57

was a lot of like. Hybrid how

13:59

were for democracy of yeah you're against

14:02

democracy and there's some of that. But

14:04

the needle him more now and a

14:06

needle him on social media. The needle

14:08

him in post. They need one hundred

14:10

speeches and I think they'll be more

14:12

of that. Said cigarette hadn't had a

14:14

land the best. Needles. Yeah had a

14:17

for a points where did well not

14:19

look meme get under his skin I

14:21

think is really get under his skin

14:23

use real pissed on that first debate

14:25

last time river which everyone cuts as

14:27

would be rendered. they cut the Jake

14:30

Tapper objects like that's the worst debate

14:32

I've ever seen in my life. Motto

14:34

is like the consensus opinion mattered was.

14:36

Yeah, well now there's the question of debates.

14:38

That to debates matter. Woodsman quite there.

14:40

It's an important question of find out.

14:43

the I will say well I think

14:45

you're right though like look this is

14:47

probably not over the story but. Exciting

14:50

morning. A lot has no effect since

14:52

today. Yeah, a lot is also happened

14:54

in New York where we had former

14:56

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen on the stand

14:58

this week at the Hush Money Trial.

15:00

we learned that Trump personally directed Cone

15:02

to pay off adult film stars or

15:04

Me Daniels to cover up Trumps affair

15:06

with her. We learned lots of detail

15:08

about her. Trump and Cone disguise the

15:10

payments by calling them retainer fees for

15:12

legal work they were not Er Den

15:14

and John will get into all the

15:16

details of the legal case Later with

15:18

special guest Norm Eisen, who. Taught us how

15:20

to be idle, I know I do love

15:22

Norm Eisen. He has a new book out. He does

15:24

of know about. Norm. Is just a nerdy

15:26

and I mean that the best way possible.

15:28

I love Nerds Elena My son's in Dc.

15:30

they're my neighbors and my friends. I'm healthy

15:32

great so he'll get into all the legal

15:34

aid or mess of it all. In a

15:37

town where sometimes people approach the job without

15:39

a personality norm as the opposite know as

15:41

you would hear em coming down the hall

15:43

you'd have to make you laugh. Like.

15:45

As a user best but I'm Jen

15:47

so. Trump. Has been slang

15:50

play. All these special surprise guests

15:52

are we had speak about my

15:54

Johnson, we had Alabama senator and

15:56

bonafide idiots or Tommy Tuberville we

15:58

a Ged then. the Ohio senator.

16:01

Here's a clip of Speaker Johnson from

16:03

outside the courthouse. I called

16:05

President Trump and told him I wanted to be here

16:07

myself to call out what is

16:09

a travesty of justice. And I

16:12

think everybody around the country can see

16:14

that. President Trump is a

16:16

friend and I wanted to be here to support

16:18

him. There's so much to unpack here. Where shall

16:20

we start? Yeah. So what do you make of

16:22

this like surrogate

16:24

operation support group? Like

16:27

what do we what do we think we're doing here? Well, I

16:29

mean, J.D. Vance was there. Vivecra

16:31

Maswamy is coming. Tommy

16:34

Tuberville, the gift that keeps on giving in

16:36

the Senate, specifically to

16:38

Mike Johnson, just for one second.

16:40

Mike Johnson was called

16:42

to be the speaker by God for

16:45

his own description. Yet

16:48

the moment he decides to be

16:50

out there aggressively supporting President Trump

16:52

in this manner is him

16:55

flying to New York City to

16:57

stand by not stand by his side

17:00

and also defend him when the former

17:02

president is sitting in a courtroom because

17:04

he paid hush money to a former

17:06

adult film star and had an alleged

17:08

affair with her while his wife

17:11

was pregnant. Right. Good defamation training, by

17:13

the way. Alleged. I heard it. But

17:16

is that is God calling you to

17:18

do that? Is that so there's a

17:21

whole hypocrisy thing there. This man installed

17:23

an app on his phone and his

17:25

son's phone so they wouldn't watch porn

17:27

called Covenant Eyes. Well, that was an

17:29

initial flag that maybe we

17:31

were going to come to this moment. So

17:33

in some ways it's validating. But

17:35

I would say overall, it tells

17:38

you a lot about the Republican Party and

17:40

Trump's ownership of the Republican Party. And this

17:42

big question you guys talk about, I talk about of

17:45

is there a post Trump? Well, you have

17:47

the leading Republicans, people who want to be the

17:49

vice president, but somebody who is the speaker of

17:51

the House who have

17:53

basically been saying Trump

17:55

still won the 2020 election. Many of them have

17:57

not all, but many of them have had the been

18:00

laying the groundwork to question the

18:02

2024 outcome, which I think people

18:04

should not miss. Absolutely. I

18:06

mean, Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott. Yep. Tim Scott

18:08

was pushed on this on Meet the Press a

18:10

week or so ago, and he basically said, Kristen

18:12

Pisteron multiple times, that's my statement. Right. Right.

18:16

Like your statement is you're not going to commit exactly to observing

18:18

the outcome that the American people voted

18:20

for. And this has now become

18:23

a weird third litmus test to kind of

18:25

show up. The New York

18:27

City aspect of it is sort of funny to

18:29

me because it's like all of these guys are

18:31

like, we're not from the coasts, but here they

18:33

are outside the courthouse in New York City. I

18:35

know. Desperate for

18:37

press. Desperate for press. They defend him and

18:40

then they proudly clip their defense

18:42

of him and put it on

18:44

their social media platforms as if

18:46

they're kind of delivering something to

18:48

him. So it's become another litmus

18:51

test. And that tells you so much about

18:54

his ownership over the Republican Party. They're also,

18:56

I will say, doing, and this is a

18:58

norm question, we can throw it back to

19:01

him, doing what he can't do. He can't say

19:03

what they're saying because he would violate the gag order.

19:05

They're all attacking the judge, the judge's

19:08

daughter, Michael Cohen, jurors, people involved in

19:10

the trial. If he did that, he

19:12

would be fined. He doesn't seem to

19:14

care that much, but he

19:16

would be fined for it. They are like his thugs

19:19

out there on his behalf. Yeah, it's a clever

19:21

workaround for the gag order. I got to give

19:23

him that. Again, I do love that we're attacking

19:25

a judge's daughter for working for Democrats and no

19:27

one seems to bat an eye at the fact

19:29

that Aileen Cannon, who is presiding

19:31

over the classified documents case

19:33

of Mar-a-Lago, was given her job by Donald Trump,

19:36

as are many of the justices who will rule

19:38

on appeals, et cetera. And she's basically indefinitely developed

19:40

that trial. She's like, hey, it turns out I

19:42

don't get any of this, so we're just going

19:44

to wait. Basically, her latest ruling. I guess the

19:47

question I have about this is around messaging

19:49

because you got Trump

19:51

relentlessly calling this rigged and unfair

19:53

and trying to just influence public

19:56

opinion before a verdict.

19:59

Do you think it's enough? for Democrats

20:01

to let the courtroom events

20:03

speak for themselves, the evidence speak for itself,

20:05

or do we need like Chuck Schumer out

20:07

there with a bullhorn counterprogramming

20:09

this thing? Well,

20:12

it's just a funny visual. You can see it, right? It's

20:14

a funny visual. I can definitely see it. I

20:17

do think that for Democrats at this

20:19

point the trial is gonna play

20:21

out in the next couple of weeks. There has

20:23

been polling that suggests that if he is convicted,

20:25

and there's a lot of things standing in the

20:27

way of that, including a potential for a hung

20:29

jury, and just one juror does not want to go

20:31

along with the others, then that's sort

20:33

of a different marking point to me. If

20:36

they are out with bullhorns now, there is the

20:38

risk, and I think this is a tough question,

20:40

and I can understand all sides of the debate,

20:43

to be honest, of that feeding into this fodder

20:45

of like this is a political trial. It's not

20:47

a political trial. What I do

20:49

think, and I've been thinking about in the last

20:51

couple weeks, I've been kind of surprised. I mean,

20:53

I thought that the legal

20:55

support for this, and you know, from talking to a

20:58

lot of lawyers, and not by myself, makes sense, and

21:00

that Bragg didn't get enough credit for that, but

21:02

also I've been surprised, even though there hasn't been

21:04

video cameras in the courtroom, which has been a

21:06

real challenge in talking about, believe me, I do

21:09

on television, you're like, this is what was said.

21:11

Let me have a dramatic reading

21:13

of what was said. It's not

21:15

quite the same, but is watching

21:17

Stormy Daniels talk about

21:19

how she blacked out while she was having sex

21:21

with him, that combined, not

21:25

the same thing, with the fact

21:27

that he clearly, and also hearing

21:29

Michael Cohen talk about his response

21:32

when he said, well, how is this going

21:34

upstairs, as in with your wife, and he

21:36

basically said, I won't be on the market

21:38

too long, combined with the fact that he

21:40

also doesn't think women should make choices about

21:43

their own health care. There is a total

21:45

thematic disrespect for women. I don't

21:47

know how you put that into one ad

21:49

or one message, but I've been struck by

21:51

how this trial has told us

21:53

about his character, and that's

21:55

not the legal case. The legal case

21:58

is about documents, but it has told

22:00

us about his character, not in a surprising

22:02

way, but it has unearthed some things about

22:04

him. You're right. In

22:07

part because of choices made by Trump's team, because

22:09

they went in there denying in a court of

22:11

law that they had this affair to begin with,

22:13

that they ever had sex, which Stormy

22:15

Daniels says isn't true. It was in the

22:17

opening statement of Todd Blanche. And so now

22:20

they're getting all these lurid details out of

22:22

Stormy Daniels about the events and how they

22:24

went down to sort of paint a picture

22:26

to the jury that says not only did

22:29

this happen, but this man is lying to

22:31

you about it. It's completely exact, which

22:33

makes the whole surrogate

22:35

brigade even more alarming.

22:39

I mean, alarming is not even the right word. This is all

22:41

the last thing I'll say on that. I've just been thinking about

22:43

that question for like, this is what struck me the most about

22:45

this week, is that these are

22:47

the same people, Mike Johnson specifically, who

22:49

helped him in 2020 and are basically

22:52

raising their hand and saying, I'm happy

22:54

to enable and help you. Challenge

22:57

the outcome. I'm here standing outside the

22:59

courthouse defending you in this very seedy,

23:01

salacious situation. So I'm here

23:04

and I'm reporting for duty and that's kind

23:06

of a potential replay. Yeah. And

23:08

by reporting to duty, I mean to God because he wants me

23:10

here. Yeah. Trial. He's

23:13

told me for some reason. God told me to fly to New York City. He'd

23:15

be here. In this logic, I've been dragged into

23:17

my head. Yeah. So that's a

23:19

mess. Okay. We're going to take a quick

23:21

break. When we come back, we are going to talk about the president's approach

23:24

to Gaza. Pate

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26:24

right, gents. Let's turn to the war in Gaza because

26:26

I think the average news

26:29

consumer in this country would probably have

26:31

a hard time describing President Biden's policy

26:33

this week. Last week we

26:35

saw the Biden administration pause the delivery of 3,500

26:37

bombs to Gaza. In

26:40

response to that, you saw these

26:42

hysterical claims by Republicans that Biden

26:44

is abandoning Israel. Like

26:47

Tom Cotton said Biden had imposed an

26:49

arms embargo on Israel, which is ludicrous.

26:51

On Tuesday, yesterday, the Biden

26:54

administration told Congress that it was moving ahead

26:56

with a billion dollar arms package for the

26:58

Israeli military, though Congress could block that. It's

27:00

a long road ahead for that arms package.

27:02

But you and I are kind of, we're geeks

27:04

that follow this stuff closely. We could explain to

27:06

you that what Biden paused was the delivery of

27:08

2,000 pound bombs, which should

27:10

not be used in urban areas because they lead to

27:12

mass casualties and he's trying to prevent that from happening

27:14

again. This other package is longer

27:17

turn. How do you think Biden

27:19

can message this to voters? Because

27:22

the takeaway at the moment seems to

27:24

be, okay, the left was really

27:26

mad about this policy for a while and

27:28

now it seems like everyone is mad about

27:30

the policy and there's not a lot of

27:32

clarity. Yeah. Well,

27:34

as you just acknowledged, it's very difficult

27:36

to communicate about diplomacy. I do think

27:39

that in this case, the

27:41

truth is not the worst thing in the

27:43

sense of basically what he's

27:46

doing here is trying to use

27:48

the leverage of diplomacy, the leverage

27:50

of withholding military support to get

27:53

them to change their behavior because

27:55

he's saying the humanitarian

27:57

crisis there and the potential.

28:00

for you to go and level Rafa, where

28:02

more than a million people live, is

28:05

inhumane. Even that

28:08

statement angers a

28:10

lot of people for a range of reasons.

28:12

I mean, one is, well, look what's already

28:14

happened in Gaza. Two is

28:17

the Israeli people just lived through the worst

28:20

terrorist attack on their soil on October

28:22

7th, and hostages are still being held by

28:24

Hamas. Three is, which

28:27

I think is very valid, is leveling

28:29

Rafa is not going to eliminate

28:32

Hamas, which every intelligence

28:34

official and nerds we still talk to

28:36

will tell you. Including Israeli intelligence. Including

28:38

Israeli intelligence. That also is

28:40

not a message. What I just outlined,

28:43

it was just in addition to your very useful

28:45

explanation and context. So I do think that it

28:47

is incumbent upon people like us who have lived

28:49

through this to do our best to explain these

28:51

parts, because it is hard to understand.

28:55

In terms of the messaging on it, I

28:57

think that for him, he's got

29:00

to get to a point where it's a couple of bullets,

29:02

right? That's the only way to do it. And it's hard

29:04

to do around this, which is something like I

29:08

recognize and honor the

29:10

horror that Israel went through and

29:14

what the Israeli people are still living through. And we will

29:16

do everything to get the hostages back. But

29:21

this is an inhumane and far too

29:23

aggressive military action. And we can't stand

29:25

by, even as a supplier of their

29:27

military assistance, to allow them

29:29

to do this. That's

29:32

not even quite it. But

29:34

I think people need to understand where he's coming

29:37

from from a moral standpoint. I think it's something

29:39

along those lines. Now, the thing that's very challenging

29:41

for them, and I've said publicly, it's interesting because

29:43

I was asked about this on Colbert and I

29:46

basically said, I think they should have used leverage

29:48

earlier. Yeah, me too. What I

29:50

meant by that, then people kept asking me follow

29:52

ups, like, oh, you think he would have been

29:54

helped politically? And I'm like, I'm actually not talking

29:56

about the politics. I'm talking about leverage with the

29:58

Israelis. But the

30:01

politics of it are also very difficult to

30:03

navigate, as you alluded to, in part

30:06

because there's a

30:08

generational shift on views of Israel,

30:10

right? There is

30:13

also widespread antisemitism across the country.

30:15

I'm not saying the two are

30:17

conflicting. I'm just saying they're happening.

30:20

They're both happening, right? And

30:22

for the Biden administration, the challenge

30:24

is trying to

30:26

convey your moral concern about

30:28

what you're seeing in Gaza, while

30:30

also acknowledging the real fear

30:33

and legitimate fear of

30:35

the rise of antisemitism felt by

30:37

so many Jewish Americans. And

30:40

it feels right now the debate has become

30:42

so black and white that it has become,

30:44

like, you can't be both. And

30:47

I think that's a huge challenge for them.

30:49

Yeah, it is frustrating how binary the debate

30:52

has felt and become. I agree with

30:54

you on the leverage early. I mean,

30:56

for those, like, the current Israeli government

30:58

is this coalition of

31:00

Netanyahu's party, and then

31:02

some of the most,

31:04

like, odious, right-wing, nationalist,

31:06

racist ministers who previously

31:09

were not allowed to be a part of the government.

31:12

Yes, and this is, again, a very nerdy part

31:14

of the story, but an important one for people

31:16

to contextually understand. The Israeli government,

31:18

to your point, has become significantly

31:20

more conservative, more pro

31:23

settlers, more militaristic, than

31:26

they were even 10 years ago. You

31:28

had Zippy Livni, you remember, and

31:30

others who were

31:33

more supportive of, say,

31:35

at the time, Middle East peace

31:37

negotiations and kind of finding

31:40

a two-state solution. Those

31:42

people are no longer in the coalition. And

31:45

Netanyahu, who was very unpopular

31:47

before October 7, there were

31:50

protests in the streets because

31:52

of the overreach of judicial reforms, which,

31:54

by the way, sounds very similar to what's happening, potentially

31:57

what happened here with Trump. He was very

31:59

unpopular. is now it's

32:01

political survival for him. And so

32:04

it's irrational, it's certainly immoral

32:06

what he's doing with the use of

32:09

military, but he's also dealing

32:11

with a country that is reeling from

32:13

the worst thing that has

32:15

ever happened that has impacted Jewish

32:18

people across the world. Right, yeah, I mean you

32:20

have Netanyahu's with this political setup where if

32:22

these right-wing ministers pull out of the government,

32:24

it could topple the entire government, he's out of

32:26

power, he could then face prosecution. But that's

32:28

just sort of understanding his political. Political and judicial

32:31

survival. Yes, judicial survival, you could go to

32:33

jail for a bunch of corruption charges. You

32:36

have an Israeli public that is

32:38

understandably scarred and terrified

32:40

and probably feeling, majorities feel like

32:42

do whatever it takes to prevent

32:44

this from happening again. And

32:47

then you have a government, and we experienced

32:49

this after 9-11 where the response

32:52

from voters is like, do something. We don't

32:54

care what it is, do something, show action,

32:56

take action. And I think

32:58

it's very hard to get people to understand

33:00

that the action that's happening in Gaza right

33:03

now, long-term is going to make Israelis less

33:05

safe, and in the near term is going

33:07

to kill a lot of really innocent Palestinian

33:10

civilians, kids, women, children, men. I

33:12

mean, so I think the challenge

33:14

from the beginning has been, I

33:18

think it was inevitable that there would

33:20

be disagreements on this policy. And the

33:22

Biden approach. Internally too. Yeah. Yeah.

33:26

And when the Biden approach was like, maybe

33:28

Netanyahu in public and then fight it out

33:30

in private. And I think that was untenable

33:32

because as challenging as the

33:34

short-term issues are here about the military conflict

33:37

in those disagreements, you alluded to

33:39

the longer-term disagreements, which are Netanyahu

33:41

doesn't believe in the creation of

33:43

a Palestinian state. There's

33:45

a disagreement over who should govern Gaza

33:47

after the war is over. The Biden

33:49

administration wants it to be the Palestinian

33:52

authority. Netanyahu has rejected that idea. So

33:54

I think ultimately you

33:56

need your private and public messaging to

33:58

align because. A, it's going to

34:01

leak out anyway, but B, I mean,

34:04

Netanyahu might want to pick a fight with you publicly and you

34:06

have to be prepared for that. Which is what he's

34:08

done in the past, including Joe Biden, when Joe

34:10

Biden went there as vice president in 2010 and

34:12

there was an announcement of settlements, like as he

34:14

landed in Israel. Do you remember this? I'm sure

34:16

you remember how he lived it. Yeah. I

34:19

mean, the other dynamics which make this even more

34:21

complicated is of course there is a real threat

34:23

from Iran. I mean, that's very fresh and

34:26

it's something where ensuring Israel is

34:28

protected from that is a real thing, right?

34:31

The other piece of this is the

34:33

notion of like a two state solution being just like an

34:35

easy next step. I mean, I see a lot of ...

34:38

I understand what else are people going to say, but I

34:40

lived through a year and a half of Middle East

34:42

peace negotiations. Oh yeah, the query process. Yes. When

34:45

the Israeli government had more members of the coalition who are

34:47

much more open to that. Right? Right?

34:51

That is a tremendous leap in order for

34:53

that to happen. But yes, to your point,

34:55

Tommy, I think they made a bet. This

34:58

is what happened. They made a bet to

35:00

you said, I think, where if he could

35:02

hug Netanyahu, that Netanyahu would

35:04

moderate his behavior. That's

35:06

not what happened. They made a bet that

35:09

all of these negotiations by people we know

35:11

and I tremendously respect, I think you do

35:13

too, Brett McGurk, Bill Burns and

35:15

others would result in a ceasefire

35:18

and that keeping it just steady

35:20

and keeping that relationship closed publicly

35:22

would help with that. That

35:24

hasn't exactly been what resulted. Now we don't

35:26

know all the things happening behind the scenes.

35:28

That hasn't been what resulted. It

35:31

is easy in times to say they should have done this

35:33

earlier. I do think in this case, when

35:36

history books are written, they

35:38

may evaluate that as well. Last

35:40

question on this. I mean, you worked in the

35:42

State Department for a while. You

35:44

have seen this diplomacy happening behind the scenes. What

35:47

do you think people should know

35:49

about the conversations that are happening that

35:51

they're not seeing, how the process works,

35:53

why it feels so agonizingly slow? To

35:55

get to a ceasefire, to get to

35:57

some sort of political accommodation with them?

36:00

Hamas? I mean,

36:02

one is that a lot of these parties

36:04

don't talk directly to each other. And

36:06

so that's an added time

36:08

because the United States is

36:11

an arbiter at times, as are other

36:13

countries. You know, we don't talk directly to Iran

36:15

except for periods of time when we sort of did. So

36:18

the United States is an arbiter between

36:20

these negotiations in many ways, talking to

36:22

different players or talking to a third

36:24

country that is talking to Hamas. Right.

36:27

Talking to Qatar who's talking to Hamas. Talking to

36:29

Qatar who's talking to Hamas or the Egyptians

36:31

or others who are talking to Hamas and

36:34

then also talking to the Israelis. These

36:37

parties don't trust each other. So

36:39

it's not like sitting down at a table and just

36:41

saying, here's our proposal. What do you think? It

36:44

actually makes the whole thing about the debate seem quite simplistic.

36:46

Yeah, it does. Right. In

36:48

many ways. In many ways. The

36:50

third piece is similar to congressional negotiations.

36:53

The intricacies and the details of what they're

36:56

discussing in the room, even sometimes

36:58

if one of those details becomes public, it

37:00

can blow the whole thing up. Not

37:02

because the press and the public doesn't have the right

37:04

to know. It's actually because the

37:06

parties, if all the parties know all the

37:09

machinations involved and all of the people who

37:11

have a stake in it, not necessarily even

37:13

the parties in the room, it can

37:15

blow the whole thing up. And so

37:17

that's why it feels quite opaque.

37:19

It's opaque on purpose. And

37:22

that's why Bill Burns and Brett

37:24

McGurk and others are so quiet,

37:27

say nothing. Because they're

37:29

trying to work to a moment

37:31

where even the slightest more aid

37:33

getting through, Egypt, a few

37:36

more hostages released, some of these developments

37:39

feel incremental, but they're significant and the

37:41

result of hours and hours and days and weeks

37:43

of negotiation. Yeah, I know that's a really good point. In

37:46

the past, we've seen good

37:48

faith actors and negotiations get close to

37:51

deals and then extremist groups like Hamas

37:53

will do something to try to blow

37:55

up those talks on purpose. So those

37:57

leaks can actually lead to a lot

37:59

of to outcomes where deals

38:01

don't get done. One more thing before

38:04

we get to the book, Jen. So, there

38:06

was a report in Axios on Tuesday that

38:08

said President Biden and his top advisors don't

38:10

actually believe the bad polling numbers we're seeing

38:12

out about what like the New York Times

38:14

which just dropped some pretty rough swing staples.

38:17

On some level, my reaction to this stuff is

38:19

like who gives a shit, it's May. But

38:22

there is a broader debate that got

38:24

kicked up on social media about whether

38:26

President Biden's inner circle is too small,

38:28

whether he's getting good information or outside

38:31

information. You were the press secretary,

38:33

you were in the Oval Office every day, briefing

38:36

President Biden, talking with him. How does information

38:38

get to him and like what do you

38:40

make of that criticism that the circle is

38:42

too small? Yeah. Well,

38:44

I mean, I left almost exactly two years

38:46

ago, wild and wild. So,

38:48

I haven't been there in the Oval Office

38:50

meeting with him in that way in two

38:53

years. My experience was, remember, I didn't

38:55

come in as a member of the inner circle. I

38:57

didn't work on the Biden campaign. I

38:59

had worked for President Obama, of course, and

39:01

of course, knew Vice President Biden through that

39:03

but not well. And so,

39:05

I came in as not a member of the

39:07

inner circle. Brian Deese, a friend of ours too,

39:09

also same way. But both of

39:11

us found ourselves people who were

39:13

very much in the inner circle as

39:16

a part of the briefing process and delivering

39:18

information to the president. My experience was he

39:21

had an appetite, and this is actually not

39:23

dissimilar from President Obama, you're very cut off

39:25

from the world as president. I mean, for you, you're

39:27

in the Oval Office and you ring a bell and people

39:29

bring you a soda or whatever. You can't take a walk.

39:32

You can't go to the store or talk to people. What

39:34

he always wanted to know from me is like, what

39:36

are reporters asking about? What are they talking about? Because

39:38

he always felt like that was almost a connection to

39:41

the outside world. When

39:43

I was there, what would happen is we

39:45

would have a morning meeting where we would

39:47

go through what we called NOTD, News of

39:49

the Day, a News of the Day Document,

39:51

Tommy. Nice acronym. Like the most likely questions.

39:53

And through that, you would kind of debate

39:55

what you would say, what he would say, but I

39:58

never experienced withholding. information from

40:00

him. Also, he consumes information himself.

40:03

Presidents today have iPads with news.

40:05

They have cable news. They have

40:07

information. My bet is he's asking

40:09

them about the polls, and he has, even when

40:11

I was there, would ask people, why aren't the

40:13

polls moving? This is the question I also often

40:16

get asked, right? Why aren't the polls moving? This

40:18

guy's sitting in a courtroom, right? What's happening? On

40:21

the specific New York Times-Ciena poll, I mean, you and I

40:23

have both been a part of, like, when you're in

40:25

the war room of all the things on a campaign

40:27

or in a White House and you're like, F the

40:29

man. F the man. Yeah, exactly. Polls are terrible, and you

40:32

have to do that emotionally on some level. I've

40:34

asked them about this because I've seen their pushback, and

40:36

their pushback makes some sense, right? You're going to be

40:38

a reality about polls. One, I think it's not bad

40:41

for Democrats to be kind of freaked out about the

40:43

election. I agree with that, too, yeah. But this

40:45

poll, one, a lot of the numbers that

40:47

are pushed out there most aggressively are not

40:49

likely voters. Likely voters is really what

40:52

matters in terms of the

40:55

measurement of it. Two, some of the New York

40:57

Times reporting quotes people who are not even registered

40:59

to vote. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, who are

41:01

not even registered to vote. It doesn't mean

41:03

it massively dramatically impacted the poll, but it

41:06

is a little telling in how they reported

41:08

it that said they voted in the past.

41:10

You know, and three, I think for

41:12

them, there are

41:15

other polls that have happened that show the

41:17

race much tighter, including a number of these

41:19

states. So I think they're just trying, I

41:21

understand this, to lower

41:23

the freakout temperature of people, right?

41:26

And we've been there. Both of us have

41:28

been there. But in my experience, he got

41:30

all the information and was more curious. He's

41:32

kind of a political animal of

41:34

why are the polls like that? Why is it

41:37

saying? That's what I expect his question would be.

41:39

Yeah. Why is RFK getting 10 points

41:41

in Wisconsin? What's going on there? How the hell did that

41:43

happen? Yeah, I mean, even, I mean, what struck me,

41:45

and I'm a total outsider here, I mean, even if

41:47

he's not in denial about the polls

41:50

or rejecting the information, I have noticed

41:52

that when he's asked, he often responds

41:54

to questions about polling, which let's be

41:56

let's just stipulate every question ever asked

41:58

about a poll is annoying. and

42:00

kind of stupid but he gets asked about

42:02

these things and he says stuff like oh

42:04

you're looking at the wrong polls Jack or

42:06

You attacks the polling methodology Do

42:13

you think that's a strategy or do you think that's something he believes

42:16

I think it's a strategy Because

42:19

he's somebody who does look at the data and

42:21

does look at the numbers every president every candidate

42:23

denies They look at the polls. They all pour

42:26

over the polls like come on, you know But

42:29

I think he knows that if he shows

42:31

like yeah, the polls are bad

42:33

I'm down it it's okay It's

42:35

projects weakness to people and I think

42:37

that's a real concern for them as it

42:39

is for kind of any candidate But sort

42:42

of a traditional not you're looking at

42:44

the wrong polls Jack But like we don't

42:46

even look at the polls right like you do

42:48

you liar? but like, you know, it's

42:50

everybody says that so I think it's more a

42:53

Public Strategy than it is

42:55

how he actually feels and they have like

42:58

tons of survey data coming into the office

43:00

like private Internal

43:02

data internal polls these thought bubbles of

43:04

like what words are popping all

43:06

sorts of things infographics Infographics

43:09

Dan Pfeiffer stuff Dan had made the point

43:11

that like whether or not they believe these

43:13

polls in this data They're acting on it

43:15

like they're campaigning in the key state. Well,

43:17

that's the thing It's sort of like when

43:20

you can't be under your desk in the fetal

43:22

position on a campaign even when you're 10 points

43:24

down Cuz like what's the point that you're still

43:26

trying to win why we here? So you have

43:29

to use it as a motivator and some of

43:31

that motivator is sometimes like F the pollsters and

43:33

the New York Times coverage And we've all been

43:35

a part of that These polls

43:38

are not great for them. I'm not trying to

43:40

sugarcoat that I do think there are some things

43:42

about the reporting of it that I see their

43:44

argument on Yeah, but you also have

43:46

to use it as a motivator and it doesn't

43:48

mean you have to use it as a motivator

43:50

publicly where You're like we are crying internally, but

43:53

we're gonna be okay. You have to kind of

43:55

project confidence. Otherwise, what are you doing? Yeah,

43:57

no, it's gonna support you donator show

43:59

up Last thing on this and I don't

44:01

know why I just thought of it. Did

44:03

you go to the barbecue that? President

44:06

Biden had for Katie Johnson who is

44:08

President Obama's personal secretary when she left

44:10

the job. I don't

44:12

think so Okay, it's like a small group of us She

44:15

threw this like 10 people went over there. It's the Naval

44:18

Observatory Fun as

44:20

we were driving in I turned to whoever I was in the

44:22

car with might have been like Favreau and like retrial or something

44:24

I was like I want to get Forehead

44:27

to forehead contact before I leave this the Joe Biden

44:29

because that's one of the things he does He

44:32

gets like real close to voters and kind of like

44:34

looks them in the eye from like negative inches away

44:37

swear to God within Five

44:39

minutes of being there I had gotten forehead

44:41

to forehead contact from Joe Biden during a

44:43

story about like some horrible segregation is senator

44:46

or something Whatever the fuck he was talking

44:48

about. I was like, wow, you're like this

44:50

happened I will tell you I

44:52

mean from because as I mentioned I was

44:54

new and I actually when I started talking

44:56

to them about The what press Secretary job

44:58

I said, how am I gonna

45:00

do this job? I really don't know him Well,

45:02

you need to know him well, and

45:04

they were like you'll get along with him fine It's

45:07

gonna be great and I was like, okay,

45:09

but a couple of weeks into the job I

45:12

remember sitting in the Oval Office and I thinking

45:14

to myself I have to I want to I

45:16

want to project to the press that I'm getting

45:18

them information from him on his thinking Right and

45:21

you got to ask him the questions because that

45:23

shows your relationship and I said Sir,

45:26

well first I said this is a weird thing to say

45:28

to a president which is always like once that comes out

45:30

of your mouth They're like now I must continue my

45:33

thought because I've already made it weird and I

45:35

said but I feel like I've known you a long

45:37

Time because he has this way of like pull

45:39

up a chair. What's going on? Um,

45:42

and I said sir, how are you doing? How are

45:44

you sitting with kind of like the weight of the

45:46

presidency? It was a very dramatic question looking back and

45:48

he was like I feel good

45:50

about that and the choices we've made. I can't find my

45:52

socks Because he

45:55

is so has a hard time adapting

45:57

to like people unpacking his dollies, right?

45:59

It's like a different thing than he's existed

46:02

in. So yes, the

46:04

forehead to forehead, you know, handhold,

46:07

we've all experienced that. Okay, we're going to

46:09

take a quick break. But before we do, you guys know

46:11

the stakes of the 2024 election. Jen

46:13

and I have been talking about it for like an

46:15

hour now. And if you want to get involved, but

46:17

you don't know where to start, we have got you

46:19

covered. Join Vote Save America 2024, organize or else. All

46:23

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46:30

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it as your team pursues the

46:36

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46:38

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46:41

Go to votesaveamerica.com/2024. Go

46:45

now and get ready to organize or else

46:47

this message has been paid for by Vote

46:49

Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com.

46:51

And this ad has not been authorized by

46:54

any candidate or candidates committee. When

46:56

we come back, we're going to talk about Jen's new book, Say

46:58

More. Donald

47:08

Trump can't leave the courtroom. So just to

47:10

rub it in a little, Pots of America

47:12

is going on tour. He's probably asleep right

47:14

now. But if he were conscious, he'd

47:16

be so, so jealous. The Democracy Rails tour

47:18

begins in Brooklyn on June 26, followed

47:21

by Boston on June 28. Then

47:24

we go to Madison, Phoenix, Ann Arbor,

47:26

and Philly. See all the tour dates

47:28

and get your tickets now at crooked.com/events.

47:35

Are you like me and tracking the polls

47:37

obsessively this election year? Well, Dan Pfeiffer is

47:39

right there with you and he's taking them

47:41

seriously, but not literally. Take an average

47:44

of the polls. Don't forget about any one poll.

47:46

And the thing that we try to tell everyone

47:48

in every episode of this podcast is a poll

47:50

that you have Biden up to and a poll

47:52

that has Biden down to. They all tell you

47:54

the exact same thing, which is this is a

47:56

very, very close race. The goal of this podcast

47:58

is to help people understand. polling and

48:01

freak out about it just a little

48:03

bit less. Explore the latest polls, what

48:05

they actually mean, and whether or not

48:07

it's time to hit the panic button.

48:09

Tune in to Polar Coaster with Dan

48:11

Pfeiffer, Cricut's latest subscriber exclusive show. To

48:13

get access, subscribe to our Friends of

48:15

the Pod community only at cricut.com/friends. Hi

48:23

everyone, it's Jen Psaki. I'm excited to tell

48:25

you that my weekly show on MSNBC, Inside

48:27

with Jen Psaki, is also available as a

48:29

podcast. I know from the years I spent

48:31

on campaign buses and foreign capitals and in

48:34

the Oval Office that there's always more to

48:36

a story under the surface. On my show,

48:38

we try to bring you inside all of

48:40

it, breaking down the things that matter and

48:42

visiting with some of the most fascinating people

48:44

in the news today. Search for Inside with

48:46

Jen Psaki wherever you're listening and follow.

48:51

All right,

48:54

Jen, let's talk about your book, Say More, Lessons

48:56

from Work, The White House and the World because

48:58

it has tons and tons of fun stories from

49:00

your time in politics that I think this audience

49:03

is going to love. Let's start with

49:05

a simple one. You write about the first

49:08

time you met President Obama, then Senator Obama.

49:10

How'd it go? Well, Tommy, I

49:12

don't know if you remember the first time you

49:14

met. You worked from earlier. Oh, I do. It's horribly embarrassing, so

49:17

it's a little bit of a swap. Yes.

49:20

You worked from much earlier than I did. John

49:24

and I were talking last night about how actually

49:26

when he gave that amazing speech in 2004, he

49:29

and I were both backstage with the Kerry daughters

49:31

who were fighting over who was going to introduce their dad at

49:33

the convention, which really brings

49:35

back. But that aside, I

49:37

knew I wanted to work for President Obama from

49:40

the moment I saw that speech. Then from when

49:42

I saw, because I was working in the Democratic

49:44

Congressional Campaign Committee, the response and reaction to him

49:46

from all these people running for Congress who wanted

49:48

him to come to their districts everywhere, everywhere, I

49:51

knew I wanted to work for him. I actually

49:53

turned down a job with the Clinton campaign before

49:55

knowing I had a job with the Obama campaign.

49:57

I turned down John Edwards. There you go. And

50:00

I remember, and I was, and

50:02

now this is like kind of a funny

50:04

detail now, I was like very down the

50:07

road and being Senator Menendez's communications director.

50:09

I was like down the road interviewing

50:11

with him and I called Robert Gibbs, who

50:13

we love, our mentor, our mentor. And I

50:15

said, listen, I make it a job. I

50:18

make it a Senate, the comms director

50:20

job. I have to know if I'm going to have a

50:22

job. I need to know soon. And he was like, Oh,

50:24

you have a job. Can you move here

50:26

next week? You know, that's how it started. But anyway, long

50:28

story short, about October of

50:30

2007, and I started working in February

50:32

for the campaign, I was sent to

50:34

Cincinnati, Ohio to staff him, meaning go

50:36

with him to his events there.

50:38

And I was waiting in his car when he was

50:40

going to get off the plane from Chicago, because of

50:43

course, as you know, they have you waiting the car

50:45

so that they can get the motorcade going immediately. And

50:47

I was so nervous in the car. I'd never

50:50

heard you're like, it's weird. I'd never

50:52

met him before. It's Barack Obama. Are you kidding

50:54

me? And he gets and I thought to myself,

50:56

what should I say to him? And he gets

50:58

in the car and I said, you may

51:01

be wondering who I am and why I'm in

51:03

your car, which I thought was a pretty good

51:05

line. But then I immediately

51:07

got like the handle of my

51:10

bag caught on like part of

51:12

the car and the entire contents

51:14

of my bag spilled out onto

51:16

Barack Obama, pens, makeup, tampons, all

51:18

of the things to which you

51:20

know him well. It was

51:22

like very cerebral in his response, which

51:24

was almost worse because you're like, this

51:26

man thinks I'm crazy and

51:28

he will never want to see me again. I

51:31

worked for him for 10 years. He's after met

51:33

nearly every political event he ever did. But yes,

51:35

that was the beginning. That's great. I met him.

51:38

Well, actually, by the way, when Robert Gibbs hired me

51:41

on the 2004 Senate campaign, similar thing,

51:43

I got a call. I run out of a restaurant and

51:45

he's like, can you be in Chicago in a week? You're

51:47

making X amount. I thought he said $25,000 a year. I

51:50

was like, yup. So turns out it's $2,500 a month. So

51:53

I got a raise on day

51:55

one. This is so crazy to remember how

51:57

much money we made. It was like not

51:59

missing. Minimum weight. It was not good. Yeah.

52:02

And then when I met him finally, we had

52:04

this office and like at night, the

52:07

AC would go off at like five or something when normal

52:09

people left. He was on the Senate campaign. Yeah. And

52:11

then I was like eight o'clock and I'm sitting,

52:14

I'm like assembling press packs on the floor. I've

52:16

like sweating through everything on my shoes off and

52:18

he fucking walks in and that's my intro. I

52:20

stood up and I'm like, hey.

52:23

And you're like, I really wanted to think

52:25

about this moment and that was not what

52:27

I envisioned. You think you're gonna say something profound. The

52:31

time I met, sort of spent time with

52:33

President Biden is right after we

52:36

won in 2008, we had

52:38

all gone out. I don't like, we had all

52:40

gone out, out, out like late. And

52:42

I was so hung over and I strolled into the office. And

52:45

I think the only clean pants I had happened to be

52:47

khaki. So I was like dressed kind of okay. And

52:49

I get a call from Fran. It's like, hey, can

52:51

you jump in the VP's motorcade to

52:54

the airport? And I'm like, why? What,

52:56

why do you want me? And did I do something wrong? And

53:00

I got in, it was me and Senator

53:02

Kaufman. What's his first name, I forget. Ted.

53:05

Ted Kaufman. And we rode and

53:07

I think President Biden just talked

53:09

about paper and process. You were in the car

53:12

with the, I think they were trying to hire

53:14

me to be like in the VP staff or

53:17

something. And I called. That's such

53:19

an intense first meeting. Dude, that was crazy. I've never heard

53:21

this story before. I called Gibbs later, I was like, what

53:23

the fuck do I do? And he's like, just don't say

53:25

a word. And I didn't, I didn't talk for, I

53:27

didn't say a word the whole time. I love

53:29

that. I think it's hungover. Probably,

53:32

it sounds like you may have been, but also that's

53:34

like a very intense way to meet

53:36

the future vice president. It was a lot. And

53:38

also in your book, Jen, you write about imposter

53:41

syndrome, which is an

53:43

affliction I too have suffered from my entire

53:45

adult life. I think it exists in all industries,

53:48

but in politics it's especially weird because you're like,

53:50

oh, this person can like invade

53:52

countries or whatever, President Obama. How

53:54

did you get over it? Because I'll be honest,

53:57

even today, I will see President

53:59

Obama. and I turn into the

54:02

23-year-old staffer with his shoes off on the

54:04

floor and I just like never feel Same

54:07

normal same I feel

54:09

the same way I Think

54:12

when I wanted to talk about it in the book

54:14

because one people would be shocked to hear you have

54:16

a version of imposter Syndrome or many of the people

54:18

I've talked to about this Right because I think

54:21

especially for people who are earlier in their careers

54:23

than you and I are even though we were

54:25

very young and hit bucks, obviously It

54:28

feels a little bit like none

54:30

of us experienced that self-doubt mistakes

54:34

I still have that today, of course And

54:37

I think a lot of people that would surprise people do for

54:39

me It really took being forced

54:42

to overcome it and I tell the story in the

54:44

book about how you know And we

54:46

knew each other on the campaign we knew before this

54:48

I gave you a tour of the Kerry campaign office

54:50

and you decided to go work for this guy running

54:52

for Senate I was like that was dumb John Kerry

54:54

is gonna be president. I don't even know who that

54:56

guy is Clearly I was clearly

54:58

off. I'm you when you're the D triple

55:00

C be like, how's it going over there? What's

55:03

happening to people want Barack Obama? So

55:06

it took me You

55:08

know for the first couple of years of my

55:10

time in the White House I really felt like

55:13

my best role was to be kind of a

55:15

supporting player not because people were demanding that upon

55:17

me In fact to Robert Gibbs credit He got

55:19

me into the economic daily briefing and pushed me

55:21

into the room Valley of Jared pushed me a

55:24

number of times I worked for our friend Dan

55:26

who is was like an amazing boss But

55:29

I felt that my security was most

55:31

comfortable if I was like, I'll call

55:33

back the reporter I'll organize that thing.

55:35

I'll write the memo and the

55:38

problem with that is that you never put your

55:41

own voice into the discussion and your own strategic

55:43

view and It's hard then

55:45

to make a leap into being seen in

55:47

that way and it took really Going back

55:49

to work for President Obama in 2012 when

55:51

Plouffe called me About coming

55:54

back to the campaign and I was like I must be in trouble

55:56

and then I was like wait I don't work there anymore. I can't

55:58

be in trouble. You know, this is like Plouffe is still of

56:00

my boss now. I'm like, what do you need me

56:02

to do? So took him

56:04

calling me and me going back to the campaign

56:06

and asking Robert Gibbs, how am

56:08

I going to get president? There's no other choice. I'm

56:10

the person from the campaign traveling with him. I mean,

56:12

Plava is going to travel sometimes. Jay Carney was, of

56:15

course, but Jay was going to be, you know, in

56:17

the weeds of like whatever regulations were being announced about

56:19

a variety of things. It was my job to brief

56:21

him on political stuff. How am I going to get

56:23

him to take me seriously and not see me as

56:25

this 27 year old kid who dumped

56:27

the contents of her purse on his lap, which I'm

56:29

sure he didn't remember. I'm sure he definitely doesn't remember

56:32

now because I've told the story. So now who knows?

56:34

But, um, but it took

56:36

that and me asking him and him saying,

56:39

just act like you belong there because you

56:41

do. And a certain point people will believe

56:43

you, including you. It's not a fake

56:45

until you make it in the sense like you

56:47

were very qualified for the jobs you did as

56:49

was I, but it is about pushing yourself to

56:52

recognize you have to force yourself to be seen

56:54

in the way you want to be seen and

56:57

being a supporting actor and being a wallflower in

56:59

the room. I would be like, I don't want

57:01

to go to that meeting with the president because I was

57:03

like, I'm going to say something stupid. I would rather someone

57:05

else go. And it's actually exhausting and

57:07

paralyzing in many ways. So it really took

57:09

that and the benefit, you know, as you

57:11

know, I'd wanted to be the press secretary

57:13

before I got the job for Biden. The

57:15

benefit of doing what I did is that,

57:18

you know, you just get a little bit

57:20

more comfortable in your own skin as you

57:22

get older, right? There's something about like getting

57:24

married, having kids, having perspective in life, becoming

57:27

40. There's nothing magical about that, but something

57:30

about it that when I went back, I

57:32

could smell the roses more. And I also

57:34

recognized I need it was incumbent

57:36

upon me to show President Biden that like I,

57:38

we could have a trusting relationship. I could give

57:40

him tough feedback, but I, I

57:43

felt more prepared for that. Yeah. Well, you were, I

57:45

mean, you had done like everything at that point. You

57:47

had been at the State Department, you'd been at the

57:49

White House. I mean, of course you were like the

57:52

best prepared person to be press secretary that I could

57:54

imagine given that experience. Thank you. But that doesn't make

57:56

it easier to tell the President

57:58

of the United States. Barack Obama that

58:01

they're wrong. No. And that they're wrong

58:03

because your judgment tells them they're wrong.

58:06

And recognize they may say, no, you're

58:08

wrong. Right. I mean, that's part of it and you

58:10

have to say, okay, you're the

58:12

president. Cool. Yeah. Well, let's talk about Afghanistan because

58:15

I could tell in the book that

58:17

that was just a searing experience for everybody

58:19

that worked there, which is not to compare

58:21

it to, you know, like the impact of

58:24

the people who were killed or their families,

58:26

but just, you know, being in the White

58:28

House at the time sounds really

58:30

brutal. But you not only had to

58:33

manage the communications around what was happening,

58:35

you had to explain to President Biden

58:37

why his meeting with some

58:39

bereaved families, the families

58:41

of the soldiers who'd been killed at Abbey Gate

58:44

and that terrorist attack had not gone well. Why

58:46

that meeting had gone badly. Can you tell that

58:48

story and what that was like? Yeah. I mean,

58:50

I wanted to tell that story for a couple of

58:52

reasons. One is that even people who

58:54

are well intentioned, as President Biden

58:57

is when he shares the story of his own

58:59

personal loss, which he still gets emotional and choked

59:01

up about talking about the loss of Beau, the

59:03

loss of his first wife and

59:05

his daughter, that it

59:08

doesn't mean it's always well received. And it's also up

59:11

to the audience to determine how they receive it. And

59:13

in this case, you have these

59:15

Gold Star families who had lost.

59:18

It was the worst day of their lives. The worst

59:20

thing that had ever happened to them ever in

59:23

this attack on Abbey Gate where they lost men and

59:25

women who'd been serving our country. And

59:28

even though President Biden's intention was

59:30

good, it was not what they needed

59:32

to hear. It was not what was healing them. And for

59:35

some of them, it was an

59:37

affront. And they have the absolute

59:39

right to feel that way. And it was my

59:41

intention in telling that story to convey one that

59:44

I had to give that feedback to President Biden

59:46

because the New York Times was writing a story.

59:48

And it was also important for him to know

59:50

that, but how wounding that is when you're telling

59:52

someone, you sharing the loss of your son is

59:54

not something that is helping them heal. To his

59:56

credit, what he said was, I thought

59:58

I was helping them. But also,

1:00:00

my effort was to validate their experience

1:00:03

and validate that even if it's not

1:00:05

your intention, that that's their response is

1:00:07

how they felt. Unfortunately, there was

1:00:09

a couple of lines included in there about

1:00:11

him looking at his watch that will be

1:00:13

fixed in future versions of the book.

1:00:16

It's not an important part of the story in the sense

1:00:18

that my objective was

1:00:20

to validate their feelings, nothing else.

1:00:23

But it is important for people to understand

1:00:25

that. Even as president, even

1:00:27

as a CEO, even as

1:00:29

somebody with the best intentions of somebody

1:00:32

who's been through something difficult, that

1:00:34

you have to really read the room and read the

1:00:37

audience of the people you're talking to and allow them

1:00:39

the space to feel how they feel about what

1:00:41

you're conveying to them. Yeah. It

1:00:43

sounds like even in that case,

1:00:45

you're sharing something that's so searing and so personally

1:00:47

painful in an effort to make a connection and

1:00:49

to know that that failed, I imagine, was just

1:00:52

incredibly difficult for him. I almost thought,

1:00:54

and I tell this in the book, but I

1:00:56

almost thought that the phone line

1:00:58

had dropped because he was so quiet in

1:01:00

the moment as he was trying to digest

1:01:02

what had happened. He's

1:01:04

a band who's experienced so much tragedy and

1:01:06

is so generous about sharing his own pain

1:01:09

if he thinks it will help others. I

1:01:11

know Ben Rhodes has a story where he

1:01:14

was giving a West Wing tour to a

1:01:16

family who had lost a child. For

1:01:18

those who don't know, when you do a West Wing tour, the

1:01:21

staffers themselves give it. It's not like a tour

1:01:23

guide that walks you around. You're the one giving

1:01:25

the tour to people. Ben

1:01:27

and this couple ran into President

1:01:29

Biden and Ben said that their

1:01:32

story just poured out of them. They're

1:01:35

crying and they're telling him what happened. He

1:01:37

was consoling them. It's like seven o'clock at

1:01:40

night. Usually these tours happen after

1:01:42

we all had eaten dinner from the mess or

1:01:44

whatever. President Biden

1:01:46

took 10, 15 minutes out of his day,

1:01:48

the end of a long day, to just

1:01:50

personally console this couple. Later

1:01:53

this couple sent Ben a note that was like, I

1:01:56

want you to know that that moment changed our lives.

1:01:58

We were able to move on. we hadn't

1:02:00

and heal in a way we hadn't. Can

1:02:02

you please pass this message along to President

1:02:05

Biden?" So Ben relayed that to

1:02:07

the vice president. 20 minutes later,

1:02:09

Ben gets a call at his desk, Hey, it's Joe

1:02:11

Biden. Can you give me their number? I want to

1:02:13

check in with them. And everyone

1:02:15

has a story like that. There's so many stories like

1:02:18

that. And that's important for people to know

1:02:20

and understand too is that when

1:02:22

people are going through grief and loss, there's no

1:02:25

magical words that's going to change what they've been

1:02:27

through. His sharing of

1:02:29

his own personal story has helped so many people

1:02:31

and his empathy. I mean, you

1:02:34

know, there's this story from 2007 or eight,

1:02:36

and I didn't know him at the time. But one

1:02:38

of my husband's mentors, her

1:02:41

grandson was dying of

1:02:43

cancer. He was maybe 10 or

1:02:45

11. I don't remember the age. And

1:02:47

on a trip to Ohio, she

1:02:50

was a big democratic activist, and the

1:02:53

vice president met the grandson, and not just

1:02:55

met him. He took him in his car

1:02:58

to the plane, gave him a tour of

1:03:00

the plane, spent all this time with him.

1:03:02

Does that change the,

1:03:04

of course not, or the grief, but

1:03:06

it also shows his empathy and

1:03:08

his care. And that is really who he is.

1:03:12

But I think he also recognizes, because I'm sure there are

1:03:14

things that people have said to him over the years that

1:03:16

didn't hit right and were well intentioned, but weren't

1:03:18

the right thing to say. One

1:03:21

of the hardest things about being a spokesperson

1:03:23

in politics is that you get no

1:03:26

leeway for making a mistake in

1:03:28

good faith, right? If you convey

1:03:31

inaccurate information, you're called a liar.

1:03:33

Different people can have different recollections

1:03:35

of the same event as often

1:03:37

happens. You wrote about

1:03:40

a particularly tough case from your time

1:03:42

with Senator Kerry, then Secretary Kerry,

1:03:44

that involved a military coup in

1:03:47

Egypt and a yacht. Tell

1:03:49

us a little bit more about that. Never a good

1:03:51

combo, those things, Tommy. Yes,

1:03:55

one, it was a coup. Can we all just admit that now? I

1:03:57

think we can. I couldn't call it a coup at the time. I

1:03:59

was caught on the I was on

1:04:01

a hot mic at the time saying, like, you're talking

1:04:03

points are ridiculous. I can't keep

1:04:05

saying this. You're

1:04:08

talking points are ridiculous. So

1:04:10

it was July 3rd or 4th, right,

1:04:13

which is relevant mainly because this was all

1:04:15

the news was breaking when I was at

1:04:18

a July 4th event with friends, actually.

1:04:20

Kate Bedingfield now, which is a long

1:04:22

time good friend of mine, and

1:04:25

this news was breaking. I

1:04:27

called some of

1:04:29

Kerry's aides, traveling aides,

1:04:31

to say there's reporting

1:04:33

that suggests he was on a yacht

1:04:35

today when this coup was breaking. Now,

1:04:38

just as we step back for a moment, a

1:04:41

secretary of state can do calls from anywhere and can

1:04:43

do work from anywhere, and I should have said, that's

1:04:45

what we should have said. He wasn't going to

1:04:47

rappel down into Cairo with a machine gun. But

1:04:50

also it was bad optically, let's be

1:04:52

honest. So in

1:04:55

the breakup of the phone call, I heard them say

1:04:57

he was not on the yacht. Now, he was on

1:04:59

the yacht, but I put out a statement saying he

1:05:01

was not on the yacht. It became

1:05:03

very clear the next day with photos that he

1:05:05

was on the yacht. I had not

1:05:08

intentionally, it was literally like bad phone connection,

1:05:10

and I should have just checked with more

1:05:12

people. At that moment, I

1:05:14

was like, oh my, oh God. And

1:05:17

so what I did was

1:05:20

I called every single reporter I'd

1:05:22

spoken to and apologized and said,

1:05:24

this was not my intention. And

1:05:26

I also put out a statement falling on the sword. Now,

1:05:29

people attacked me, all the things that happens

1:05:31

over the course of days. But

1:05:34

I do think with the reporters, some of whom

1:05:36

you and I know well who can be tough

1:05:38

and all the things, I'd established

1:05:40

credibility for years before that. They didn't think

1:05:42

of me as some liar, right? And

1:05:45

so that helped me in that moment, even though I put them

1:05:47

in an awkward position, although I fell on the sword. So

1:05:50

the point of that is like, you have

1:05:52

to own up to your mistakes when you make

1:05:54

them. We all make mistakes, you know? And

1:05:57

they are hopefully unintentional. I like to think

1:05:59

mine are. But in that moment, that's

1:06:01

what I did. And I thought the world was

1:06:03

gonna end and it didn't. Oh, look,

1:06:06

I've been there. I mean, I remember there was an

1:06:08

example when I was the NSC spokesman. The

1:06:11

US had interdicted some weapons shipments from

1:06:13

Iran to the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

1:06:15

This already sounds really complicated and nerdy

1:06:17

and I'm a nerd. I'm like, what?

1:06:19

As one does. Yeah, no, the Houthis,

1:06:21

they're pretty hot on TikTok right now.

1:06:23

There's some hot pirates. Anyway, so somehow

1:06:25

the details don't matter. That joke is gonna hit

1:06:28

with someone out there. There's like four people, like

1:06:30

Ben and one of the guys. Someone is gonna

1:06:32

hit. Ben's roaring somewhere right now. So the New

1:06:34

York Times hears about this interdiction of these weapons

1:06:36

to the Houthis. They call me for comment. I

1:06:38

go ask John Brennan about whether

1:06:40

this happened, who was the National Security Advisor to

1:06:43

Obama at the time. John is like, you

1:06:46

have to get them to delay this

1:06:48

report. This will blow up all

1:06:50

our work with the Yemeni government. It will

1:06:52

undo years of counter-terrorism work, blah, blah, blah.

1:06:54

So I'm like, okay, I'll do my

1:06:56

job. I call the reporter back. He agrees, I get him

1:06:58

to delay. Like six hours later,

1:07:01

the Yemeni Navy puts out a press

1:07:03

release taking credit for this operation. And

1:07:05

this guy calls me and is like,

1:07:07

what the fuck? You lied to me.

1:07:10

You screwed me. Trash me

1:07:12

with his colleagues. I don't think I ever talked

1:07:14

to me again. I sent like five apology emails

1:07:16

or whatever. And it's like, to

1:07:20

this day, I don't know what happened. Yeah. But

1:07:22

there's so much trust. Like, listen,

1:07:24

I'm not saying that like people are spokespeople,

1:07:27

they don't have responsibility, but you have to put

1:07:30

a lot of trust in the people

1:07:32

around you to get good information that you

1:07:34

then convey. And especially

1:07:36

national security jobs. Like we were

1:07:38

constantly told, try to get this

1:07:40

reporter not to report on something

1:07:43

about intercepted intelligence or whatever it might

1:07:45

be. And like, you have to

1:07:47

believe that the person you're getting that steer

1:07:50

from is trustworthy. I think John

1:07:52

Brennan is like the most trustworthy guy I worked with,

1:07:54

by the way. I think something weird happened here. I

1:07:56

don't think it was John's fault. But also then the

1:07:58

journalists have even less information than you do. And they

1:08:00

have to trust you. I know. There's

1:08:02

so many layers of trust in the whole

1:08:04

process. And you also have to

1:08:06

make the calculation as a spokesperson. I mean, I

1:08:09

was kind of generally a believer, unless it was

1:08:11

like, because some of those examples you're talking about

1:08:13

are like, if this is reported,

1:08:15

it will put people's lives at risk, right?

1:08:17

Things along those lines, that's a different category.

1:08:20

I was of the belief most of the time, in

1:08:22

my time at the White House, which I can admit

1:08:24

now, that if somebody had a story, just let them

1:08:26

roll with the story. Good on you. Good

1:08:29

on you and you're good reporting, right? I'm

1:08:32

never gonna litigate people to, I never, I don't think,

1:08:34

litigated people to the death of a story that they

1:08:36

accurately reported, even if they were ahead of where we

1:08:38

are. It can be a pain in the neck, but

1:08:41

also that's what freedom of press is, by the

1:08:43

way. And that's how democracy works. And so at

1:08:45

that point then, you just have to manage the

1:08:47

impact of it, because they did good reporting, good

1:08:50

for them. One time, I think it was like

1:08:52

the Wall Street Journal got a scoop that the

1:08:54

US, we had conveyed some information to the Iranian

1:08:56

government through the United Nations,

1:08:58

through Susan Rice. So the journal had

1:09:01

it. Our other channel, we always have

1:09:03

channels and talking to our one time. We have lots of channels.

1:09:05

Yeah. But you know how this goes. So one outlet

1:09:07

gets a scoop, everybody else descends

1:09:09

on you to confirm it. And with the New

1:09:12

York Times in particular, it would be like eight

1:09:14

reporters. You'd get big footed seven different times, and

1:09:16

finally, David Sanger was the final boss who would

1:09:18

stomp on your head. David Sanger's calling me for

1:09:20

one. So Colleen Cooper calls, she's

1:09:22

a great reporter from the Times, now

1:09:25

covering the Pentagon. And it's like, hey man,

1:09:27

I got shit to do. I'm on deadline.

1:09:30

I know this happened. Can you just confirm

1:09:32

it on background? And I'm like, sure. And

1:09:34

she, and then she confirms it as

1:09:36

a White House official instead of like the weasel words

1:09:39

we normally use. And Susan Rice calls me and is

1:09:41

like, motherfucker, did you confirm

1:09:43

this? Yeah. And

1:09:45

I was like, I did. I'm really sorry. I

1:09:47

know I wasn't supposed to. Correct. I did. Yeah.

1:09:51

Because it happened. Yeah, this is also

1:09:53

part of credibility with reporters. Because

1:09:56

I think over time you develop a credibility with

1:09:59

them because of it. that and because you're

1:10:01

like, you know, there's all sorts of language press

1:10:03

people use. It's funny if you could throw yourself

1:10:05

back into this like, I

1:10:07

can't confirm it, but I'm not going to steer you off

1:10:09

it. If you want to confirm it as like an on

1:10:12

deep background as an unnamed official, nobody's going

1:10:14

to argue you're wrong. It's like a whole

1:10:17

circle of stuff. This is always

1:10:19

true with personnel. Like I oversaw the war room for

1:10:21

the transition. It was like there was a leak every

1:10:23

day about some sort of person. But

1:10:25

unless it's like somebody's life is

1:10:27

at risk, right? And when

1:10:30

there are negotiations that might topple, obviously that's

1:10:32

a factor, but it does establish your

1:10:34

credibility so that you can go back to them and be

1:10:36

like, your story on this is wrong. And then they're like,

1:10:38

Oh yeah, I remember the seven times you helped me out. Right.

1:10:41

Well, in speaking of this sort of like need

1:10:43

to know thing, you wrote about how Ron Klain,

1:10:45

who was the chief of staff to president Biden,

1:10:48

um, debate, prepper, and former, and just a

1:10:52

brilliant guy. He had sort of a need

1:10:54

to know approach to reading in spokespeople's information,

1:10:56

meaning he would only tell you what you

1:10:58

needed to know. Because I think you said

1:11:00

that Ron's theory of the case was like,

1:11:03

it's too hard to disaggregate in your own

1:11:05

mind what is public and private information. So

1:11:07

might as well withhold the private information. And

1:11:10

I read that in, look, Ron's a great guy and

1:11:12

he was trying to manage like an impossible to manage

1:11:14

place, but I read that and it, it

1:11:17

struck me as so wrong and frustrating

1:11:19

because one I always felt like press

1:11:21

people don't leak for the same reason

1:11:23

janitors don't go shit on the floor.

1:11:25

Yeah. We're all mopping it up

1:11:27

later. Right. Right. And

1:11:29

then last people to leak press people. Right. Because like,

1:11:31

I don't want to deal with this. Yeah. And

1:11:33

then second, you've alluded to this earlier, like

1:11:35

reporters know if you are read into something

1:11:38

and you have a relationship with the boss

1:11:41

and are in the mix or you're just repeating

1:11:43

talking points and like you just have less credibility

1:11:45

if it's the latter. Totally.

1:11:47

And the context of understanding things from

1:11:50

being in the meeting on the discussion

1:11:52

helps you be a better communicator. You

1:11:54

know, it's not your job to read from a piece

1:11:56

of paper. It's your job to explain. Yeah. credit,

1:12:00

he just had kind of an older school view of that.

1:12:02

He's not the only one who's had that view over the

1:12:04

course of time. I think there were some through the course

1:12:06

of past administrations who had that view. I think

1:12:09

I benefited from, as you benefited from, when you've

1:12:11

been communicating about national security issues, as I did

1:12:13

for two and a half years at the State

1:12:16

Department, you fully understand how to

1:12:18

hold back things that you can't share publicly.

1:12:20

And I always felt that the days I

1:12:22

was best was the days I fully understood

1:12:25

the complete scope of an

1:12:27

issue to the point where I, and Jake

1:12:30

actually understood this much in a more instinctual

1:12:33

way. You

1:12:35

don't invite yourself to meetings typically, but I went

1:12:38

to him during a couple of moments around Ukraine

1:12:40

and Russia, around Afghanistan. I was like, I have

1:12:42

to sit in these meetings. I'm not going to

1:12:44

say anything. He was like, you can say things.

1:12:46

I'm like, I don't need to say anything. I'm

1:12:48

like, I'm not going to say anything, but I

1:12:50

need to understand the scope of what's happening because

1:12:53

then I can help and I will always come

1:12:55

back to you. And then what would happen, because

1:12:57

sometimes these talking points go through a bureaucratic process

1:12:59

and they say nothing on the end, is

1:13:02

I could go back to them and say, here are the five questions I'm going

1:13:04

to be asked. Here's what I think I should say.

1:13:07

Walk me back. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't,

1:13:09

but there were times where I was like, I have to be in

1:13:12

the room. Because otherwise I can't be effective at doing the job. Well,

1:13:14

you talk about imposter syndrome though. When you're

1:13:16

literally sitting in the chair behind the chairman

1:13:18

of the joint chiefs and the secretary of

1:13:20

defense and the secretary of state,

1:13:23

like how did I get in there? First of all, I don't

1:13:25

tell this story in the book, although I do tell the story

1:13:27

of ripping my pants in front of Barack Obama, not an

1:13:29

extended version, which is a very embarrassing story.

1:13:32

But there was one day to your

1:13:34

point where I had kind of invited myself, and

1:13:36

I always said this to Jake, I'm not trying

1:13:39

to invite myself. He's like, you're welcome to come.

1:13:41

It's fine. Stop being weird about it. But I

1:13:43

went to a meeting that was, I think it

1:13:46

was related to early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine

1:13:48

in 2022. And it was an important

1:13:51

meeting. I don't remember what it was about. And it started

1:13:53

eight in the morning. I go to

1:13:56

the ladies' room that's right near the sit

1:13:58

room on the bottom floor, and I realized I have split

1:14:00

my pants. Oh no. And I'm like,

1:14:02

fuck, what am I going to do? And I was like,

1:14:04

well, I'm not missing the meeting, so

1:14:06

I'm going to figure it out. I literally,

1:14:08

it was like I had like

1:14:10

a leaf structure. I had a binder, which

1:14:12

I just like walked

1:14:15

in front of myself into

1:14:17

the sit room room and just like

1:14:20

put it on top of my lap. And then

1:14:22

even as we were chatting afterwards, I just was

1:14:24

like holding the binder in front of me and

1:14:26

my split pants. Now the funny

1:14:28

part of this, if that isn't funny enough,

1:14:30

is Chairman Milley, if anybody doesn't

1:14:32

know who he is, Google him. He would play himself

1:14:34

in the version of the movie because no one more looks

1:14:36

like the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was sitting right

1:14:38

across from me and I was like, that

1:14:40

man knows I split my pants. I can

1:14:42

like feel it in his like bushy, eyebrowed

1:14:44

gaze. So that happened.

1:14:47

Did good intel on

1:14:49

the pants splitting. Well, I don't know,

1:14:51

but I just, he hears that vibe to him.

1:14:53

Yeah, he does that vibe. That bathroom right

1:14:55

by the sit room was always the site

1:14:57

of the most awkward, intractable peeing

1:15:00

at a urinal. I

1:15:02

remember one time I was up there next to

1:15:04

Dave Petraeus one time and I'm like, how are

1:15:07

you, sir? How are

1:15:09

you? He literally goes, Oh, I'm having a great

1:15:11

time. Just started the CIA. I got amazing authorities.

1:15:13

If you ever have the chance to do this

1:15:15

job, you should take it. What

1:15:18

the fuck just happened? That's an intense

1:15:20

engagement at the urinal. Yeah, one of

1:15:22

my best. All right, I'm going

1:15:24

way long. So I'm going to ask you a last question.

1:15:26

Sure. Because everyone should buy the book. Thank you. Say more

1:15:28

because all these stories are in there and much more you

1:15:30

hear about Peter Ducey. You'll hear

1:15:32

about Jen being the subject of

1:15:35

relentless Russian disinformation and propaganda. When

1:15:37

she was at the State Department,

1:15:39

that part actually really sucked. If

1:15:41

someone asked us about like communications best

1:15:43

practices 20 years ago, we probably would

1:15:45

have said things like, apologize

1:15:48

when you're wrong. Mean it. Don't

1:15:50

ever lie. Answer questions directly. Take

1:15:53

tough questions from reporters and

1:15:55

then Trump comes along and he lies

1:15:57

all the time. He never apologizes. He

1:16:00

hides in the Hugh Hewitt right wing

1:16:02

safe space, and he got elected president,

1:16:04

and he's got a 50th chance of

1:16:06

doing it again. Were we wrong?

1:16:08

Is he special? Did the world change? What

1:16:11

do you make of this? Is

1:16:13

he special? No. He is

1:16:16

very special. One, I think that as

1:16:18

dangerous and dark as it is, his message is

1:16:21

effective because it's been consistently the same since 2015.

1:16:24

In a weird, more light

1:16:26

way, Barack Obama is similar in that he

1:16:28

was hope and change for many, many years. It was

1:16:30

consistent. People knew who he was. But

1:16:32

Trump has been the guy, the aggrieved

1:16:35

candidate who's running against the system

1:16:38

and tearing apart the system since

1:16:40

he announced his run for president.

1:16:43

Consistency is effective. Simple message

1:16:46

is effective, even as dark and dangerous as

1:16:48

it is. Also emotional message

1:16:50

is effective. He is tapping into

1:16:52

people across the country who

1:16:54

feel aggrieved. Millions

1:16:57

do. The economy isn't working for them. The system

1:16:59

isn't working for them. Government's

1:17:01

hugely unpopular. All of those things. No,

1:17:04

he doesn't give a shit about you. He

1:17:06

just cares about himself. He's really the aggrieved ones

1:17:08

he cares about, but that message is effective. Emotional

1:17:12

messaging is effective. This is where I knew

1:17:14

and I lived through ... I mean, when

1:17:16

you were negotiating about Hooties and your

1:17:19

story, going down the

1:17:21

nerd rabbit hole, I loved every moment

1:17:23

of it. I was doing economic messaging.

1:17:26

Remember the early days where we communicated about

1:17:29

data and GDP and ... Bending the

1:17:31

cost curve. Bending the cost curve. I talk about

1:17:33

that in the book too. That

1:17:36

is not how people make decisions. They

1:17:38

make decisions by emotions and how you

1:17:40

make them feel. And Trump

1:17:42

makes not everybody, he makes a

1:17:44

lot of people feel scared for good reason,

1:17:46

but he makes a certain percentage of the

1:17:48

population feel heard. So

1:17:51

I don't know if anything's massively changed as

1:17:53

much as the emotional appeal of

1:17:55

communications is still a thing. Very

1:17:58

well said. Jen Psaki. Great

1:18:00

to see you. Thank you. Great to see you.

1:18:03

Everyone should buy the book. Everyone should watch your show on

1:18:05

MSNBC and lots of happening here. And we need

1:18:07

to get you like more sleep and coffee and congratulations on

1:18:09

being a father of two. The relationship

1:18:11

between them is the most magical thing even if you want to

1:18:13

curse everyone because you're not sleeping. I, we

1:18:15

could not be happier. It was a very

1:18:18

long challenging road to get here and it

1:18:20

feels extra, extra special and we feel incredibly

1:18:22

blessed. Congratulations.

1:18:25

Thank you. If

1:18:27

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1:18:47

Save America is a crooked media production. Our

1:18:49

show is produced by Olivia Martinez and David

1:18:52

Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul

1:18:54

Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira Joachim

1:18:56

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our executive producer. The show is

1:19:00

mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan

1:19:02

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1:19:07

Writing support by Holly Kiefer. Madeline Herringer

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1:19:11

DeGroat is our head of production. Andy

1:19:14

Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to

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