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Trump Subverts Gag Order with Wannabe VPs · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitori.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm Jen Psaki.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I am thrilled to be joined by my good friend
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Jen Psaki in studio in Los Angeles.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: It's great to see you.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: It's great to be here. First of all, you have
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: a one-week-old baby?
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: A one-week-old baby. One week and one day old now.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Eight days. It really matters in the beginning. You count
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: the days.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Okay. So we have a 17-month-old and now an eight-day-old.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: And just the difference in size. Suddenly my daughter looks
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: like a giant.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's so true. And seems very advanced.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: She talks a lot. She has a lot to say.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Not walking very much.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: How does she like the baby?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: She sort of treats the baby like the dog. Which
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is where we don't grip the hair. We pat, pat, pat. Gentle.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: But sometimes pat, pat, pat is a little more like slap, slap, slap.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: But we're doing good. I think I'm excited for him
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: to have a big sister.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Because I think big sisters are a good influence. And
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: big brothers can get you things.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I will say, because you know, I'm a few years
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: ahead of you on the children. But I have a
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: big sister. My daughter is eight and a half. My
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: son is six. They're a little bit farther apart in age.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: It is the greatest combination because even now, if he's
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: kind of having a meltdown, she'll be like, hey, buddy, hey, buddy,
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: calm down. She's like another little mom in the house.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: We love it.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It sounds amazing. Honestly, it is wonderful. I'm so glad
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: he's here, and Hannah's doing great. Hannah, by the way,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: having a C-section and then bouncing back. 24 hours later. Like,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: No, been there. I don't know. She's just, she must
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: be like a complete superhuman. I also think sleep deprivation
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: is a real thing. Nobody acknowledges. And when you have children,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: it is, that is the thing.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Thank God for a couple of nights in the NICU
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and let us sleep. But anyway, everyone's happy, healthy. We're home. Jen,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: as you guys know, has worked in top communication jobs
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: in the Obama and Biden administration. She's the host of
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Inside with Jen Psaki on MSNBC and the author of
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a new book, which I'm holding up. Say more.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Lessons from work, the White House, and the world.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you. You've lived through a number of these stories.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these stories felt very real.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I was kind of there with you for some of them.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: And I can't wait to talk about all of them.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: We got a great show, though, today. We're going to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: talk about the latest headlines from Michael Cohen's testimony in
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the New York hush money case, the way Trump is
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: using a novel surrogate operation to get around his gag order.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: That's such a diplomatic way of saying it. Must be
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: your time in the NSC.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: He's inviting the dumbest people he knows to come hang
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: out at the court. like Tommy Tuberville. That guy kills me.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the latest from Gaza, the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: challenge of public messaging about private diplomatic discussions, something Jen
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: did a lot when she was the State Department spokesperson,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: especially with a government like then Yahoo's, which we don't
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: always agree with. And frankly, sometimes they want to pick
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: a fight with us. We'll talk about an Axios report
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: that Biden is in denial about bad polling and Jen's
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: sense of kind of how information gets in and out
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: of the Oval Office. But first, Jen, let's have a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: debate about debates.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Shall we?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Shall we? Because should they, should they not? Between when
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: we woke up and when we produced this show, a
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: lot has happened.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, between when we were texting about the show
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: yesterday and this morning, like there's the things.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Entirely different schedule. Yeah, there's huge ramifications for you on
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: your show on MSNBC for us here. So there was
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of skepticism about whether these two would debate
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: at all. This morning, that all seems to have changed.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I'm still a skeptic a little bit.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's well, it's well held skepticism. But let's
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: listen to a clip of President Biden.
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then,
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: he hadn't shown up for debate. Now he's acting like
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: I'll even do it twice. So let's pick the dates, Donald.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: I hear you're free on Wednesdays.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: It sounds a little bit like the clip from Home Alone,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: a movie I've watched recently because of my kids. Make
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: my day, buddy.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, a little Dirty Harry. I hear you're free
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: on Wednesdays is very funny. That's when the trial is off.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I like that. That's clever.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Wednesdays, yeah.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: He's free. So then Trump went on Hugh Hewitt's radio
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: show this morning and responded in classic Trump style. We'll
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: hear a clip of that.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: You know, he's issuing it. I wonder whether or not
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: he shows up because, you know, he also challenged me
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: to golf. So I'm a very good golfer. He can't
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: hit a ball 50 yards. He said, I'll give him
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: three a side. But he knows he'll never play. This
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: is sort of like that, I think.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: June and September would be great, if you can agree
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: on the size of the table and the moderators.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: Why don't you look at the statement? I just put
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: out a statement. You should have it on your hot wires.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: You get everything.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Gotta love those hot wires.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I love their golf hot wires. It's just like golf,
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: isn't it? Debating in a presidential campaign, just like a
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: round of golf.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Give them three strokes in the debate course. I don't know. Okay, so...
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: When we woke up to now, the two sides agreed
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to a debate on June 27th at CNN Studios in
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Atlanta with no audience, a VP debate in July, and
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: then there's going to be another presidential debate on September
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: 10th hosted by ABC. The key detail here is these
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: campaigns are now negotiating directly. They're circumventing the Commission on
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Presidential Debates, which has set the dates and ground rules
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: since 1988. Hating on the commission has become a bipartisan
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: sport in Washington. The RNC pulled out of the commission
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: process in 2022 after saying it was biased. Biden campaign
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: criticized the commission's original proposal because they started the debates
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: after early voting had begun and they prioritized in-person audiences
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: over the people watching at home. So, Jen, what do
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: you make of this debate?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Well, and then Trump also truth. Is that the term?
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, he did.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: About a Fox debate in October.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: A third debate.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Which the Biden team, at least at the moment of
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: our taping, has not agreed to. I'd be shocked if
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: they do.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: Me too.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: But I think this is an interesting play by the
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Biden team. I mean, when he was asked by Howard
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Stern a couple of weeks ago, he said, yes, he
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: would debate. And I don't think he had another choice.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: He had to say that. Because if he hadn't said that,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: it would have sounded weak. And one of the challenges
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: they have right now is this feeling of chaos and weakness.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: A lot of these issues are so much more complicated.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I know we'll dive into a lot of them. whether
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: it is protests on college campuses, what's happening in the
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Middle East, even kind of Putin still being out there
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: and crazy. But it feels chaotic. And I think and
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: it feels a little weak that he can't unilaterally make
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: all of these things calm. And if he had said,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: I'm considering it, it would have fed into the Sleepy
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Joe narrative that they've done a pretty good job of
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: beating back post, of course, the drugs he apparently took
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: the night of the State of the Union.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Those helped.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Those did help, apparently. So they had to do that.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: This was interesting because it's now May. It's hard to believe,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: but we're talking about a debate in June.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: June.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: We were just talking about how that feels stressful.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: How is that possible?
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Because you have to prep for it. But I think
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: internally they knew that at some point this was going
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: to hit ahead and they were either going to be
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: ahead of it or be responding to Trump.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: So it was smart in that sense. I think it
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: was also smart that they put out this letter of
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: their criteria that which basically, I mean, none of this
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: is on the level, this entire election in many ways,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: in terms of how Trump is operating, but it did
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: put the Trump team on their back feet where they
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: had to just agree to that. If they tried to
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: litigate things on there, they would have looked a little weak.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: That's right, yeah. I mean- Also, like I think doing
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: this a little earlier, it just means it's less existential.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: A June debate. I know a thousand things could happen
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: between July and kind of the end of the year.
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I know I talked to some Biden people
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: this morning. I mean, they just had no confidence in
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the debate commission anymore.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: The commission completely screwed up in 2020. They let Trump
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: ignore its policies on COVID testing. And masking, which nearly
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: infected President Biden.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: And if people watch that video now, it will just
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: throw you off because Trump looks unwell.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: He looks unwell. And also Melania just strolls in with
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the kids. They're all unmasked. Melania tested positive five days later.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So like they could have killed the current president of
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the United States before he was elected. I know that
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Biden's team also felt like the commission bent over backwards
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to create a schedule this time. That seemed advantageous to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: Trump because they were worried about enticing him into this process.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Pulling him in.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: It was kind of on his game.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: So in a sense, they took control over it. Now,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: what's hard or not, I mean, you could argue it
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: every which way, is that Trump could certainly say, I
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: never agreed to those specifics in the letter. And he
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: probably will. And that's how this all falls apart.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: Even though he's basically said, I would debate him anywhere, anytime.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: So- And also, there is a huge question of who
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: is going to be the moderator.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Trump will be like, I want the MyPillow guy, but
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I'll settle for like Sean Hannity.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Well, in his Fox Truth, he put out, I believe,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Brett Baer.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. And Martha McCallum.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: And Martha McCallum.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Let me read the truth. This is what he said.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Please let this truth serve to represent that I hereby
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: accept debating Crooked Joe Biden on Fox News. The debate
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: will be Wednesday, October 2nd. The host will be Brett
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Baer and Martha McCallum. Thank you, comma, DJT.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Hereby, hereby. It was like he was doing an indoctrination
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: or unveiling a scroll or something along those lines. A proclamation.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: It's a little trickier at CNN and ABC because he's
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: attacked probably all of those people.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. And you're going to get a real journalist there.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: You'll get a real journalist who's going to ask tough questions.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: So it's a little bit different.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: So Trump also put in another truth, accepting this challenge,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: let's get ready to rumble. I'd be lying if I
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: said The prospect of this debate doesn't make me a
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: little anxious. These events play to his strength as an entertainer,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: a bullshitter. You know, sometimes sitting presidents get a little rusty,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: as we learned when Obama got worked in the first
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: debate with Mitt Romney.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: The 2012 debate, which I will just, as just like
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: a slight aside, because you're referring to the first debate
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: in 2012, which President Obama, who we both worked for,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: was not at his best.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: No.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's gentle to say.
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: No.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: It was not a good debate. Afterwards, I don't think
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: he fully knew it wasn't a good debate afterwards. That's
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: my recollection. So David Axelrod, David Pluffett did tell him,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: the next morning I had the unenviable task of doing
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: a round of the morning shows, including Fox. And I
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: very distinctly remember a producer from Fox getting me the
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: microphone and saying, good luck with the vipers out there.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Because one, it was Fox, but two, it had been terrible, right?
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: No, I also remember Obama the next day. One, I
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: said to him on the plane, yeah, how are you doing, sir?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: And he was like, I am great. And I was like, oh.
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: Are you?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Well, also, that's a strange thing. That wasn't really his vibe.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: But then he gave one of the best stump speeches
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: that day in Denver because I think his back was
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: against the wall. And in many ways, it was a
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: wake-up call. But yeah, presidents can be rusty. So there's
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: some risk. What's also interesting, though, is Trump and his
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: truthing this morning. Loves to truth.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Loves it.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: He's also talking about how Joe Biden is a terrible debater.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: He's kind of lowering the bar here.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Which is kind of, as you and I have done,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: when your boss is debating, you're like, he barely can
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: write a sentence. I don't even know how he'll be
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: able to deliver a line. It's remarkable he made it
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: to the stage.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I remember the Bush people said John Kerry was the
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: best debater since Cicero. That was their line in 2004. Yeah,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Trump's like, I'm going to debate the shit out of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: this corpse.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: He's terrible. He's a terrible debater. So there's that. It
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: is a good sign, regardless of how this could fall apart,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: which I think is quite possible, that Ron Klain, who
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: is the chief debater prepper, I don't even, he is,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: this is one of his many superpowers.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Super Bowl, yeah.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: He has agreed to do the debate. I mean, he
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: is very close to the president. He's prepped nearly every
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: candidate for this. He is a master of it. So
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: he's agreed to do it, which is a good sign.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: But there's still risks. Of course there are.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, how do you prep for this besides, like,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: get your vaccines up to speed, I guess, for COVID
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: at all?
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a physicality of it. I mean, I keep
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: thinking of the Clinton debates with Hillary Clinton, and obviously
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Trump wouldn't do the same thing to Biden, but.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: When he's, like, looming in the background?
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: He was looming in the background. I also think there is,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: and you can see the shift in how the Biden
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: campaign has been attacking Trump versus how they did it
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: four years ago, which I think is interesting, because four
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: years ago, it was a lot of, like, highbrow, we're
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: for democracy, you're against democracy. And there's some of that,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: but they needle him more now. And they needle him
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: on social media. They needle him in posts. They needle
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: him in speeches. And I think there'll be more of that.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: So it's figuring out how to land the best needles.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How to throw a punch, land it well, not
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: look mean.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Get under his skin, I think is the key. Get
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: under his skin. Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: He was real pissed in that first debate last time.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I remember they cut After the debate ended, they cut
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: to Jake Tapper and Jake's like, that's the worst debate
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen in my life. And that was like
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: the consensus opinion from straight journalists.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Well, now there's the question of debates. Do debates matter?
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Which we're not quite there. It's an important question.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: We'll find out.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I think you're right, though. Like, look, this is
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: probably not over this story, but exciting morning.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: A lot happened this morning.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: A lot happened today. Yeah. A lot has also happened
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: in New York where we had former Trump lawyer Michael
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Cohen and on the stand this week at the Hush
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Money trial. We learned that Trump personally directed Cohen to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels to cover up
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Trump's affair with her. We learned lots of detail about
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: how Trump and Cohen disguised the payments by calling them
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: retainer fees for legal work. They were not. Dan and
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: John will get into all of the details of the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: legal case later with special guest Norm Eisen, who taught
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: us how to be ethical.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: I do love Norm Eisen. He has a new book out.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: He does have a new book out.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Norm is just a nerdy, and I mean that in
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the best way possible. I love nerds. I live in Washington, D.C.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: They're my neighbors and my friends. He'll be great. He'll
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: get into all the legal eagleness.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Of it all. In a town where sometimes people approach
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the job without a personality, Norm was the opposite. You
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: would hear him coming down the hall. He would make
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you laugh like he's the best. But Jen, so Trump
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: has been flanked by all these special surprise guests. We
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: had Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. We had Alabama
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Senator and bona fide idiots Tommy Tuberville. We had J.D. Vance,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the Ohio senator. Here's a clip of Speaker Johnson from
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: outside the courthouse.
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: I called President Trump and told him I wanted to
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: be here myself to call out what is a travesty
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: of justice. And I think everybody around the country can
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: see that. President Trump is a friend and I wanted
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: to be here to support him.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: There's so much to unpack here. Well, shall we start? Yeah.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: So what do you make of this, like, surrogate operation
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: support group? Like, what do we think we're doing here?
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, J.D. Vance was there. Vivek Ramaswamy is coming.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Tommy Tuberville, the gift that keeps on giving in the Senate.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Specifically to Mike Johnson, just for one second. Mike Johnson
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: was called to be the speaker by God for his
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: own sake. Yet the moment he decides to be out
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: there aggressively supporting President Trump in this manner is him
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: flying to New York City to not stand by his
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: side and also defend him when the former president is
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: sitting in a courtroom because he paid hush money to
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: a former adult film star and had an alleged affair
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: with her while his wife was pregnant.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Good defamation training, by the way. Alleged.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Alleged.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I heard it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: But. Is that, is God calling you to do that?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Is that, so there's a whole hypocrisy thing there.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: This man installed an app on his phone and his
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: son's phone so they wouldn't watch porn called Covenant Eyes.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: Now he's sitting in this.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: That was an initial flag that maybe we were going
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: to come to this moment. So in some ways it's validating.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: But I would say overall, it tells you a lot
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: about the Republican Party and Trump's ownership of the Republican Party.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: And this big question you guys talk about, I talk
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: about of, is there a post-Trump? Well, you have the
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: leading Republicans, people who want to be the vice president,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: but somebody who is the speaker of the House, who
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: have basically been saying Trump still won the 2020 election.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Many of them have. Not all, but many of them have.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Have been laying the groundwork to question the 2024 outcome,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: which I think people should not miss. I mean, Lindsey Graham,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott. Tim Scott was pushed on this on Meet
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: the Press a week or so ago, and he basically said,
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Kristen Pusterman multiple times, That's my statement. It's like your
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: statement is you're not going to commit exactly to observing
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: the outcome that the American people voted for. And this
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: has now become a weird third litmus test to kind
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: of show up. The New York City aspect of it
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: is sort of funny to me because it's like all
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: of these guys are like, we're not from the coasts,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: but here they are outside the courthouse in New York City.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I know, desperate for press.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Desperate for press. They defend him and then they proudly
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: clip their defense of him and put it on their
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: social media platforms as if they're kind of delivering something
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: to him. So it's become another litmus test. And that
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: tells you so much about his ownership over the Republican Party.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: And they're also, I will say, doing, and this is
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: a norm question, we can throw it back to him,
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: doing what he can't do. He can't say what they're
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: saying because he would violate the gag order. They're all
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: attacking the judge, the judge's daughter, Michael Cohen's jurors, people
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: involved in the trial. If he did that, he would
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: be fined. He doesn't seem to care that much, but
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: he would be fined for it. They are like his
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: thugs out there on his behalf.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a clever workaround for the gag order. I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: got to give him that. And I do love that
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: we're attacking a judge's daughter for working for Democrats, and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: no one seems to bat an eye at the fact
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: that Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the classified documents
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: case in Mar-a-Lago, was given her job by Donald Trump,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: as are many of the justices who rule on appeals, etc.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: And she's basically indefinitely.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: She's like, so, hey, it turns out I don't get
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: any of this. So we're just going to wait. It's
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: basically her latest ruling. I guess the question I have
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: about this is around messaging, because you got Trump relentlessly
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: calling this rigged and unfair and trying to just influence
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: public opinion before a verdict. Do you think it's enough
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: for Democrats to let the courtroom events speak for themselves,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the evidence speak for itself? Or do we need like
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer out there with a bullhorn? counter-programming this thing?
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Well, it's just a funny visual.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: You can see it, right?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: It's a funny visual. I can definitely see it. I
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: do think that for Democrats at this point, the trial
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: is going to play out in the next couple of weeks.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: There has been polling that suggests that if he is convicted,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: and there's a lot of things standing in the way
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: of that, including a potential for a hung jury if
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: just one juror does not want to go along with
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: the others, then that's sort of a different marking point
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: to me. if they are out with bullhorns now, there
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: is the risk, and I think this is a tough question,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: and I can understand all sides of the debate, to
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: be honest, of that feeding into this fodder of like,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: this is a political trial, when it's not a political trial.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: What I do think, and I've been thinking about in
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: the last couple weeks, I've been kind of surprised. I mean,
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: I thought that the the legal support for this and,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: you know, from talking to a lot of lawyers and
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: not myself, makes sense and that Bragg didn't get enough
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: credit for that. But also I've been surprised, even though
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: there hasn't been video cameras in the courtroom, which has
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: been a real challenge and talking about, believe me, I do,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: on television, you're like, this is what was said. Let
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: me have a dramatic reading of what was said. It's
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: not quite the same, but is watching Stormy Daniels talk
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: about how she blacked out while she was having sex
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: with him. That combined, not the same thing with the
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: fact that he clearly, and also hearing Michael Cohen talk
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: about His response when he said, well, how is this
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: going upstairs, as in with your wife? And he basically said,
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: I won't be on the market too long, combined with
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: the fact that he also doesn't think women should make
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: choices about their own health care. There is a total
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: thematic disrespect for women. I don't know how you put
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: that into one ad or one message, but I've been
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: struck by how this trial has told us about his character.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: And that's not the legal case. The legal case is
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: about documents. But it has told us about his character,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: not in a surprising way, but it has unearthed some
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: things about him.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: You're right, in part because of choices made by Trump's team,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: because they went in there denying in a court of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: law that they had this affair to begin with, that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: they ever had sex, which- Stormy Daniels says isn't true.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: It was in the opening statement.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, of Todd Blanche.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: And so now they're getting all these lurid details out
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of Stormy Daniels about the events and how they went down.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: To sort of paint a picture to the jury that
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: says not only did this happen, but this man is
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: lying to you about it.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: It's completely exact, which makes the whole surrogate brigade even
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: more alarming. I mean, alarming is not even the right word.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: This is all the last thing I'll say on that.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I've just been thinking about that question for like this
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: is what struck me the most about this week is
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: that these are the same people, Mike Johnson specifically, who
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: helped him in 2020 and are basically raising their hand
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: and saying, I'm happy to enable and help you challenge
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: the outcome. I'm here standing outside the courthouse defending you
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: in this very seedy, salacious situation. So I'm here and
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: I'm reporting for duty. And that's it's kind of a
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: potential replay.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And by reporting the duty, I mean to God, because
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: he wants me here at this trial.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: He's told me.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: For some reason.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: God's told me to fly to New York City and
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: be here.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: In this logic I've constructed in my head. Yeah. So
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: that's a mess.
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: we are going to talk about the president's approach to Gaza.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: All right, Jen, so let's turn to the war in Gaza,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: because I think the average news consumer in this country
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: would probably have a hard time describing President Biden's policy
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: at this point. Last week, we saw the Biden administration
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: pause the delivery of 3,500 bombs to Gaza. In response
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: to that, you saw these hysterical claims by Republicans that
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Biden is abandoning Israel. Like Tom Cotton said Biden had
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: imposed an arms embargo on Israel, which is ludicrous. Then Tuesday, yesterday,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: The Biden administration told Congress that it was moving ahead
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: with a billion dollar arms package for the Israeli military,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: though Congress could block that. It's a long road ahead
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: for that arms package. But you and I are kind of,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: we're geeks that follow this stuff closely. We could explain
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to you that what Biden paused was the delivery of 2,000
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: pound bombs, which should not be used in urban areas
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: because they lead to mass casualties. And he's trying to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: prevent that from happening again. This other package is longer term.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: But how do you think Biden can message this to voters?
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Because The takeaway at the moment seems to be, OK,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the left was really mad about this policy for a while.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: And now it seems like everyone is mad about the policy.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: And there's not a lot of clarity.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, as you just acknowledged, it's very difficult to
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: communicate about diplomacy. I do think that in this case,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: the truth is not the worst thing in the sense
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: of basically what he was doing. He's doing here. is
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: trying to use the leverage of diplomacy, the leverage of
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: withholding military support to get them to change their behavior,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: because he's saying the humanitarian crisis there and the potential
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: for you to go and level Rafah, where more than
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: a million people live, is inhumane. Even that statement angers
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a lot of people for a range of reasons. I mean,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: one is, well, look what's already happened in Gaza. Two is...
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: The Israeli people just lived through the worst terrorist attack
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: on their soil on October 7th, and hostages are still
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: being held by Hamas. Three is, which I think is
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: very valid, is leveling Rafah is not going to eliminate Hamas,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: which every intelligence official and nerds we still talk to
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: will tell you.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Including Israeli intelligence.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Including Israeli intelligence. That also is not a message. What
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I just outlined, it was just in addition to your
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: very useful explanation and context. Though I do think that
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: it is incumbent upon people like us who have lived
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: through this to do our best to explain these parts
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: because it is hard to understand. In terms of the
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: messaging on it, I think that for him, he's got
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: to get to a point where it's a couple of bullets, right?
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: That's the only way to do it. And it's hard
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: to do around this, which is something like– I recognize
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: and honor the horror that Israel went through and what
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: the Israeli people are still living through, and we will
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: do everything to get the hostages back. But this is
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: an inhumane and far too aggressive military action, and we
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: can't stand by, even as a supplier of their military assistance,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: to allow them to do this. That's not even quite it, but...
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: I think people need to understand where he's coming from
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: from a moral standpoint. I think it's something along those lines. Now,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: the thing that's very challenging for them, and I've said publicly,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: it's interesting because I was asked about this on Colbert,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: and I basically said I think they should have used
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: leverage earlier.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: And what I meant by that, then people kept asking
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: me follow-ups like, oh, you think he would have been
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: helped politically? And I'm like, I'm actually not talking about
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: the politics. I'm talking about leverage with the Israelis. But
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: The politics of it are also very difficult to navigate,
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: as you alluded to, in part because there's a generational
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: shift on views of Israel, right? There is also widespread
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: anti-Semitism across the country. I'm not saying the two are conflicting.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying they're happening. They're both happening, right? And
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: for the Biden administration, the challenge is trying to convey
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: your moral concern about what you're seeing in Gaza while
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: also acknowledging the real fear and legitimate fear of the
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: rise of anti-Semitism felt by so many Jewish Americans. And
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: it feels right now the debate has become so black
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: and white that it has become like you can't be both. Yeah.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: And I think that's a huge challenge for them.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is frustrating how binary the debate has felt
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and become. I agree with you on the leverage early.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, for those like the current Israeli government is
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: this coalition, Netanyahu's party, and then some of the most
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: odious right-wing nationalist racist ministers who previously were not allowed
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: to be a part of the government.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: And this is, again, a very nerdy part of the story,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: but an important one for people to contextually understand. The
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Israeli government, to your point, has become significantly more conservative,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: more pro-settlers, more militaristic than they were even 10 years ago.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: 10 years ago, you had Zippy Livney, remember? And others
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: who were more supportive of, say, at the time, Middle
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: East peace negotiations and kind of finding a two-state solution.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Those people are no longer in the coalition. And Netanyahu,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: who was very unpopular before October 7th, there were protests
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: in the streets because of the overreach of judicial reforms, which,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: by the way, sounds very similar to what's happening, potentially
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: what happened here with Trump, he was very unpopular, is
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: now it's political survival for him. And so it's irrational.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: It's certainly immoral what he's doing with the use of military.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: But he's also dealing with a country that is reeling
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: from the worst thing that has ever happened that has
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: impacted Jewish people across the world.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have Netanyahu with this political setup where
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: If these right wing ministers pull out of the government,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it could topple the entire government. He's out of power.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: He could then face prosecution. So that's just sort of understanding.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: His political and judicial survival.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, judicial survival. You could go to jail for a
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: bunch of corruption charges. You have an Israeli public that
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: is understandably scarred and terrified and probably feeling majorities feel
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening again.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: And then you have a government. And we experienced this
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: after 9-11, where the response was. from voters is like,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: do something. We don't care what it is, do something,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: show action, take action. And I think it's very hard
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: to get people to understand that the action that's happening
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: in Gaza right now, long-term, is going to make Israelis
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: less safe, and in the near term is going to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: kill a lot of really innocent Palestinian civilians, kids, women, children, men.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, so I think the challenge from the beginning
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: has been, I think, it was inevitable that there would
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: be disagreements on this policy. Internally, too. Yeah. And when
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the Biden approach was like, let's hug Bibi Netanyahu in
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: public and then fight it out in private. And I
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: think that was untenable because as challenging as the short-term
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: issues are here about the military conflict and those disagreements,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: you alluded to the longer-term disagreements, which are Netanyahu doesn't
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: believe in the creation of a Palestinian state. There's a
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: disagreement over who should govern Gaza after the war is over.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: The Biden administration wants it to be the Palestinian Authority,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu's that idea. So, you know, I think ultimately, like
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: you need your private and public messaging to align because A,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: it's going to leak out anyway. But B, I mean,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Netanyahu might want to pick a fight with you publicly
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and you have to be prepared for that.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Which is what he's done in the past, including Joe Biden,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: when Joe Biden went there as vice president in 2010.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: And he there was an announcement of settlements like as
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: he landed in Israel. Do you remember this? I'm sure
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: you lived it.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, the other dynamics which make this even more
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: complicated is, of course, there is a real threat from Iran.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's very fresh. And it's something where ensuring
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Israel is protected from that is a real thing.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: The other piece of this is the notion of like
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: a two-state solution being just like an easy next step.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I see a lot of– I understand what
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: else are people going to say, but I lived through
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: a year and a half of Middle East peace negotiations.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, the carry process.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, when the Israeli government had more members of the
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: coalition who were much more open to that, right? That
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: is a tremendous leap in order for that to happen. But, yes,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: to your point, Tommy, I think they made a bet.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: This is what happened. They made a bet. You said,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I think. where if he could hug Netanyahu, that Netanyahu
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: would moderate his behavior. That's not what happened. They made
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: a bet that all of these negotiations by people we know,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: and I tremendously respect, I think you do too, Brett McGurk,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: Bill Burns, and others, would result in a ceasefire, and
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: that keeping it just steady and keeping the relationship closed
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: publicly would help with that. That hasn't exactly been what resulted. Now,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: we don't know all the things happening behind the scenes.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: That hasn't been what resulted. So it is easy at
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: times to say they should have done this earlier. I
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: do think in this case, when history books are written,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: you know, they may evaluate that as well.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So last question on this. I mean, you worked in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the State Department for a while. You know, you have
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: seen this diplomacy happening behind the scenes. Like, what do
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you think people should know about the conversations that are
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: happening that they're not seeing, how the process works, why
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: it feels so agonizingly slow to get to a ceasefire,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to get to some sort of political accommodation with Hamas?
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, one is that a lot of these parties
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: don't talk directly to each other. And so that's an
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: added time because the United States is an arbiter at times,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: as are other countries. You know, we don't talk directly
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: to Iran except for periods of time when we sort
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: of did. So the United States is an arbiter between
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: these negotiations in many ways, talking to different players or
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: talking to a third country that is talking to Hamas. Right.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Talking to Qatar, who's talking to Hamas.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Talking to Qatar, who's talking to Hamas, or the Egyptians
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: or others who are talking to Hamas, and then also
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: talking to the Israelis. These parties don't trust each other.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: So it's not like sitting down at a table and
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: just saying, here's our proposal. What do you think? It
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: actually makes the whole thing about the debate seem quite simplistic.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: It does. Right?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: In many ways.
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: Seems easy.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: In many ways. The third piece is similar to congressional negotiations.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: The intricacies and the details of what they're discussing in
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: the room, even sometimes if one of those details becomes public,
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: it can blow the whole thing up. Not because the
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: press and the public doesn't have the right to know.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: It's actually because the parties, if all the parties know
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: all the machinations involved and all of the people who
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: have a stake in it, not necessarily even the parties
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: in the room, it can blow the whole thing up.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: And so that's why it feels quite opaque. It's opaque
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: on purpose. And that's why Bill Burns and Brett McGurk
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: and others are so quiet, say nothing, because they're trying
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: to work to a moment where even the slightest, you know,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: more aid getting through Egypt, a few more hostages released.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Some of these developments feel incremental, but they're significant and
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: the result of hours and hours and days and weeks
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: of negotiations.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And in the past,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: we've seen good faith actors and negotiations get close to deals,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: and then extremist groups like Hamas will do something to
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: try to blow up those talks on purpose. So those
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: leaks can actually lead to outcomes where deals don't get done.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: One more thing before we get to the book, Jen.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: So there was a report in Axios on Tuesday that
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: said President Biden and his top advisors don't actually believe
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: the bad polling numbers we're seeing at about, let's like
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the New York Times, which just dropped some pretty rough
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: swing state polls. On some level, my reaction to this
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: stuff is like, who gives a shit it's may, but
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: there is a broader debate that got kicked up on
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: social media about whether president Biden's inner circle is too small,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: whether he's getting good information, um, or outside information. You
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: were the press secretary. You were in the Oval Office
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: every day, briefing president Biden, talking with him. How does
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: information get to him? And like, what do you make
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: of that criticism that the circle is too small?
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I haven't, I left almost exactly two
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: years ago. Um, wild and wild. Um, So I haven't
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: been there in the Oval Office meeting with him in
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: that way in two years. But my experience was, remember,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: I didn't come in as a member of the inner circle.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't work on the Biden campaign. I had worked
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: for President Obama, of course, and, of course, knew Vice
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: President Biden through that, but not well. And so I
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: came in as not a member of the inner circle.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Brian Deese, a friend of ours, too, also same way.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: But both of us found ourselves people who were very
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: much in the inner circle as a part of the
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: briefing process and delivering information to the president. My experience
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: was he had an appetite. And this is actually not
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: dissimilar from President Obama. You're very cut off from the
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: world as president. I mean, for you, you're in the
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: Oval Office and you ring a bell and people bring
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: you a soda or whatever.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: You can't take a walk. You can't go to the store.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: You can't take a walk. And what he always wanted
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: to know from me is like, what are reporters asking about?
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: What are they talking about? Because he always felt like
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: that was almost a connection to the outside world. When
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I was there, what would happen is we would have
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: a morning meeting where we would go through what we
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: called NOTD, news of the day, a news of the
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: day document, Tommy. Nice acronym. Like the most likely questions.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: And through that, you would kind of debate what you
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: would say, what he would say. But I never experienced
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: withholding information from him. Also, he consumes information himself. Presidents
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: today have iPads with news. They have cable news. They
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: have information. My bet is he's asking them about the polls,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: and he has. Even when I was there, I would
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: ask people, why aren't the polls moving? This is the
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: question I also often get asked, right? Why aren't the
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: polls moving? This guy's sitting in a courtroom, right? What's happening?
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: On the specific New York Times-Siena poll, I mean, you
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: and I have both been a part of, like, when
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: you're in the war room of all the things on
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: a campaign or in a White House, and you're like,
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: F the man. Polls are terrible. And you have to
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: do that emotionally on some level. I've asked them about
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: this because I've seen their pushback. And their pushback makes
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: some sense, right? You're going to be a reality about polls. One,
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: I think it's not bad for Democrats to be kind
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: of freaked out about the election.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: I agree with that too, yeah.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: But this poll, one, a lot of the numbers that
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: are pushed out there most aggressively are not likely voters.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Likely voters is really what matters in terms of the
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: measurement of it. Two, some of the New York Times
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: reporting quotes people who are not even registered to vote.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, I didn't know that.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, who are not even registered to vote. It doesn't
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: mean it massively, dramatically impacted the poll, but it is
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: a little telling in how they reported it that said
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: they voted in the past. You know, and three, I
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: think for them, there are other polls that have happened
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: that show the race much tighter, including a number of
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: these states. So I think they're just trying, and I
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: understand this, to lower the freak-out temperature of people, right?
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: And we've been there. Both of us have been there.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: But in my experience, he got all the information and
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: was more curious. He's kind of a political animal of
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: why are the polls like that? Why is it saying?
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: That's what I expect his question would be. Why is
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: RFK getting 10 points in Wisconsin? What's going on there?
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: How the hell did that happen? Yeah, I mean, what
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: struck me, and I'm a total outsider here, I mean,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: even if he's not in denial about the polls or
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: rejecting the information, I have noticed that when he's asked
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: He often responds to questions about polling, which let's just stipulate,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: every question ever asked about a poll is annoying and
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: kind of stupid. But he gets asked about these things
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and he says stuff like, oh, you're looking at the
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: wrong polls, Jack, or he attacks the polling methodology.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: You're looking at the wrong polls, Jack. That is literally
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: a quote. I think that's a direct quote.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's a strategy or do you think
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: that's something he believes?
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I think it's a strategy.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: Because he's somebody who does look at the data and
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: does look at the numbers. Every president, every candidate denies
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: they look at the polls. They all pour over the polls. Like,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: come on, you know? But I think he knows that
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: if he shows, like, yeah, the polls are bad, I'm down,
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: it projects weakness to people. And I think that's a
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: real concern for them, as it is for kind of
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: any candidate. But sort of a traditional, not you're looking
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: at the wrong polls, Jack, but like, We don't even
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: look at the polls.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Like, yes, you do, you liar. But like, you know,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: it's everybody says that. So I think it's more a
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: public strategy than it is how he actually feels.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And they have like tons of survey data coming into
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the office, like private. Tons, you're right.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Internal data, internal polls, these thought bubbles of like what
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: words are popping.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: All sorts of things.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Infographics.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Infographics.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Dan Pfeiffer stuff. Dan had made the point that like
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: whether or not they believe these polls and this data,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: they're acting on it. Like they're campaigning in the key states.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing. It's sort of like you can't
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: be under your desk in the fetal position on a
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: campaign even when you're 10 points down because like what's
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: the point then? You're still trying to win.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Why are we here?
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: So you have to use it as a motivator. And
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: some of that motivator is sometimes like F the pollsters
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: and the New York Times coverage. And we've all been
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: a part of that. These polls are not great for them.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I'm not trying to sugarcoat that. I do think there
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: are some things about the reporting of it that I
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: see their argument on. But you also have to use
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: it as a motivator. And it doesn't mean you have
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: to use it as a motivator publicly where you're like,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: we are crying internally, but we're going to be okay.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: You have to kind of project confidence. Otherwise, what are
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: you doing?
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no one's going to support you or donate or
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: show up. Last thing on this, and I don't know
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: why I just thought of it. Did you go to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: the barbecue that President Biden had for Katie Johnson, who
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: is President Obama's personal secretary, when she left the job?
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, it was like a small group of us. She
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: threw this, like 10 people went over there to the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Naval Observatory.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Was it fun?
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: As we were driving in, I turned to whoever I
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: was in the car with. It might have been like
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Favreau and like Reed Churlin or somebody. I was like,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I want to get forehead to forehead contact before I
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: leave this with Joe Biden. Because that's one of the
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: things he does with people. He gets like real close
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: to voters and kind of like looks them in the
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: eye from like negative inches away. Swear to God, within
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: five minutes of being there, I had gotten forehead to
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: forehead contact from Joe Biden during a story about like
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: some horrible segregationist senator or something, whatever the fuck he
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: was talking about. And I was like, wow.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: You're like, this happened.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: I will tell you.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, because as I mentioned, I was new. And
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: I actually, when I started talking to them about the
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: press secretary job, I said, how am I going to
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: do this job? I really don't know him well. You
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: need to know him well. And they were like, you'll
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: get along with him fine. It's going to be great.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: And I was like, okay. But a couple of weeks
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: into the job, I remember sitting in the Oval Office
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: and thinking to myself, I want to project to the
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: press that I'm getting them information from him on his thinking, right?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: And you got to ask him the questions. because that
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: shows your relationship. And I said, sir, well, first I said,
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: this is a weird thing to say to a president,
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: which is always like once that comes out of your mouth,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: you're like, now I must continue my thought because I've
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: already made it weird. And I said, but I feel
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: like I've known you a long time because he has
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: this way of like, pull up a chair. What's going on?
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: And I said, sir, how are you doing? How are
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: you sitting with kind of like the weight of the presidency?
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: It was a very dramatic question looking back. And he
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: was like, I feel good about that and the choices
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: we've made. I can't find my socks because he is
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: so has a hard time adapting to like people unpacking
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: his stuff.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: It's like a different thing than he's existed in. So, yes,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: the forehead to forehead, you know, handhold. We've all experienced that.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: OK, we're going to take a quick break. But before
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: we do, you guys know the stakes of the 2024 election.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Jen and I have been talking about it for like
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: an hour now. And if you want to get involved,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: but you don't know where to start, we have got
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: you covered. Join Vote Save America 2024, organize or else.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: All you have to do is sign up. You get
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: assigned a team and you'll get matched with opportunities tailored
• 42:14
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• 42:17
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• 42:20
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• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the biggest prize of all, the continuation of American democracy.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024. Go now and get ready
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: to organize or else. This message has been paid for
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: or candidates committee. When we come back, we're going to
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: talk about Jen's new book, Say More.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Hi, everyone. It's Jen Psaki. I'm excited to tell you
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: that my weekly show on MSNBC, Inside with Jen Psaki,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: is also available as a podcast. I know from the
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: years I spent on campaign buses in foreign capitals and
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: in the Oval Office that there's always more to a
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: story under the surface. On my show, we try to
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: bring you inside all of it, breaking down the things
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: that matter and visiting with some of the most fascinating
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: people in the news today. Search for Inside with Jen
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Psaki wherever you're listening and follow.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: All right, Jen, let's talk about your book, Say More,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Lessons from Work, the White House and the World, because
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: it has tons and tons of of fun stories from
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: your time in politics that I think this audience is
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: going to love. Let's start with a simple one. You
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: write about the first time you met President Obama, then
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Senator Obama. How'd it go?
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Well, Tommy, I don't know if you remember the first
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: time you met President Obama.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, I do. It's horribly embarrassing, so I was hoping
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: we could swap.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: So you worked for him much earlier than I did.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: And John and I were talking last night about how
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: actually when he gave that amazing speech in 2004, he
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: and I were both backstage with the Kerry daughters who
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: were fighting over who was going to introduce their dad
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: at the convention, which really brings you back. But that aside,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to work for President Obama from
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: the moment I saw that speech. And then from when
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: I saw, because I was working in the Democratic Congressional
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: Campaign Committee, the response and reaction to him from all
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: these people running for Congress who wanted him to come
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: to their districts everywhere, everywhere. I knew I wanted to
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: work for him. I actually turned down a job with
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: the Clinton campaign. before knowing I had a job with
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: the Obama campaign. Oh, nice.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I turned down John Edwards.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: There you go. And I remember.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Bullet dodge there.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: And I was, and now this is like kind of
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: a funny detail now. I was like very down the
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: road in being Senator Menendez's communications director. I was like
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: down the road interviewing with him. And I called Robert Gibbs,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: who we love.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Our mentor.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Our mentor. And I said, listen, I may get a job.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I may get a Senate comms director job. I have
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: to know if I'm going to have a job. I
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: need to know soon. And he was like, oh, you
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: have a job. can you move here next week? That's
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: how it started. But anyway, long story short, about October
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: of 2007, and I started working in February for the campaign,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: I was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio to staff him, meaning
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: go with him to his events there. And I was
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: waiting in his car when he was going to get
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: off the plane from Chicago because, of course, as you know,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: they have you wait in the car so that they
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: can get the motorcade going immediately. And I was so
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: nervous in the car. It's weird.
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: You're like, It's weird.
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I'd never met him before. It's Barack Obama. Are you
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: kidding me? And he gets, and I thought to myself,
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: what should I say to him? And he gets in
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: the car and I said, you may be wondering who
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: I am and why I'm in your car, which I
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: thought was a pretty good line. It was a pretty
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: good line. Then I immediately got like the handle of
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: my bag caught on like part of the car and
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: the entire contents of my bag spilled out onto Barack Obama, pens, makeup, tampons,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: all of the things. To which you know him well.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: It was like very cerebral in his response, which was
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: almost worse because you're like, this man thinks I'm crazy
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: and he will never want to see me again. I
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: worked for him for 10 years and staffed him at
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: nearly every political event he ever did. But yes, that
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: was the beginning.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: That's great. I met him. By the way, when Robert
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: Gibbs hired me on the 2004 Senate campaign, similar thing.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I got a call. I run out of a restaurant
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and he's like, can you be in Chicago in a week?
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: You're making X amount. I thought he said $ 25, 000 a year.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: I was like, yup, sold. Turns out it was $ 2, 500
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: a month. So I got a raise on day one,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: which is pretty sweet.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: It's so crazy to remember how much money we made.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: It was like not minimum wage.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: No, it was not good. And then when I met
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: him finally, we had this office. And like at night,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the heat, the AC would go off at like five
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: or something when normal people left.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: It was on the Senate campaign.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: And then I was like eight o'clock and I'm sitting,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I'm like assembling press packs on the floor. I've like
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: sweating through everything and my shoes off and he fucking
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: walks in and that's my intro. I stood up and
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I'm like, hey.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And you're like, I really wanted to think about this moment.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: And that was not what I envisioned.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: You think you're going to say something profound? You did not.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: The time I met, sort of spent time with President
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Biden is right after we won in 2008, we had
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: all gone out. I don't like, we had all gone out. out,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: out like late. And I was so hung over and
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I strolled into the office and I think the only
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: clean pants I had happened to be khaki. So I
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: was like dressed kind of okay. And I get a
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: call from Fran. It's like, Hey, can you jump in
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: the VP's motorcade to the airport? And I'm like, why,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: what did the, what, why do you want me? And
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: did I do something wrong? And I got in, it
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: was me and Senator Kaufman. What's his first name?
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: I forget. Ted.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Ted Kaufman. And we rode. And I think President Biden
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: just like talked about like paper and process.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: You were in the car with Biden?
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I think they were trying to hire me to be
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: like in the VP staff or something.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: That's such an intense first meeting.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Dude, it was crazy.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: I've never heard this story before.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: I called Gibbs later. I was like, what the fuck
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: do I do? And he's like, just don't say a word.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: And I didn't. I didn't talk for, I didn't say
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: a word the whole time.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I think I was hungover.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Probably. It sounds like you may have been, but also
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: that's like a very intense conversation. Way to meet the
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: future vice president.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: It was a lot. And also in your book, Jen,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: you write about imposter syndrome.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Which is an affliction I too have suffered from my
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: entire adult life. I think it exists in all industries.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: But in politics, it's especially weird because you're like, oh,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: this person can like invade countries or whatever, President Obama.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: How did you get over it? Because I'll be honest,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: even today, I will see President Obama and I turn
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: into the 23-year-old staffer with his shoes off on the floor.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: And I just like never feel.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Same.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Normal.
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: Same. I feel the same way. Um, I think one,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about it in the book because one,
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: people would be shocked to hear you have a version
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: of imposter syndrome or many of the people I've talked
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: to about this, right? Because I think especially for people
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: who are earlier in their careers than you and I are,
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: even though we are very young and hip bucks, obviously, um,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: It feels a little bit like none of us experienced
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: that self-doubt, mistakes. I still have that today, of course.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people that would surprise
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: people do. For me, it really took being forced to
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: overcome it. And I tell the story in the book
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: about how, you know, and we knew each other on
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: the campaign. We knew each other. before this. I gave
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: you a tour of the Kerry campaign office and you
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: decided to go work for this guy running for Senate.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: And I was like, that was dumb. John Kerry is
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: going to be president. I don't even know who that
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: guy is. I was clearly, I was clearly off.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: I used to AOLM you when you're at the DCCC.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: You'd be like, how's it going over there?
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: What's happening? Do people want Barack Obama? Um, So it
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: took me... You know, for the first couple of years
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: of my time in the White House, I really felt
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: like my best role was to be kind of a
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: supporting player, not because people were demanding that upon me.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: In fact, to Robert Gibbs' credit, he got me into
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: the Economic Daily briefing and pushed me into the room.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Valley Jarrett pushed me a number of times. I worked
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: for our friend Dan, who was like an amazing boss.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: But I felt that my security was most comfortable if
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: I was like, I'll call back the reporter. I'll organize
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: that thing. I'll write the memo.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: And the problem with that is that you never put
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: your own voice into the discussion and your own strategic view.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: And it's hard then to make a leap into being
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: seen in that way. And it took really going back
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: to work for President Obama in 2012 when Plouffe called
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: me about coming back to the campaign. And I was like,
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: I must be in trouble. And then I was like, wait,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I don't work there anymore. I can't be in trouble.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: Plouffe is still my boss now. I'm like, what do
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: you need me to do? So it took him calling
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: me and me going back to the campaign and asking
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Robert Gibbs about how am I going to get president Obama?
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: There's no other choice. I'm the person from the campaign
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: traveling with him. I mean, Plov is going to travel sometimes.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: Jay Carney was of course, but Jay was going to be,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: you know, in the weeds of like whatever regulations were
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: being announced about a variety of things. It was my
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: job to brief him on political stuff. How am I
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: going to get him to take me seriously and not
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: see me as this 27 year old kid who dumped
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: the contents of her purse on his lap, which I'm
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: sure he didn't remember. I'm sure he definitely doesn't remember
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: now because I've told this story. So now who knows? But, um,
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: But it took that and me asking him and him saying,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: just act like you belong there because you do. At
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: a certain point, people will believe you, including you. It's
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: not a fake until you make it in the sense
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: like you were very qualified for the jobs you did,
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: as was I. But it is about pushing yourself to
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: recognize you have to force yourself to be seen in
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: the way you want to be seen. And being a
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: supporting actor and being a wallflower in the room was
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: I would be like, I don't want to go to
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: that meeting with the president because I was like, I'm
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: going to say something stupid. I would rather someone else go.
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: And it's actually exhausting and paralyzing in many ways. So
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: it really took that. And the benefit, you know, as
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: you know, I'd wanted to be the press secretary before
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: I got the job for Biden. The benefit of doing
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: what I did is that, you know, you just get
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: a little bit more comfortable in your own skin as
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: you get older. Right. There's something about like getting married,
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: having kids, having perspective in life and Becoming 40. There's
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: nothing magical about that. But something about it that when
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: I went back, I could smell the roses more. And
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: I also recognized I need it was incumbent upon me
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: to show President Biden that like we could have a
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: trusting relationship. I could give him tough feedback. But I
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: felt more prepared for that.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you were. I mean, you had done like
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: everything at that point. You had been at the State Department.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: You've been at the White House. I mean, of course,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: you were like the best prepared person to be press
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: secretary that I could imagine, given that experience.
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't make it easier. to tell the president
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: of the United States, Barack Obama, that they're wrong. No.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: And that they're wrong because your judgment tells them they're wrong.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: And recognize they may say, no, you're wrong. Right. I mean,
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: that's part of it. And you have to say, okay,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: you're the president.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: Cool. Yeah.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about Afghanistan because I could tell in
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: the book that that was just a searing experience for
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: everybody that worked there, which is not to compare it to,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: you know, like the impact of the people who were
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: killed or their families.
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: No.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: But just being in the White House at that time
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: sounds really brutal. But you not only had to manage
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the communications around what was happening, you had to explain
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: to President Biden why his meeting with some bereaved families,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the families of the soldiers who'd been killed at Abbey
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Gate in that terrorist attack, had not gone well, why
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: that meeting had gone badly. Can you tell that story
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: and what that was like?
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I wanted to tell that story for
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: a couple of reasons. One is that even people who
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: are well-intentioned, as President Biden is when he shares the
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: story of his own personal loss, which he still gets
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: emotional and choked up about, talking about the loss of Beau,
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: the loss of his first wife and his daughter, that
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: it doesn't mean it's always well-received. And it's also up
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: to the audience to determine how they receive it. And
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: in this case, you have these gold star families who
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: had lost. It was the worst day of their lives,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: the worst thing that had ever happened to them ever.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: in this attack on Abbey Gate, where they lost men
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: and women who've been serving our country. And even though
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: President Biden's intention was good, it was not what they
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: needed to hear. It was not what was healing them.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: And for some of them, it was an affront. And
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: they have the absolute right to feel that way. And
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: it was my intention in telling that story to convey, one,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: that I had to give that feedback to President Biden
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: because the New York Times was writing a story. And
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: it was also important for him to know that. But
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: how wounding that is when you're telling someone You sharing
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: the loss of your son is not something that is
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: helping them heal. To his credit, what he said was,
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: I thought I was helping them. But also my effort
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: was to validate their experience and validate that even if
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: it's not your intention, that that's their response is how
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: they felt. Unfortunately, there was a couple of lines included
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: in there about him looking at his watch that will
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: be fixed in future versions of the book. it's not
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: an important part of the story in the sense that
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: my objective was to validate their feelings, nothing else. But
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: it is important for people to understand that, you know,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: even as president, even as a CEO, even as somebody
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: with the best intentions with somebody who's been through something difficult,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: that you have to really read the room and read
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: the audience of the people you're talking to and allow
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: them the space to feel how they feel about what
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: you're conveying to them.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It sounds like, you know, even in that case,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: when it's You're sharing something that's so searing and so
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: personally painful in an effort to make it a connection
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and to know that that failed, I imagine, was just
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: incredibly difficult for him.
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I almost thought, and I tell this in the book,
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: but I almost thought that the phone line had dropped
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: because he was so quiet in the moment as he
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: was trying to digest what had happened.
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: And he's a band who's experienced so much tragedy and
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: is so generous about sharing his own pain if he
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: thinks it will help others. I know Ben Rhodes has
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: a story where He was giving a West Wing tour
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: to a family who had lost a child. And for
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: those who don't know, I mean, when you do a
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: West Wing tour, the staffers themselves give it. There's not
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: like a tour guide that walks you around. You're the
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: one giving the tour to people. And Ben and this
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: couple ran into President Biden. And Ben said, you know,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: that their story just kind of poured out of them,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: you know, and they're crying and they're telling him what happened.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: And he was sort of consoling them. And, you know,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: it's like seven o'clock at night, right? Usually these tours
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: happen after we all had eaten dinner from the mess
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And President Biden took 10, 15 minutes out
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: of his day, the end of a long day, to
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: just personally console this couple. And so later this couple
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: sent Ben a note that was like, we want you
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: to know that that moment changed our lives. We were
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: able to move on in a way we hadn't and
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: heal in a way we hadn't. Can you please pass
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: this message along to President Biden? So Ben- relayed that
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: to the vice president. 20 minutes later, Ben gets a
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: call at his desk. Hey, it's Joe Biden. Can you
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: give me their number? I want to check in. And
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: everyone has a story like that.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: There's so many stories like that. And that's important for
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: people to know and understand too, is that when people
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: are going through grief and loss, there's no magical words
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: that's going to change what they've been through. His sharing
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: of his own personal story has helped so many people
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: and his empathy has I mean, you know, there's this
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: story from 2007 or 8, and I didn't know him
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: at the time, but one of my husband's mentors, her
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: grandson was dying of cancer. He was maybe 10 or 11.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I don't remember the age. And on a trip to Ohio,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: she was a big Democratic activist, and the vice president
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: met the grandson and not just met him. He took
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: him in his car to the plane, gave him a
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: tour of the plane, spent all this time with him.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: does that change the, of course not, or the grief,
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: but it also shows his empathy and his care. And
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: that is really who he is. But I think he
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: also recognizes, because I'm sure there are things that people
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: have said to him over the years that didn't hit
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: right and were well-intentioned, but weren't the right thing to say.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the hardest things about being a spokesperson
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: in politics is that you get no leeway for making
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: a mistake in good faith, right? If you convey inaccurate information,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: you're called a liar. Different people can have different recollections
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: of the same event, as often happens. You wrote about
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: a particularly tough case from your time with Senator Kerry,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: then Secretary Kerry, that involved a military coup in Egypt
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: and a yacht. Tell us a little bit more about that.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: It's never a good combo, those things, Tommy. Is that
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: a good combo?
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: One, it was a coup. Can we all just admit
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: that now? I think we can. I couldn't call it
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: a coup at the time. I was caught on a
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: hot mic at the time saying like, these talking points
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: are ridiculous. I can't keep saying this. These talking points
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: are ridiculous. So it was July 3rd or 4th, right?
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: Which is relevant mainly because this was all, the news
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: was breaking when I was at a July 4th event
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: with friends, actually. Kate Bedingfield now, which is a longtime
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: good friend of mine. And this news was breaking. I
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: called some of Kerry's aides, traveling aides, to say there's
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: reporting that suggests he was on a yacht today when
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: this coup was breaking. Now, just if we step back
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: for a moment, a Secretary of State can do calls
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: from anywhere and can do work from anywhere, and I
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: should have, that's what we should have said.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: He wasn't going to rappel down into Cairo with a
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: machine gun.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: No, but also it was bad optically, let's be honest. So,
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: In the breakup of the phone call, I heard them
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: say he was not on the yacht. Now he was
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: on the yacht, but I put out a statement saying
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: he was not on the yacht. It became very clear
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: the next day with photos that he was on the yacht.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I had not intentionally, it was literally like bad phone connection.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: And I should have just checked with more people. At
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: that moment, I was like, oh my, oh God. And
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: so what I did was I called every single reporter
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: I'd spoken to and apologized and said, this was not
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: my intention, you know? And I also put out a
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: statement falling on the sword. Now, people attacked me, all
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: the things that happens over the course of days. But
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: I do think with the reporters, some of whom you
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: and I know well, who can be tough and like
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: all the things, I had established credibility for years before that.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: They didn't think of me as some liar, right? And
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: so that helped me in that moment, even though I
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: put them in an awkward position, although I fell on
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: the sword. So the point of that is like, You
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: have to own up to your mistakes when you make them.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: We all make mistakes, you know, and they are hopefully unintentional.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: I like to think mine are. But in that moment,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: that's what I did. And I thought the world was
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: going to end and it didn't.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, look, I've been there. I mean, I remember there
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: was an example when I was the NSC spokesman. The U.S.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: had interdicted some weapons shipments. From Iran to the Houthi
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: rebels in Yemen.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: This already sounds really complicated and nerdy. And I'm a nerd.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what?
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: As one does. Yeah, no, the Houthis, they've been, they're
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: pretty hot on TikTok right now. There's some hot pirates. Anyway,
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: so somehow the details don't matter.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: That joke is going to hit with.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Someone out there. Like four people, like Ben and like
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: one other guy.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: Someone is going to hit. Ben's roaring somewhere right now.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: So the New York Times hears about this interdiction of
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: these weapons to the Houthis. They call me for comment.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: I go ask John Brennan about whether this happened, who
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: was the national security advisor to Obama at the time.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: John is like, you have to get them to delay
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: this report. This will blow up all our work with
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the Yemeni government. It will undo years of counterterrorism work, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, okay, I'll do my job. I call
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: the reporter back. He agrees. I get him to delay.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Like six hours later, the Yemeni Navy puts out a
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: press release taking credit for this operation. And this guy
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: calls me and is like, what the fuck? You lied
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: to me. You screwed me. Trashed me with his colleagues.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think I ever talked to me again. I
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: sent like five apology emails or whatever. And it's like,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: to this day, I don't know what happened. But there's
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: so much trust. Listen, I'm not saying that people who
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: are spokespeople, they don't have responsibility, but you have to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: put a lot of trust in the people around you
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: to get good information that you then convey. And especially
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: in national security jobs, we were constantly told, try to
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: get this reporter not to report on something about intercepted
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: intelligence or whatever it might be. And like, you have
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: to believe that the person you're getting that steer from
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: is trustworthy. And I think John Brennan is like the
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: most trustworthy guy I worked with, by the way. I
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: think something weird happened here. I don't think it was
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: John's fault, but also then the journalists have even less
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: information than you do and they have to trust you.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: I know there's so many layers of trust in the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: whole process. I, And you also have to make the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: calculation as a spokesperson. I mean, I was kind of
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: generally a believer, unless it was like, because some of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: those examples you're talking about are like, if this is reported,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: it will put people's lives at risk, right? Things along
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: those lines. That's a different category. I was of the
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: belief most of the time in my time at the
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: White House, which I can admit now, that if somebody
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: had a story, just let them roll with the story.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: Good on you. Good on you and your good reporting, right? Yeah.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: I'm never going to litigate people. I never, I don't think,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: litigated people to the death of a story that they
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: accurately reported, even if they were ahead of where we are.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: It can be a pain in the neck. But also,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: that's what freedom of press is, by the way. And
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: that's how democracy works. And so at that point, then
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: you have to manage the impact of it because they
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: did good reporting. Good for them.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: One time, I think it was like the Wall Street
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Journal got a scoop that the U.S. We had conveyed
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: some information to the Iranian government through the United Nations,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: through Susan Rice. So the journal had it.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: Our other channel. We always have channels.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: We have lots of channels.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: But you know how this goes. So one outlet gets
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: a scoop. Everybody else descends on you to confirm it.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: And with the New York Times in particular, it would
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: be like eight reporters. You'd get big-footed seven different times. And, like, finally,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: David Sanger was the final boss who would, like, stomp
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: on your head.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: David Sanger is calling.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: So Helene Cooper calls. She's a great reporter from the
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: Times now covering the Pentagon. It's like, hey, man, like,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I got shit to do. I'm on deadline. I know
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: this happened. Can you just confirm it on background? And
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like, sure. And she and then she confirms it
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: as a White House official instead of like the weasel
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: words we normally use. And Susan Rice calls me and
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: is like, motherfucker, did you confirm this?
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: I was like, I did. I'm really sorry. I know
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I wasn't supposed to.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Because it happened.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: This is also part of credibility with reporters. Right. Because
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: I think over time you develop a credibility with them
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: because of that. And because you're like, you know, there's
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: all sorts of language press people use. It's funny if
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: you could throw yourself back into this. Like, I can't
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: confirm it, but I'm not going to steer you off it.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: So if you want to confirm it as like an
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: on deep background, as an unnamed official, nobody's going to
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: argue you're wrong. It's like a whole circle of stuff.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: This is always true with personnel. Like I oversaw the
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: war room for the transition. It was like there was
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: a leak every day about some sort of person. But
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: unless it's like somebody's life is at risk, right? And
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: when there are negotiations that might topple, obviously that's a factor.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: But it does establish your credibility so that you can
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: go back to them and be like, your story on
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: this is wrong. And then they're like, oh, yeah, I
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: remember the seven times you helped me out. Right.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: Well, and speaking of this sort of like need to
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: know thing, you wrote about how Ron Klain, who was
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: the chief of staff to President Biden.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Future debate prepper.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: Future debate prepper.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: And former.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: Former.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Informer and just a brilliant guy. But he had sort
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: of a need to know approach to reading in spokespeople information,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: meaning he would only tell you what you needed to know.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Because I think you said that Ron's theory of the
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: case was like, it's too hard to disaggregate in your
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: own mind what is public and private information. So might
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: as well withhold the private information. And I read that in, look,
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: Ron's a great guy and he was trying to manage
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: like an impossible to manage place. But I read that
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: and it struck me as so wrong and frustrating because one,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: I always felt like press people don't leak for the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: same reason janitors don't throw shit on the floor. Because
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: we're all mopping it up later, right? Right.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: Last people to leak, press people.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Right. Because, like, I don't want to have to deal
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: with this. Yeah. And then second, you alluded to this earlier, like,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: reporters know if you are read into something and you
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: have a relationship with the boss and are in the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: mix or you're just repeating talking points. And, like, you
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: just have less credibility if it's the latter.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: Totally. And also the context of understanding things. from being
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: in the meeting and the discussion helps you be a
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: better communicator. You know, it's not your job to read
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: from a piece of paper. It's your job to explain. Yeah,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: and to his credit, he just had kind of an
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: older school view of that. He's not the only one
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: who's had that view over the course of time. I
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: think there were some through the course of past administrations
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: who had that view. I think I benefited from, as
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: you benefited from, when you've been communicating about national security issues,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: as I did for two and a half years at
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: the State Department, You fully understand how to hold back
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: things that you can't share publicly. And I always felt
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: that the days I was best was the days I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: fully understood the complete scope of an issue to the
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: point where I, you know, I would like, and Jake
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: actually understood this much in a more instinctual way.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: Where I would not, I didn't, you don't invite yourself
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: to meetings typically, but I would, I went to him
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: a couple of, during a couple of moments, like around
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: Ukraine and Russia and around Afghanistan, I was like, I
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: have to sit in these meetings. I'm not going to
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: say anything. He was like, you can say things. I'm like,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: I don't need to say anything. I'm not going to
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: say anything, but I need to understand the scope of
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: what's happening because then I can help and I will
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: always come back to you. And then what would happen,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: because sometimes these talking points go through a bureaucratic process
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: and they say nothing on the end, is I could
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: go back to them and say, here are the five
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: questions I'm going to be asked. Here's what I think
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: I should say, right? Walk me back. Sometimes they did,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: sometimes they didn't. But there were times where I was like,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: I have to be in the room because otherwise I
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: can't be effective at doing the job.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: Boy, you talk about imposter syndrome, though. When you're literally
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: sitting in a chair behind the chairman of the Joint
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: Chiefs and the secretary of defense and the secretary of state,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: how did I get in there?
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: First of all, I don't tell this story in the book,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: although I do tell the story of ripping my pants
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: in front of Barack Obama, not an extended version, which
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: is a very embarrassing story. But There was one day,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: to your point, where I was– I had kind of
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: invited myself. And I always said this to Jake. I'm
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: not trying to invite myself. He's like, you're welcome to come.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: It's fine. Stop being weird about it, right? But I
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: went to a meeting that was– I think it was
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: related to early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: And I– it was an important meeting. I don't remember
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: what it was about. And it started at 8 in
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: the morning. I go to the, like, ladies' room that's
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: right near the sit room on the bottom floor. And
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: I realize I have split my pants. And I'm like–
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: what am I going to do? And I was like, well,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: I'm not missing the meeting, so I'm going to figure
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: it out. I literally, it was like I had a
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: leaf structure. I had a binder, which I just walked
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: in front of myself into the sit room room and
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: just put it on top of my lap. And then
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: even as we were chatting afterwards, I just was like
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: holding the binder in front of me and my split pants. Now,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: the funny part of this, if that isn't funny enough,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: is Chairman Milley, if anybody doesn't know who he is,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: Google him. He would play himself in the version of
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: the movie because no one more looks like the chairman
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: of the Joint Chief of Staff was sitting right across
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: from me. And I was like, that man knows I
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: split my pants. I can like feel it in his
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: like bushy eyebrow gaze. So That happens.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Did he get good intel on the pants splitting?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. But he has that vibe to him.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he does have that vibe. That bathroom right by
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the sit room was always the site of the most
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: awkward simul peeing at a urinal. I remember one time.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: We didn't experience that in the same way.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: I was up there next to Dave Petraeus one time
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, how are you, sir?
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: Are you like me, man? How are you?
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: He literally goes, oh, I'm having a great time. Just
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: started the CIA. Got amazing authorities. If you ever have
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: the chance to do this job, you should take it.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: You're like, what the fuck just happened?
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: That's an intense engagement at the urinal.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One of my best.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: I'm going way long. So I'm going to ask you
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: a last question, Saki. Because everyone should just buy the book.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: Say more because all these stories are in there and
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: much more. You'll hear about Peter Doocy. You'll hear about
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: Jen being the subject of relentless Russian disinformation and propaganda
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: when she was at the State Department. That part actually
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: really sucked. If someone asked us about communications best practices
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: 20 years ago, We probably would have said things like,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: apologize when you're wrong. Mean it. Don't ever lie. Answer
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: questions directly. Take tough questions from reporters. And then Trump
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: comes along and he lies all the time. He never apologizes.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: He hides in like the Hugh Hewitt right wing safe space.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: And he got elected president and he's got a 50th
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: chance of doing it again. Were we wrong? Is he special?
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Did the world change? Like, what do you make of this? Yeah.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: Is he special?
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: No. He's very special.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: You know, one, I think that as dangerous and dark
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: as it is, his message is effective because it's been
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: consistently the same since 2015. In a weird, more light way,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Barack Obama is similar in that he was hope and
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: change for many, many years. It was consistent. People knew
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: who he was. But Trump has been the guy, the
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: aggrieved candidate who's running against the system and tearing apart
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: the system since he announced his run for president. Consistency
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: is effective. Simple message is effective, even as dark and
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: dangerous as it is. Also, emotional message is effective. He
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: is tapping into people across the country who feel aggrieved.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: Millions do. The economy isn't working for them. The system
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: isn't working for them. Government's hugely unpopular. All of those things. Now,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: he doesn't give a shit about you. He just cares
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: about himself. He's really the aggrieved ones he cares about.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: But that message is effective. Emotional messaging is effective. And
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: this is where I knew and I lived through. I mean,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: when you were like negotiating about hooties and what your story,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: you went down the nerd rabbit hole. I loved every
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: moment of it. I was doing economic messaging. And remember
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: the early days where we communicated about data.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: And GDP and bending the cost.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Curve, bending the cost curve. I talk about that in
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: the book too. that is not how people make decisions.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: They make decisions by emotions and how you make them feel.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: And Trump makes, not everybody, he makes a lot of
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: people feel scared for good reason, but he makes a
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: certain percentage of the population feel heard. So, I don't
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: know if anything's massively changed as much as, like, the
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: emotional appeal of communications is still a thing.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: Very well said. Jen Psaki, great to see you.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Great to see you.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: Everyone should buy the book. Everyone should watch your show
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: on MSNBC and, uh, Love having you here.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: And we need to get you, like, more sleep and coffee.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: And congratulations on being a father of two. The relationship
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: between them is the most magical thing, even if you
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: want to curse everyone because you're not sleeping.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: We could not be happier. It was a very long,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: challenging road to get here. And it feels extra, extra special.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: And we feel incredibly blessed.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Congratulations.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content,
• 1:13:02
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• 1:13:04
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• 1:13:08
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• 1:13:21
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• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farrah Safari. Kira
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: Wakim is our senior producer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 1:13:32
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• 1:13:35
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• 1:13:42
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• 1:13:44
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• 1:13:48
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