Pod Save America - Trump Subverts Gag Order with Wannabe VPs

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Joe Biden surprises Donald Trump with a debate challenge, and Trump accepts. Tommy and MSNBC’s Jen Psaki discuss the strategy behind Biden’s move and how likely it is that those debates will actually happen, Trump’s courthouse surrogate operation, the latest with Israel and Gaza, and whether it’s true that Biden thinks the polls are wrong. Then, Tommy and Jen relive the best White House stories from Jen’s new book, Say More: Lessons from Work, The White House, and the World. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitori. And I'm Jen Psaki. I am thrilled to be joined by my good friend Jen Psaki in studio in Los Angeles. I'm so happy to be here. It's great to see you. It's great to be here. First of all, you have a one-week-old baby? A one-week-old baby. One week and one day old now. Eight days. It really matters in the beginning. You count the days.

Okay. So we have a 17-month-old and now an eight-day-old. And just the difference in size. Suddenly my daughter looks like a giant. Yes, it's so true. And seems very advanced. She talks a lot. She has a lot to say. Uh, not walking very much. How does she like the baby? She sort of treats the baby like the dog, which is where we don't grip the hair. We pat, pat, pat, gentle, but sometimes pat, pat, pat is a little more like slap, slap, slap. But we're doing good. I think I'm excited for him to have a big sister. Yeah.

Because I think big sisters are a good influence and big brothers can get you things. I will say, because you know, I'm a few years ahead of you on the children, but I have a big sister. My daughter is eight and a half. My son is six. They're a little bit farther apart in age. It is the greatest combination because even now, if he's kind of having a meltdown, she'll be like, hey, buddy, hey, buddy, calm down. She's like another little mom in the house. We love it. It sounds amazing. Honestly, it is wonderful. I'm so glad he's here. And Hannah's doing great.

Hannah, like, by the way, having a C-section and then bouncing back 24 hours later, like, I don't know how she does it. No, been there. I don't know. She must be, like, a complete superhuman. I also think sleep deprivation is a real thing nobody acknowledges. And when you have children, that is the thing. Thank God for a couple nights in the NICU and let us sleep. But anyway, everyone's happy, healthy. We're home. Jen, as you guys know, has worked in top

communication jobs in the Obama and Biden administration. She's the host of Inside with Jen Psaki on MSNBC and the author of a new book, which I'm holding up. Say more. Thank you. Lessons from Work, the White House and the World. Thank you. You've lived through a number of these stories. You know, a lot of these stories felt very real. I was kind of there with you for some of them. Yes. And I can't wait to talk about all of them. We got a great show, though, today.

We're going to talk about the latest headlines from Michael Cohen's testimony in the New York Hush Money case, the way Trump is using a novel surrogate operation to get around his gag order. That's such a diplomatic way of saying it. Must be your time in the NSC. He's inviting the dumbest people he knows to come hang out at the court, like Tommy Tuberville. That guy kills me. We're going to talk about the latest from Gaza, the challenge of public messaging about private diplomatic discussions,

something Jen did a lot when she was the State Department spokesperson, especially with a government like Dan Yahoo's, which we don't always agree with. And frankly, sometimes they want to pick a fight with us. We'll talk about an Axios report that Biden is in denial about bad polling and Jen's sense of kind of how information gets in and out of the Oval Office. But first, Jen, let's have a debate about debates. Shall we? Shall we? Should they?

Should they not? Between when we woke up and when we produced this show, a lot has happened. I mean, between when we were texting about the show yesterday and this morning, like there's the things... Entirely different schedule. Yeah, there's huge ramifications for you on your show on MSNBC, for us here. So there was a lot of skepticism about whether these two would debate at all. This morning, that all seems to have changed.

I'm still a skeptic a little bit. I think it's well-held skepticism. But let's listen to a clip of President Biden. Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. It's since then he hasn't shown up for debate. Now he's acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I'll even do it twice.

So let's pick the dates, Donald. I hear you're free on Wednesdays. It sounds a little bit like the clip from Home Alone, a movie I've watched recently because of my kids. Make my day, buddy. Yeah. Yeah, a little dirty, hairy. I hear you're free on Wednesdays is very funny.

That's when the trial is off. I like that. That's clever. Wednesdays, yeah. He's free. So then Trump went on Hugh Hewitt's radio show this morning and responded in classic Trump style. We'll hear a clip of that. You know, he's issuing it. I wonder whether or not he shows up because, you know, he also challenged me to golf.

So I'm a very good golfer. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. He said, I'll give him three a side. But he knows he'll never play. This is sort of like that, I think. June and September would be great if you can agree on the size of the table and the moderators. Why don't you look at the statement? I just put out a statement. You should have it on your hot wires. You get everything. Gotta love those hot wires.

They're golf hot wires. It's just like golf, isn't it? Debating in a presidential campaign, just like a round of golf. Give them three strokes in the debate course. I don't know. Okay, so before when we woke up to now, the two sides agreed to a debate on June 27th at CNN studios in Atlanta with no audience, a VP debate in July, and then there's gonna be another presidential debate on September 10th hosted by ABC. The key detail here is these campaigns

are now negotiating directly. They're circumventing the commission on presidential debates, which has set the dates and ground rules since 1988. Hating on the commission has become a bipartisan sport in Washington. The RNC pulled out of the commission process in 2022 after saying it was biased. The Biden campaign criticized the commission's original proposal because they started the debates after early voting had begun and they prioritized in-person audiences over the people watching at home. So, Jen, what do you make of this debate? Well, and then Trump also truth.

Is that the term? Yes, he did. About a Fox debate in October. Third debate. Right. Which the Biden team, at least as at the moment of our taping, has not agreed to. I'd be shocked if they do. But I think this is an interesting play by the Biden team. I mean, when he was asked by Howard Stern a couple of weeks ago, he said, yes, he would debate. And I don't think he had another choice. He had to say that. Because if he hadn't said that, it would have sounded weak. And one of the challenges they have right now is this feeling of chaos and weakness. A lot of these issues are so much more complicated. I know we'll dive into a lot of them,

whether it is protests on college campuses, what's happening in the Middle East, even kind of Putin still being out there and crazy. But it feels chaotic. And I think, and it feels a little weak that he can't unilaterally make all of these things calm. And if he had said, I'm considering it, it would have fed into the Sleepy Joe narrative that they've done a pretty good job of beating back post, of course, the

drugs he apparently took the night of the State of the Union. Those did help, apparently. So they had to do that. This was interesting because it's now May. It's hard to believe, but we're talking about a debate in June. We were just talking about how that feels stressful. How is that possible? Because you have to prep for it. But I think internally they knew that at some point this was going to hit ahead and they were either going to be ahead of it or be responding to Trump. That's right. So it was smart in that sense. I think it was also smart that they put out this letter of their criteria, which basically none of this is on the level this entire in many ways, in terms of how Trump is operating. But it did put the Trump team on their back feet where they had to just agree to that.

If they tried to litigate things on there, they would have looked a little weak. That's right. Yeah. I mean, also, like, I think doing this a little earlier, it just means it's less existential. Yeah. A June debate. I know a thousand things could happen between July and kind of the end of the year. Yeah. And I know I talked to some Biden people this morning. I mean, they just had no confidence in the debate commission anymore. Yeah.

The commission completely screwed up in 2020. They let Trump ignore its policies on COVID testing and masking, which nearly infected President Biden. And if people watch that video now, it will just throw you off because Trump looks unwell. He looks unwell. And also Melania just strolls in with the kids. They're all unmasked. Melania tested positive five days later. So like they could have killed the current president of the United States before he was elected. I know that Biden's team also felt like the commission bent over backwards to create a schedule this time that seemed advantageous to Trump because they were worried about enticing

him into this process. Pulling him in. Right. It was kind of on his game. So in a sense, they took control over it. Now, what's hard or not, I mean, you could argue it every which way, is that Trump could certainly say, I never agreed to those specifics in the letter. And he probably will. And that's how this all falls apart. Even though he's basically said, I would debate him anywhere, anytime. And also, there is a huge question of who is going to be the moderator. Trump will be like, I want the MyPillow guy, but I'll settle for Sean Hannity. Well, in his Fox Truth, he put out, I believe, Brett Baier.

Oh, yeah. And Martha McCallum. And Martha McCallum. And Martha McCallum. Let me read the truth. This is what he said. Please let this truth serve to represent that I hereby accept debating crooked Joe Biden on Fox News. The debate will be Wednesday, October 2nd. The host will be Brett Baer and Martha McCallum. Thank you, comma, DJT.

Hereby, hereby. It was like he was doing a like an indoctrination or unveiling a scroll. Yes, yes. Or something along those lines. A proclamation. It's a little trickier at CNN and ABC because he's attacked probably all of those people. Oh, yeah. And you're going to get a real journalist there.

Right. You'll get a real journalist who's going to ask tough questions. So it's a little bit different. Yeah. So Trump also put in another truth accepting this challenge, let's get ready to rumble. I'd be lying if I said the prospect of this debate doesn't make me a little anxious. Like these events play to his strength as an entertainer, a bullshitter. You know, sometimes sitting presidents get a little rusty, as we learned when Obama got worked in the first debate with Mitt Romney. The 2012 debate, which I will

just, as just like a slight aside, because you're referring to the first debate with Mitt Romney. The 2012 debate, which I will just, as just like a slight aside, because you're referring to the first debate in 2012, which President Obama, who we both worked for, was not at his best. No. I think it's gentle to say. No. It was not a good debate. Very bad.

Afterwards, I don't think he fully knew it wasn't a good debate afterwards. That's my recollection. So David Axelrod, David Pluffett, to tell him, the next morning I had the unenviable task of doing a round of the morning shows, including Fox. And I very distinctly remember a producer from Fox getting me the microphone and saying, good luck with the vipers out there. Because one, it was Fox, but two, it had been terrible, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, I also remember Obama the next day. One, I was Fox, but two, it had been terrible, right? Oh, yeah. No, I also remember Obama the next day. One, I said to him on the plane, yeah, how are you doing, sir?

And he was like, I am great. And I was like, oh. Are you? Well, also, that's a strange thing. That wasn't really his vibe. But then he gave one of the best stump speeches that day in Denver because I think his back was against the wall. And in many ways, it was a wake-up call. But, yeah, presidents can be rusty.

So there's some risk. What's also interesting, though, is Trump and his truthing this morning. Loves to truth. Loves it. He's also talking about how Joe Biden is a terrible debater. Right. He's kind of lowering the bar here. Which is kind of, as you and I have done, when your boss is debating, you're like, he barely can write a sentence. I don't even know how he'll be able to deliver a line. It's remarkable he made it to the stage. I remember the Bush people said John Kerry was the best debater since Cicero.

That was their line in 2004. Yeah, Trump's like, I'm going to debate the shit out of this corpse. He's terrible. He's a terrible debater. So there's that. It is a good sign, regardless of how this could fall apart, which I think is quite possible, that Ron Klain, who is the chief debater prepper, I don't even, he is, this is one of his many superpowers. Super Bowl, yeah. He has agreed to do the debate. I mean, he is very close to the president. He's prepped nearly every candidate for this. He is a master of it. So he's agreed to do it, which is a good sign. But there's still risks. Of course, there are. I mean, how do you prep for this besides like get your vaccines up to speed, I guess?

Well, that at all. Yeah. There's a physicality of it. I mean, I keep thinking of the Clinton debates with Hillary Clinton. And obviously, Trump wouldn't do the same thing to Biden. But when he's like looming in the background, looming in the background. I also think there is and you can see the shift in how the Biden campaign has been attacking Trump versus how they did it four years ago, which I think is interesting because four years ago it was a lot of like highbrow. We're for democracy. You're against democracy. And there's some of that. But they needle him more now and they needle him on social media. They needle him in posts. They needle him in speeches. And I think there'll be more of that. the debate ended, they cut to Jake Tapper and Jake's like, that's the worst debate I've ever seen in my life. And that was like

the consensus opinion from straight journalists. Yeah. Well, now there's the question of debates, but do debates matter, which we're not quite there. It's an important question. We'll find out. Yeah. We'll see. Well, I think you're right though. Like, look, this is probably not over this story, but exciting morning. A lot happened today. Yeah. A lot has also happened in New York where we had former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen on the stand this week at the hush money trial. We learned that Trump personally directed Cohen to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels to cover up Trump's affair with her. We learned lots of detail about how Trump and Cohen disguised the payments by calling them retainer fees for legal work. They were not. Dan and John will get into all of the details of the legal case later with special guest Norm Eisen, who taught us how to be ethical. I know. I do love Norm Eisen. He has a new book out. He does have a new book out. Norm is just a nerdy. And I mean that in the best way possible. I love nerds. I live in Washington, D.C. They're my neighbors and my friends. He'll be great. He'll get into all the legal eagleness of it all. In a town where sometimes people approach the job without a

personality, Norm was the opposite. No, you would hear him coming down the hall. He would make you laugh like he's the best. But Jen, so Trump has been flanked by all these special surprise guests. We had Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. We had Alabama Senator and bona fide idiots Tommy Tuberville. We had J.D. Vance, the Ohio senator. Here's a clip of Speaker Johnson from outside the courthouse. I called President Trump and told him I wanted to be here myself to call out what is a travesty of justice. And I think everybody around the country can see that. President Trump is a friend and I wanted to be here to support him.

There's so much to unpack here. Well, shall we start? Yeah. So what do you make of this like surrogate operation support group? Like, what do we what do we think we're doing here? Well, I mean, J.D. Vance was there. Vivek Ramaswamy is coming. Tommy Tuberville, the gift that keeps on giving in the Senate, specifically to Mike Johnson. Just for one second. Mike Johnson was called to be the speaker by God for his own description. Yet the moment he decides to be out there

aggressively supporting President Trump in this manner is him flying to New York City to not stand by his side and also defend him when the former president is sitting in a courtroom because he paid hush money to a former adult film star and had an alleged affair with her while his wife was pregnant. Right?

Good defamation training, by the way. Alleged. Alleged. I heard it. But is that, is God calling you to do that? Is that, so there's a whole hypocrisy thing there. This man installed an app on his phone and his son's phone so they wouldn't watch porn called Covenant Eyes.

Well, that was- Now he's sitting in this. That was an initial flag that maybe we were going to come to this moment. So in some ways it's validating. But I would say overall, it tells you a lot about the Republican Party and Trump's ownership of the Republican Party. And this big question you guys talk about, I talk about of, is there a post-Trump? Well, you have the leading Republicans, people who want to be the vice president, but somebody who is the speaker of the House, who have basically been saying Trump still won the 2020 election.

Many of them have. Not all, but many of them have. Have been laying the groundwork to question the 2024 outcome, which I think people should not miss. I mean, Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott. Tim Scott was pushed on this on Meet the Press a week or so ago, And he basically said, Kristen Poster multiple times. That's my that's my statement. Right. Right. It's like your statement is you're not going to commit exactly to observing the outcome of American people voted for. show up. The New York City aspect of it is sort of funny to me because it's like all of these guys are like, we're not from the coasts, but here they are outside the courthouse in New York City. I know. Desperate for press. Desperate for press. They defend him and then they proudly clip their defense of him and put

it on their social media platforms as if they're kind of delivering something to him. So it's become another litmus test. And that tells you so much about his ownership over the Republican Party. And they're also, I will say, doing, and this is a norm question, we can throw it back to him, doing what he can't do. He can't say what they're saying because he would violate the gag order. They're all attacking the judge, the judge's daughter, Michael Cohen, jurors, people involved in the trial. If he did that, he would be fined. He doesn't seem to care that much, but he would be fined for it. They're like his thugs out there on his behalf. Yeah, it's a clever workaround for the gag order. I got to give him that.

Yeah, and I do love that we're attacking a judge's daughter for working for Democrats, and no one seems to bat an eye at the fact that Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over the classified documents case in Mar-a-Lago, was given her job by Donald Trump, as are many of the justices who rule on appeals, etc. And she's basically indefinitely delayed that trial. She's like, hey, turns out I don't get any of this. So we're just going to wait. It's basically her latest ruling.

I guess the question I have about this is around messaging, because you got Trump relentlessly calling this rigged and unfair and trying to just influence public opinion before a verdict. Do you think it's enough for Democrats to let the courtroom events speak for themselves, the evidence speak for itself? Or do we need like Chuck Schumer out there with a bullhorn counter-programming this thing? Well, it's just a funny visual. You can see it, right? It's a funny visual. I can definitely see it. I do think that for Democrats at this point, the trial is going to play out in the next couple of weeks. There has been polling that suggests that if he is convicted, and there's a lot of things standing in the way of that, including a potential for a hung jury if just one juror does not want to go along with the others, then that's sort of a different marking point to me. If they are out with bullhorns now, there is the risk, and I think this is a tough question, and I can understand all sides of the debate, to be honest, of that

feeding into this fodder of like, this is a political trial, when it's not a political trial. What I do think, and I've been thinking about in the last couple of weeks, I've been kind of surprised. I mean, I thought that the legal support for this and, you know, from talking to a lot of lawyers and not myself makes sense and that Bragg didn't get enough credit for that. But also I've been surprised, even though there hasn't been video cameras in the courtroom, which has been a real challenge and talking about, believe me, I do on television, you're like, this is what was said. Let me have a dramatic reading of what was said. It's not quite the same, but is watching Stormy Daniels talk about how she blacked out while she was having sex with him. That combined, not the same thing with the fact that he clearly, and also

hearing Michael Cohen talk about his response when he said, well, how is this going upstairs as in with your wife? And he basically said, I won't be on the market too long. Combined with the fact that he also doesn't think women should make choices about their own health care. There is a total thematic disrespect for women. I don't know how you put that into one ad or one message, but I've been struck by how this trial has told us about his character. And that's not the legal case. The legal case is about documents. But it has told us about his character, not in a surprising way, but it has unearthed some things about him. You're right. And in part because of choices made by Trump's team, because they went in there denying in a court of law that they had this affair to begin with, that they ever had sex, which Stormy Daniels says isn't true.

It was in the opening statement. Right. Yes, of Todd Blanch. And so now they're getting all these lurid details out of Stormy Daniels about the events and how they went down. Yeah. To sort of paint a picture to the jury that says not only did this happen, but this man is lying to you about it. It's completely exact, which makes the whole surrogate brigade even more alarming. I mean, alarming is not even the right word.

This is the last thing I'll say on that. I've just been thinking about that question for like, this is what struck me the most about this week, is that these are the same people, Mike Johnson specifically, who helped him in 2020 and are basically raising their hand and saying, I'm happy to enable and help you challenge the outcome. I'm here standing outside the courthouse defending you in this very seedy, salacious situation. So I'm here and I'm reporting for duty. And that's, it's kind of a potential replay. Yeah. And by reporting to duty, duty i mean to god because he wants me here yes trial he's told me for some reason god's told me to fly to new york city and be here in this logic i've constructed in my head uh yeah so that's a mess okay we're going to take a quick break when we come back we are going to talk about the president's approach

to gaza All right, so let's turn to the war in Gaza, because I think the average news consumer in this country would probably have a hard time describing President Biden's policy at this point. Last week, we saw the Biden administration pause the delivery of 3,500 bombs to Gaza. In response to that, you saw these hysterical claims by Republicans that Biden is abandoning Israel. Like Tom Cotton said, Biden had imposed an arms embargo on Israel, which is ludicrous. Then Tuesday, yesterday, the Biden administration told Congress that it was moving ahead with a billion dollar arms package for the Israeli military, though Congress could block that. It's a long road ahead for that arms package.

But you and I are kind of we're geeks that follow this stuff closely. We could explain to you that what Biden paused was the delivery of 2000 pound bombs, which should not be used in urban areas because they lead to mass casualties. And he's trying to prevent that from happening again. This other package is longer term. And he's trying to prevent that from happening again. This other package is longer term. But how do you think Biden can message this to voters? Because the takeaway at the moment seems to be, OK, the left was really mad about this policy for a while. And now think that in this case, the truth is not the worst thing in the sense of basically what he was doing. He's doing here is trying to use the leverage of diplomacy, the leverage of withholding military support to get them to change their behavior because he's saying the humanitarian crisis there and the potential for you to go and level Rafah where more than a million people live is inhumane. Even that statement angers a lot of people for a range of reasons. I mean, one is, well, look what's already happened in Gaza. Two is the Israeli people just lived through the worst terrorist attack on their soil on October 7th and hostages are still being held by Hamas.

Three is, which I think is very valid, is leveling Rafah is not going to eliminate Hamas, which every intelligence official and nerds we still talk to will tell you. Including Israeli intelligence. Including Israeli intelligence. Including Israeli intelligence. That also is not a message. What I just outlined, it was just in addition to your very useful explanation and context. Though I do think that it is incumbent upon people like us who have lived through this to do our best to explain these parts because it is hard to understand.

In terms of the messaging on it, I think that for him, he's got to get to a point where it's a couple of bullets, right? That's the only way to do it. And it's hard to do around this, which is something like, I recognize and honor the horror that Israel went through and what the Israeli people are still living through, and we will do everything to get the hostages back. what the Israeli people are still living through, and we will do everything to get the hostages back. But this is an inhumane and far too aggressive military action, and we can't stand by, even as a supplier of their military assistance, to allow them to do this. That's not even quite it, but I think people need to understand where he's coming from, from a moral standpoint. I think it's something along those lines. Now, the thing that's very challenging for them, and I've said

publicly, it's interesting because I was asked about this on Colbert, and I basically said, I think they should have used leverage earlier. Yeah, me too. And what I meant by that, then people kept asking me follow-ups like, oh, you think he would have been helped politically? And I'm like, I'm actually not talking about the politics. I'm talking about leverage with the Israelis. But the politics of it are also very difficult to navigate, as you alluded to, in part because there's a generational shift on views of Israel, right? There is also widespread anti-Semitism across the country. I'm not saying the two are conflicting. I'm just saying they're happening.

They're both happening, right? And for the Biden administration, the challenge is trying to convey your moral concern about what you're seeing in Gaza while also acknowledging the real fear and legitimate fear of the rise of anti-Semitism felt by so many Jewish Americans. And it feels right now the debate has become so black and white that it has become like you can't be both. And I think that's a huge challenge for them. Yeah, it is frustrating how binary the debate has felt and become. I agree with you on the leverage early. I mean, for those like the current Israeli government is this coalition of Netanyahu's party and then some of the most like odious right wing nationalist racist ministers who previously were not allowed to be a part of the story, but an important one for people to contextually understand. The Israeli government, to your point, has become significantly more conservative, more pro-settlers, more militaristic than they were even 10 years ago. 10 years ago, you had Zbigniew Livny, remember? And others who were more supportive of, say, at the time, Middle East peace negotiations and kind of finding a two-state solution.

Those people are no longer in the coalition. And Netanyahu, who was very unpopular before October 7th, there were protests in the streets because of the overreach of judicial reforms, which, by the way, sounds very similar to what's happening, potentially what happened here with Trump. He was very unpopular is now it's political survival for him. And so it's irrational. It's certainly immoral what he's doing with the use of military. But he's also dealing with a country that is reeling from the worst thing that has ever happened that has impacted Jewish people across the world. Right. Yeah. I mean, you have Netanyahu with this political setup where if these right wing ministers pull out of the government, it could topple the entire government.

He's out of power. He could then face prosecution. So that's just sort of understanding his political and judicial survival. Yes. Judicial survival. You could go to jail for a bunch of corruption charges. jail for a bunch of corruption charges. You have an Israeli public that is understandably scarred and terrified and probably feeling, majorities feel like, do whatever it takes to prevent this from happening again. And then you have a government, and we experienced this after 9-11, where the response from voters is like, do something. We don't care what it is, do something, show action, take action. And I think it's very hard to get people to understand that the action that's happening in Gaza right now, long-term, is going to make Israelis less safe, and in the near term is going to kill a lot of

really innocent Palestinian civilians, kids, women, children, men. I mean, so I think the challenge from the beginning has been, I think it was inevitable that there would be disagreements on this policy. And the Biden approach. Internally, too. Yeah. Yeah. And when the Biden approach was like, letements, which are Netanyahu doesn't believe in the creation of a Palestinian state.

There's a disagreement over who should govern Gaza after the war is over. The Biden administration wants it to be the Palestinian authority. Netanyahu has rejected that idea. So I think ultimately, you need your private and public messaging to align because A, it's going to leak out anyway. But B, I mean, Netanyahu might want to pick a fight with you publicly and you have to be prepared for that. Which is what he's done in the past, including Joe Biden. When Joe Biden went there as vice president in 2010 and he, there was an announcement of settlements, like as he landed in Israel, do you remember this? I'm sure you remember you lived it.

Yeah. I mean, the other dynamics which make this even more complicated is, of course, there is a real threat from Iran. I mean, that's very fresh. And it's something where ensuring Israel is protected from that is a real thing, right? The other piece of this is the notion of, like, a two-state solution being just, like, an easy next step. I mean, I see a lot of – I understand what else are people going to say. But I lived through a year and a half of Middle East peace negotiations. The carry process? Yes.

When the Israeli government had more members of the coalition who were much more open to that. Right. Right? That is a tremendous leap in order for that to happen. But yes, to your point, Tommy, I think they made a bet. This is what happened. They made a bet, you said, I think, where if he could hug Netanyahu, that Netanyahu would moderate his behavior. That's not what happened. They made a bet that all of these negotiations by people we know and I tremendously respect, I think you do too, Brett McGurk,

Bill Burns and others, would result in a ceasefire and that keeping it just steady and keeping that relationship closed publicly would help with that. That hasn't exactly been what resulted. Now, we don't know all the things happening behind the scenes. That hasn't been what resulted. So it is easy at times to say they should have done this earlier. I do think in this case, when history books are written, they may evaluate that as well. So last question on this. I mean, you worked in the State Department for a while. You know, you have seen this diplomacy happening behind the scenes. Like, what do you think people should know about the conversations that are happening that they're not seeing, how the process works, why it feels so agonizingly slow to get to

a ceasefire, to get to some sort of political accommodation with Hamas? I mean, one is that a lot of these parties don't talk directly to each other. And so that's an added time because the United States is an arbiter at times, as are other countries. You know, we don't talk directly to Iran except for periods of time when we sort of did. So the United States is an arbiter between these negotiations in many ways, talking to different players or talking to a third country that is talking to Hamas. Talking to Qatar, who's talking to Hamas. Talking to Qatar, who's talking to Hamas, or the Egyptians or others who are talking to Hamas,

and then also talking to the Israelis. These parties don't trust each other. So it's not like sitting down at a table and just saying, here's our proposal. What do you think? It's actually makes the whole thing about the debate seem quite simplistic, right? In many ways, in many ways. The third piece is similar to congressional negotiations. The intricacies and the details of what they're discussing in the room, even sometimes if one of those details becomes public, it can blow the whole thing up. Not because the press and the public doesn't have the right to know. It's actually because the parties, if all the parties know all the machinations involved and all of the people who have a stake in it, not necessarily even the parties in the room, it can blow the whole thing up. And so that's why it feels quite opaque.

It's opaque on purpose. And that's why Bill Burns and Brett McGurk and others are so quiet, say nothing, because they're trying to work to a moment where even the slightest, you know, more aid getting through Egypt, a few more hostages released. Some of these developments feel incremental, but they're significant and the result of hours and hours and days and weeks of negotiations. Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And in the past, we've seen good faith actors and negotiations get close to deals and then extremist groups like Hamas will do something

to try to blow up those talks on purpose. So those leaks can actually lead to outcomes where deals don't get done. One more thing before we get to the book, Jen. So there was a report in Axios on Tuesday that said President Biden and his top advisors don't actually believe the bad polling numbers we're seeing in about, let's like the New York Times, which just dropped some pretty rough swing staples. On some level, my reaction to this stuff is like, who gives a shit? It's May. But there is a broader debate that got kicked up on social media about whether President Biden's inner circle is too small, whether he's getting good information or outside information. You were the press secretary. You were in the Oval Office every day, briefing President Biden, talking with him. How does information get to him? And like, what do you make of that criticism that the circle is

too small? Well, I mean, I haven't I left almost exactly two years ago. Wild and wild. So I haven't been there and in the Oval Office meeting with him in that way in two years. But what my experience was, remember, I didn't come in as a member of the inner circle. I didn't work on the Biden campaign. I had worked for President Obama, of course, and of course, knew Vice President Biden through that, but not well. And so I came in as not a member of the inner circle. Brian Deese, a friend of ours, too, also same way. But both of us found ourselves people who were very much in the inner circle as a part of the briefing process and delivering information to the president. My experience was he had an appetite, and this is actually not

dissimilar from President Obama. You're very cut off from the world as president. I mean, for you, you're in the Oval Office and you ring a bell and people bring you a soda or whatever. You can't take a walk. You can't go to the store. You can't take a walk. And what he always wanted to know from me is like, what are reporters asking about? What are they talking about? Because he always felt like that was almost a connection to the outside world. When I was there, what would happen is we would have a morning meeting where we would go through what we called NOTD, News of the Day, a News of the Day document, Tommy. Like the most likely questions. And through that, you would kind of debate what you would say,

what he would say. But I never experienced withholding information from him. Also, he consumes information himself. Presidents today have iPads with news. They have cable news. They have information. My bet is he's asking them about the polls. And he has. Even when I was there, I would ask people, why aren't the polls moving?

This is the question I also often get asked, right? Why aren't the polls moving? This guy is sitting in a courtroom, right? What's happening? On the specific New York Times-Siena poll, I mean, you and I have both been a part of like when you're in the war room of all the things on a campaign or in a White House and you're like, F the man, polls are terrible. And you have to do that emotionally on some level. I've asked them about this because I've seen their pushback and their pushback makes some sense, right? You're going to be a reality about polls. One, I think it's not bad for

Democrats to be kind of freaked out about the election. I agree with that too, yeah. But this poll, one, a lot of the numbers that are pushed out there most aggressively are not likely voters. Likely voters is really what matters in terms of the measurement of it. Two, some of the New York Times reporting quotes people who are not even registered to vote. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, who are not even registered to vote. It doesn't mean it massively,

dramatically impacted the poll, but it is a little telling in how they reported it. That said they voted in the past. You know, and three, I think for them, there are other polls that have happened that show the race much tighter, including a number of these states.

So I think they're just trying, and I understand this, to lower the freak out temperature of people. And we've been there. Both of us have been there. But in my experience, he got all the information and was more curious. He's kind of a political animal of why are the polls like that? Why is it saying? That's what I expect his question would be. Why is RFK getting 10 points in Wisconsin? What's going on there?

How the hell did that happen? Yeah. I mean, what struck me, and I'm a total outsider here, even if he's not in denial about the polls or rejecting the information, I have noticed that when he's asked, he often responds to questions about polling, which let's just stipulate, every question ever asked about a poll is annoying and kind of stupid. But he gets asked about these things and he says stuff like, oh, you're looking at the wrong polls, Jack, or you attacked the polling methodology. You're looking at the wrong polls, Jack. That is literally a quote. I think that's a direct quote. Do you think that's a strategy or do you think that's something he believes?

I think it's a strategy because he's somebody who does look at the data and does look at the numbers. Every president, every candidate denies they look at the polls. They all pour over the polls. Like, come on, you know. But I think he knows that if he shows like, yeah, the polls are bad, I'm down. It projects weakness to people. And I think that's a real concern for them, as it is for kind of any candidate. But sort of a traditional, not you're looking at the wrong polls, Jack, but like, we don't even look at the polls. Like, yes, you do, you liar. But like,

you know, everybody says that. So I think it's more a public strategy than it is how he actually feels. And they have like tons of survey data coming into the office, like private data every day. Internal data, internal polls, these thought bubbles of like what words are popping, all sorts of things. Infographics. Infographics. Dan Pfeiffer stuff. Dan had made the point that like whether or not they believe these polls and this data,

they're acting on it, like they're campaigning in the key states. Well, that's the thing. It's sort of like you can't be under your desk in the fetal position on a campaign even when you're 10 points down because like what's the point then? You're still trying to win. Why are we here? So you have to use it as a motivator. And some of that motivator is sometimes like F the pollsters and the New York Times coverage. And we've all been a part of that.

These polls are not great for them. I'm not trying to sugarcoat that. I do think there are some things about the reporting of it that I see their argument on. But you also have to use it as a motivator. And it doesn't mean you have to use it as a motivator publicly where you're like, we are crying internally, but we're going to be okay.

You have to kind of project confidence. Otherwise, what are you doing? Yeah, no one's going to support you or donate or show up. Last thing on this, and I don't know why I just thought of it. Did you go to the barbecue that President Biden had for Katie Johnson, who is President Obama's personal secretary when she left the job? I don't think so. Okay, it was like a small group of us. She threw this, like 10 people went over there to the Naval Observatory. Was it fun? As we were driving in, I turned to whoever I was in the car with.

It might have been like Favreau and like Reed Churlin or somebody was like, I want to get forehead to forehead contact before I leave this with Joe Biden. Because that's one of the things he does with people. He gets like real close to voters and kind of like looks them in the eye from like negative inches away. Swear to God, within five minutes of being there, I had gotten forehead to forehead contact from Joe Biden during a story about like some horrible segregationist senator or something, whatever the fuck he was talking about. And I was like, wow, you're like this happened. I will tell you, I mean, from because, as I mentioned, I was new and I actually when I started talking to them about the press secretary job, I said,

how am I going to do this job? I really don't know him well. You need to know him well. And they were like, you'll get along with him fine. It's going to be great. And I was like, OK. But a couple of weeks into the job, I remember sitting in the Oval Office and I thinking to myself, I want to project to the press that I'm getting them information from him on his thinking, right? And you got to ask him the questions

because that shows your relationship. And I said, sir, well, first I said, this is a weird thing to say to a president, which is always like once that comes out of your mouth, you're like, now I must continue my thought because I've already made it weird. And I said, but I feel like I've known you a long time because he has this way of like, pull up a chair. What's going on? And I said, sir, how are you doing? How are you sitting with kind of like the weight of the presidency? It was a very dramatic question looking back. And he was like, I feel good about that and the choices we've made. I can't find my socks because he is so has a hard time adapting to like people unpacking his stuff. The valets and stuff. Right.

It's like a different thing than he's existed in. So yes, the forehead to forehead, you know, handhold, we've all experienced that. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. But before we do, you guys know the stakes of the 2024 election. Jen and I have been talking about it for like an hour now. And if you want to get involved, but you don't know where to start, we have got you covered. Join Vote Save America 2024, organize or else.

All you have to do is sign up. You get assigned a team and you'll get matched with opportunities tailored to you and causes that you care about. Vote Save America will track how many calls you've made, texts you've sent, doors you've knocked, all of it as your team pursues the biggest prize of all, the continuation of American democracy. Go to votesaveamerica.com slash 2024. Go now and get ready to organize or else. This message has been paid for by Vote Save America. You can learn more at votesaveamerica.com. And this ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. When we come back, we're going to talk about Jen's new book, Say More. Inside with Jen Psaki is also available as a podcast. I know from the years I spent on campaign buses and foreign capitals and in the Oval Office that there's always more to a story under the surface.

On my show, we try to bring you inside all of it, breaking down the things that matter and visiting with some of the most fascinating people in the news today. Search for Inside with Jen Psaki wherever you're listening and follow. All right, Jen, let's talk about your book, Say More, Lessons from Work, the White House and the World, because it has tons and tons of fun stories from your time in politics that I think this audience is going to love. Let's start with a simple one. You write about the first time you met President Obama, then Senator Obama. How'd it go? Well, Tommy, I don't know if you remember the first time you met. You were horribly embarrassing. So I was hoping we could swap. Yes. So when I you worked for him much earlier than I did. And John and I were talking last night about how actually when he gave that amazing speech in 2004, he and I were both

backstage with the Kerry daughters who were fighting over who was going to introduce their dad at the convention, which really brings you back. But that aside, I knew I wanted to work for President Obama from the moment I saw that speech. And then from when I saw, because I was working in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the response and reaction to him from all these people running for Congress who wanted him to come to their districts everywhere, everywhere. I knew I wanted to work for him. I actually turned down a job with the Clinton campaign before knowing I had a job with the Obama campaign. I turned down John Edwards. There you go.

And I remember. Bullet dodge there. And I was, and now this is like kind of a funny detail now. I was like very down the road and being Senator Menendez's communications director. Double bullet dodge. I was like down the road interviewing with him. And I called Robert Gibbs, who we love. Our mentor. Our mentor. And I said, listen, I may get a job. I may get a Senate comms director job. I have to know if I'm going to have a job. I need to know soon. And he

was like, oh, you have a job. Can you move here next week? You know, that's how it started. But anyway, long story short, about October of 2007, and I started working in February for the campaign, I was sent to Cincinnati, Ohio to staff him, meaning go with him to his events there. And I was waiting in his car when he was going to get off the plane from Chicago because, of course, as you know, they have you wait in the car so that they can get the motorcade going immediately. And I was so nervous in the car. It's weird. You're like chilling out in this car. I'd never met him before. It's Barack Obama.

Are you kidding me? And I thought to myself, what should I say to him? And he gets in the car and I said, you may be wondering who I am and why I'm in your car, which I thought was a pretty good line. I thought that was good. It was a pretty good line. Immediately got like the handle of my bag caught on like part of the car and the entire contents of my bag spilled out onto Barack Obama, pens, makeup, tampons, all of the things to which you know him well. It was like very cerebral in his response, which was almost worse because you're like, this man thinks I'm crazy and he will never want to see me again. I worked for him for 10 years and staffed him at nearly every political event he ever did. But yes, that was the beginning.

That's great. I met him. Well, actually, by the way, when Robert Gibbs hired me on the 2004 Senate campaign, similar thing, I got a call. I run out of a restaurant and he's like, can you be in Chicago in a week? You're making X amount. I thought he said $25,000 a year. I was like, yup, sold. Turns out it was 2,500 a month. So I got a raise on day one, which is pretty sweet. It's so crazy to remember how much money we made. It was like not minimum wage. No, it was not good. And then when I met him finally, we had this office and like at night the heat, the AC would go off at like five or something when normal people left. It was on the Senate campaign. Yeah. And then I was like eight o'clock and I'm sitting, I'm like assembling press packs on the floor.

I've like sweating through everything. I had my shoes off and he fucking walks in and that's my intro. I stood up and I'm like, hey. And you're like, I really wanted to think about this moment. And that was not what I envisioned. You think you're going to say something profound? You did not. The time I met,

sort of spent time with President Biden is right after we won in 2008, we had all gone out. I don't like we had all gone out, out, out like late. And I was so hungover and I strolled into the office. And I think the only clean pants I had happened to be khakis. So I was like dressed kind of okay. And I get a call from Fran. It's like, hey, can you jump in the VP's motorcade to the airport? And I'm like, why? Why do you want me in? Did I do something wrong? And I got in. It was me and Senator Kaufman.

What's his first name? I forget. Ted. Ted Kaufman. And we rode. And I think President Biden just like talked about like paper and process. You were in the car with Biden? I think they were trying to hire me to be like in the VP staff or something. That's such an intense first meeting. I've never heard this story before. I called Gibbs later. I was

like, what the fuck do I do? And he's like, just don't say a word. And I didn't. I didn't talk for, I didn't say a word the whole time. I love that. I think I was hungover. Probably. It sounds like you may have been, but also that's like a very intense way to meet the future vice president. It was a lot. And also in your book, Jen, you write about imposter syndrome, which is an affliction I too have suffered from my entire adult life. I think it exists in all industries, but in politics, it's especially weird because you're like, oh, this person can like invade countries or whatever. President Obama. How did you get over it?

Because I'll be honest, even today, I will see President Obama and I turn into the 23-year-old staffer with his shoes off on the floor. And I just like never feel normal. Same. I feel the same way. normal same i feel the same way um i think one i wanted to talk about it in the book because one people would be shocked to hear you have a version of imposter syndrome or many of the people i've talked to about this right because i think especially for people who are earlier in their careers than you and i are even though we are very young and hip bucks obviously um it feels a little bit like none of us experience that self-doubt mistakes. I still have that today,

of course. And I think a lot of people that would surprise people do. For me, it really took being forced to overcome it. And I tell the story in the book about how, you know, and we knew each other on the campaign. We knew each other before this. I gave you a tour of the Kerry campaign office and you decided to go work for this guy running for Senate. And I was like, that was dumb. John Kerry is going to be president. I don't even know who that guy is. I was clearly off. I used to AOLM you when you're at the DCCC. You'd be like, how's it going over there? What's happening? Do people want Barack Obama? So it took me, you know, for the first couple of years of my time in the White House, I really felt like my best role was to be kind of a supporting player, not because people were demanding that upon me.

In fact, to Robert Gibbs credit, he got me into the Economic Daily briefing and pushed me into the room. Valley Jared pushed me a number of times. I worked for our friend Dan, who is was like an amazing boss. But I felt that my security was most comfortable if I was like, I'll call back the reporter. I'll organize that thing. I'll write the memo. And the problem with that is that you never put your own voice into the discussion and your own strategic view. And it's hard then to make a leap into being seen in that way. And it took really going back to work for President Obama in 2012 when Plouffe called me about coming back to the campaign.

And I was like, I must be in trouble. And then I was like, wait, I don't work there anymore. I can't be in trouble. You know, this is like Plouffe is still my boss now. I'm like, what do you need me to do? So took him calling me and me going back to the campaign and asking Robert Gibbs, how am I going to get President Obama? There's no other choice. I'm the person from the campaign traveling with him.

I mean, Plouffe is going to travel sometimes Obama? There's no other choice. I'm the person from the campaign traveling with him. I mean, Plov is going to travel sometimes. Jay Carney was, of course, but Jay was going to be, you know, in the weeds of like whatever regulations were being announced about a variety of things. It was my job to brief him on political stuff. How am I going to get him to take me seriously and not see me as this 27-year-old kid who dumped the contents of her purse on his lap, which I'm sure he didn't remember. I'm sure he definitely doesn't remember now because I've told this story. So now who knows? But it took that and me asking him and him saying, just act like you belong there because you do. And a certain point, people will believe you, including you. It's not a fake until you make it in the sense like you were very qualified for the jobs you did, as was I. But it is about pushing yourself to

recognize you have to force yourself to be seen in the way you did, as was I. But it is about pushing yourself to recognize you have to force yourself to be seen in the way you want to be seen. And being a supporting actor and being a wallflower in the room, I would be like, I don't want to go to that meeting with the president because I was like, I'm going to say something stupid. I would rather someone else go. And it's actually exhausting and paralyzing in many ways. So it really took that. And the benefit, you know, as you know, I'd wanted to be the press secretary before I got the job for Biden. The benefit of doing what I did is that, you know, you just get a little bit more comfortable in your own skin as you get older,

right? There's something about like getting married, having kids, having perspective in life, becoming 40. There's nothing magical about that, but something about it that when I went back, I could smell the roses more. And I also recognized I need it was incumbent upon me to show President Biden that like we could have a trusting relationship. I mean, of course, you were like the best prepared person to be press secretary that I could imagine given that experience. Thank you. But that doesn't make it easier to tell the President of the United States, Barack Obama, that they're wrong. No. And that they're wrong because your judgment tells them they're wrong.

And recognize they may say, no, you're wrong. Right. I mean, that's part of it. And you have to say, okay, you're the president. Cool. Well, let's talk about Afghanistan because I could tell in the book that that was just a searing experience for everybody that worked there, which is not to compare it to the impact of the people who were killed or their families, but just being in the White House at that time sounds really brutal. But you not only had to manage the communications around what was happening, you had to explain to President Biden why his meeting with some bereaved families,

the families of the soldiers who'd been killed at Abbey Gate in that terrorist attack, had not gone well, why that meeting had gone badly. Can you tell that story and what that was like? Yeah, I mean, I wanted to tell that story for a couple of reasons. One is that even people who are well-intentioned, as President Biden is when he shares the story of his own personal loss, which he still gets emotional and choked up about, talking about the loss of Beau, the loss of his first wife and his daughter, that it doesn't mean it's always well-received. And it's also up to the audience to determine how they receive it. And in this case, you have these gold star families who had lost, it was not what they needed to hear. It was not what was healing them. And for some of them, it was an affront.

And they have the absolute right to feel that way. And it was my intention in telling that story to convey, one, that I had to give that feedback to President Biden because the New York Times was writing a story. And it was also important for him to know that. But how wounding that is when you're telling someone you sharing the loss of your son is not something that is helping them heal. To his credit, what he said was, I thought I was helping them. But also my effort was to validate their experience and validate that even if it's not your intention, that that's their response is how they felt. Unfortunately, there was a couple of lines included in there about him looking at his watch that will be fixed in future versions of the book. It's not an important part of the story in the sense that my objective was to validate their feelings, nothing else.

But it is important for people to understand that, you know, even as president, even as a CEO, even as somebody with the best intentions with somebody who's been through something difficult, that you have to really read the room and read the audience of the people you're talking to and allow them the space to feel how they feel about what you're conveying to them. Yeah. It sounds like, you know, even in that case, when it's, you're sharing something that's so searing and so personally painful in an effort to make it a connection and to know that that failed, I imagine was just incredibly difficult for him. Yeah, I almost thought, and I tell this in the book, but I almost thought that he

had, that the phone line had dropped because he was so quiet in the moment as he was trying to digest what had happened. And he's a band who's experienced so much tragedy and is so generous about sharing his own pain if he thinks it will help others. Like I know Ben Rhodes has a story where he was giving a West Wing tour to a family who had lost a child. And for those who don't know, I mean, when you do a West Wing tour, the staffers themselves give it. There's not like a tour guide that walks you around.

You're the one giving the tour to people. And Ben and this couple ran into President Biden. And Ben said that their story just kind of poured out of them. And they're crying and they're telling him what happened. And he was sort of consoling them. And it's like seven o'clock at night, right? Usually these tours happen after we all had eaten dinner from the mess or whatever. And President Biden took 10, 15 minutes out of his day, the end of a long day to just personally console this couple. And so later, this couple sent Ben a note that was like, I want you to know that that moment changed our lives. We were able

to move on in a way we hadn't and heal in a way we hadn't. Can you please pass this message along to President Biden? So Ben relayed that to the vice president. 20 minutes later, Ben gets a call at his desk. Hey, it's Joe Biden. Can you give me their number? I want to check in. And everyone has a story like that. There's so many stories like that. And that's important for people to know and understand too, is that when people are going through grief and loss, there's no magical words that's going to change what they've been through. His sharing of his own personal story has helped so many people and his empathy. I mean, you know, there's this story from 2007 or 8, and I didn't know him at the time,

but one of my husband's mentors, her grandson was dying of cancer. He was maybe 10 or 11. I don't remember the age. And on a trip to Ohio, she was a big Democratic activist and the vice president met the grandson and not just met him, he took him in his car to the plane, gave him a tour of the plane, spent all this time with him. Does that change the, of course not, or the grief, but it also shows his empathy and his care. And that is really who he is. But I think he also recognizes, because I'm sure there are things that people have said to him over the years that didn't hit right and were well-intentioned, but weren't the right thing to say. Yeah. One of the hardest things about being a spokesperson in politics is that you get no leeway for making a mistake in good faith, right? If you convey inaccurate information,

you're called a liar. Different people can have different recollections of the same event, as often happens. You wrote about a particularly tough case from your time with Senator Kerry, then Secretary Kerry, that involved a military coup in Egypt and a yacht. Tell us a little bit more about that. It's never a good combo, those things, Tommy. Yes. One, it was a coup. Can we all just admit that now?

I think we can. I couldn't call it a coup at the time. I was caught on a hot mic at the time saying like, these talking points are ridiculous. Which was true. I can't keep saying this. These talking points are ridiculous. So it was July 3rd or 4th, right? Which is

relevant mainly because this was all the news was breaking when I was at a July 4th event with friends, actually, Kate Bedingfield now, which is a longtime good friend of mine. And this news was breaking. I called some of Kerry's aides, traveling aides, to say there's reporting that suggests he was on a yacht today when this coup was breaking. Now, just if we step back for a moment, a secretary of state can do calls from anywhere and can do work from anywhere. And I should have. That's what we should have said. He wasn't going to rappel down into Cairo with a machine gun. But also it was bad optically.

Let's be honest. So in the breakup of the phone call, I heard them say he was not on the yacht. Now he was on the yacht, but I put out a statement saying he was not on the yacht. It became very clear the next day with photos that he was on the yacht. I had not intentionally, it was literally like bad phone connection. And I should have just checked with more people. At that moment, I was like, oh, my, oh, God. And so what I did was I called every single reporter I'd spoken to and apologized and said, this was not my intention, you know. And I also put out a statement falling on the sword. Now, people attacked me, all the things that

happens over the course of days. But I do think with the reporters, some of whom you and I know well, who can be tough and like all the things, I had established credibility for years before that. They didn't think of me as some liar, right? And so that helped me in that moment, even though I put them in an awkward position, although I fell on the sword. So the point of that is like you have to own up to your mistakes when you make them. We all make mistakes, you know, and they are hopefully unintentional. I like to think mine are. But in that moment, that's what I did.

And I thought the world was going to end and it didn't. Oh, look, I've been there. I mean, I remember there was an example when I was the NSC spokesman. The U.S. had interdicted some weapon shipments from Iran to the Houthi rebels in Yemen. This already sounds really complicated and nerdy, and I'm a nerd. I'm like, what? As one does. Yeah, no, the Houthis, they've been, they're pretty hot on TikTok right now. There's some hot pirates. Anyway, so somehow the details don't matter. That joke is going to hit with someone out there. Like four people, like Ben and like

one other guy. Someone is going to hit. Ben's roaring somewhere right now. So the New York Times hears about this interdiction of these weapons to the Houthis. They call me for comment. I go ask John Brennan about whether this happened, who was the national security advisor to Obama at the time. John is like, you have to get them to delay this report. This will blow up all our work with the Yemeni government. It will undo years of counterterrorism work, blah, blah, blah. So I'm like, okay, I'll do my job. I call a reporter back. He agrees. I get

him to delay. Like six hours later, the Yemeni Navy puts out a press release taking credit for this operation. And this guy calls me and is like, what the fuck? You lied to me. You screwed me. Trash me with his colleagues. I don't think I ever talked to me again. I sent like five apology emails or whatever. And it's like, to this day, I don't know what happened. But there's so much trust. Listen, I'm not saying that people who are spokespeople, they don't have responsibility, but you have to put a lot of trust in the people around you to get good information that you then convey. And especially in national security jobs, like we were constantly told, try to get this reporter not to report on something about intercepted intelligence or whatever it might be.

And like you have to believe that the person you're getting that steer from is trustworthy. I think John Brennan is like the most trustworthy guy I worked with, by the way. I think something weird happened here. I don't think it was John's fault. But also then the journalists have even less information than you do. And they have to trust you. I know. There's so many layers of trust in the whole process. And you also have to make the calculation as a spokesperson. I mean, I was kind of generally a believer, unless it was like, because some of those examples you're talking about are like, if this is reported, it will put people's lives at risk, right? Things along those lines. That's a different category. I was

of the belief most of the time in my time at the White House, which I can admit now, that if somebody had a story, just let them roll with the story. Good on you. Good on you and your good reporting, right? I'm never going to litigate people. I never, I don't think, litigated people to the death of a story that they accurately reported, even if they were ahead of where we are. It can be a pain in the neck. But also, that's what freedom of press is, by the way. And that's how democracy works. And so at that point, then you have to manage the impact of it because they did good reporting. Good for them. One time, I think it was like the Wall Street Journal got a scoop that the U.S., we had conveyed some information to the Iranian government through the United Nations, through Susan Rice. So the journal had it. On our other channel. We always have channels and talking to lots of channels. Yeah. But you know how this goes. So one outlet gets a scoop. Everybody else descends on you to confirm it. And with the New York Times in particular it would be like eight reporters you'd get big-footed seven different times and like finally David Sanger was

the final boss who would like stomp on your head David Sanger's calling so Colleen Cooper calls she's a great reporter from the Times now covering the Pentagon is like hey man like I got shit to do I'm on deadline I know this happened Can you just confirm it on background? And I'm like, sure. And then she confirms it as a White House official instead of the weasel words we normally use. And Susan Reyes calls me and is like, motherfucker, did you confirm this? And I was like, I did. I'm really sorry.

I know I wasn't supposed to. Correct. I did. Because it happened. Yeah. Because it happened. Yeah. This is also part of credibility with reporters. Because I think over time you develop a credibility with them because of that. And because you're like, you know, there's all sorts of language press people use. It's funny if you could throw yourself back into this.

Like, I can't confirm it, but I'm not going to steer you off it. So if you want to confirm it as like an. On deep background. On deep background as an unnamed official, nobody's going to argue you're wrong. It's like a whole circle of stuff. This is always true with personnel. Like I oversaw the war room for the transition. It was like there was a leak every day about some sort of person. But unless it's like somebody's life is at risk, right? And when there are negotiations that might topple, obviously that's a factor,

but it does establish your credibility so that you can go back to them and be like, your story on this is wrong. And then they're like, oh yeah, I remember the seven times you helped me out. Right. Well, and speaking of this sort of like need to know thing, you wrote about how Ron Klain, who was the chief of staff to President Biden. Future debate prepper. Future debate prepper. And former. And former, and just a brilliant guy. But he had sort of a need to know approach to reading in spokespeople information, meaning he would only tell you what you needed to know. Because I think you said that Ron's theory of the case was like, it's too hard to disaggregate in your own mind what is public

and private information. So might as well withhold the private information. And I read that in, look, Ron's a great guy and he was trying to manage like an impossible to manage place but i read that and it it struck me as so wrong and frustrating because one i always felt like press people don't leak for the same reason janitors don't throw shit on the floor because we're all mopping it up later right right and then last people to leak press people right because, I don't want to have to deal with this. Yeah. And then second, you alluded to this earlier, like reporters know if you are read into something and you have a relationship with the boss and are in the mix or you're just repeating talking points and like you just have less credibility if it's the latter.

Totally. And also the context of understanding things from being in the meeting and the discussion helps you be a better communicator. You know, it's not your job to read from a piece of paper. It's your job to explain. Yeah. And to his credit, he just had a kind of an older school view of that. He's not the only one who's had that view over the course of time. I think there were some through the course of past administrations who had that view. I think I benefited from, as you benefited from, when you've been communicating about national security issues, as you benefited from, when you've been communicating

about national security issues, as I did for two and a half years at the State Department, you fully understand how to hold back things that you can't share publicly. And I always felt that the days I was best was the days I fully understood the complete scope of an issue to the point where I, you know, I would like, and Jake actually understood this much in a more instinctual way. Yeah. Where I would not, I didn't, you don't invite yourself to meetings typically, but I would, I went to him a couple of, during a couple of moments, like around Ukraine and Russia, around Afghanistan. I was like, I have to sit in these meetings.

I'm not going to say anything. He was like, you can say things. I'm like, I don't need to say anything. I'm not going to say anything, but I need to understand the scope of what's happening. Because then I can help and I will always come back to you. And then what would happen, because sometimes these talking points go through a bureaucratic process and they say nothing on the end, is I could go back to them and say, here are the five questions I'm going to be asked. Here's what I think I should say. Right. Walk me back. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn't. But there were times where I was like, I have to be in the room because otherwise I can't be effective at doing the job.

Boy, you talk about imposter syndrome, though, when you're literally sitting in a chair behind like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of defense and the secretary of state. Like, how did I get first of all, I don't tell this story in the book, although I do tell the story of ripping my pants in front of Barack Obama, not an extended version, which is a very embarrassing story. pants in front of Barack Obama, not an extended version, which is a very embarrassing story. But there was one day, to your point, where I had kind of invited myself. And I always said this to Jake. I'm not trying to invite myself. He's like, you're welcome to come. It's fine. Stop being weird about it, right? But I went to a meeting that was, I think it was related to early days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And it was an important meeting. I don't remember what it was about. And it started at 8 in the morning. I go to the ladies' room that's right near the sit room on the bottom floor,

and I realize I have split my pants. And I'm like, fuck, what am I going to do? And I was like, well, I'm not missing the meeting, so I'm going to figure it out. I literally, it was like I had a leaf structure. I had a binder, which I just like walked in front of myself into the sit room room and just like put it on top of my lap. And then even as we were chatting afterwards, I just was like holding the binder in front of me

and my split pants. Now, the funny part of this, if that isn't funny enough, is Chairman Milley, if anybody doesn't know who he is, Google him. He would play himself in the version of the movie. Because no one more looks like the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff was sitting right across from me. And I was like, that man knows I split my pants. I can feel it in his bushy eyebrow gaze. So that happens. Did he get good intel on the pants splitting?

Well, I don't know. But he has that vibe to him. Yeah, he does have that vibe. That bathroom right by the sit room was always the site of the most awkward simulpeying at a urinal. I remember one time I just- We didn't experience that in the same way. I was up there next to Dave Petraeus one time and I'm like, how are you, sir? Are you like me, man?

How are you? He literally goes, oh, I'm having a great time. Just started the CIA. Got amazing authorities. If you ever have the chance to do this job, you should take it. What the fuck just happened? That's an intense engagement at the urinal. Yeah.

One of my best. All right. I'm going way long. So I'm going to ask you a last question, Saki. Because everyone should just buy the book. Thank you. Say more. Because all these stories are in there and much more.

You'll hear about Peter Doocy. the book. Thank you. Say more because all these stories are in there and much more. You'll hear about Peter Doocy. You'll hear about Jen being the subject of relentless Russian disinformation and propaganda. When she was at the State Department, that part actually really sucked. If someone asked us about like communications best practices 20 years ago, we probably would have said things like, apologize when you're wrong. Mean it. Don't ever lie. Answer questions directly. Take tough questions from reporters. And then Trump comes along and he lies all the time. He never apologizes.

He hides in like the Hugh Hewitt right wing safe space. And he got elected president and he's got a 50th chance of doing it again. Were we wrong? Is he special? Did the world change? Like, what do you make of this? Is he special? Did the world change? Like, what do you make of this? Is he special? No. He's very special.

You know, one, I think that as dangerous and dark as it is, his message is effective because it's been consistently the same since 2015. In a weird, more light way, Barack Obama is similar in that he was hope and change for many, many. It was consistent. People knew who he was. But Trump has been the guy, the aggrieved candidate who's running against the system and tearing apart the system since he announced his run for president. Consistency is effective. Simple message is effective, even as dark and dangerous as it is. Also, emotional message is effective. He is tapping into people across the country who feel aggrieved. Millions do. The economy isn't working for them. The system isn't working for them. Government's hugely unpopular. All of those things. Now, he doesn't give a shit

about you. He just cares about himself. He's really the aggrieved ones he cares about. But that message is effective. Emotional messaging is effective. And this is where I knew and I lived through. I mean, when you were like negotiating about hooties and what your story, you went down the nerd rabbit hole. I loved every moment of it. I was doing economic messaging. And remember the early days where we communicated about data and GDP and- Bending the cost curve. communicated about data and GDP and bending the cost curve, bending the cost curve. I talk about that in the book, too. That is not how people make decisions. They make decisions by emotions and how you make them feel. And Trump makes not everybody. He makes a lot of people feel scared

for good reason, but he makes a certain percentage of the population feel heard. So I don't know if anything's massively changed as much as like the emotional appeal of communications is still a thing. Very well said. Jen Psaki, great to see you. Thank you. Great to see you. Everyone should buy the book.

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