SmartLess: "Jen Psaki"

Hey everybody, welcome to our talk show.

What is it?

One of the podcasts on a talk show is not TV enough.

Doesn't it have a talk show though?

We do talk.

It's a bit of a show.

You talk and people listen.

We've got celebs on it and stuff.

Okay.

We don't have a band or television band.

Right now on the show I hope that you would just not talk and just say, hey, welcome to

smartlist.

So a talk show for you guys, a listen show for me?

Sure.

Got it.

Welcome to smartlist.

How's everybody doing today?

I had a great day.

I had a great morning.

Yeah.

But Sean, you've got a towel around your neck?

Why is that?

No, it's a blanket, Jay.

Oh, are you in an overly air conditioned department?

I certainly am.

Oh, that's high class problems.

What's the temperature in New York City today?

It's hot.

It's like 80, 90, I don't know.

No kidding.

And so you're in a place that's so hot

but you're wearing a blanket.

Well, because Scotty's at the gym

and when he gets home from the gym,

it's like, you know, it's too hot.

Do you know that seven of the hottest days on record

on this planet have been in the last week?

Yes, yes, I know.

It's crazy.

It's because of people like you.

No, because Scotty likes you to have all your hair.

Because Scotty doesn't want to be hot

when he comes home from the gym.

No, no.

Or L.

That's that true.

Hey, take that polar ice cap.

But wait, you love this.

I think I told you this, Jason, before

but I don't know if I told you will.

The, you know, when Scotty and I were at the restaurant

the other night and we got in a fight about,

not a fight, just a discussion about the weather,

like the weather app versus the internet.

I always look at the internet for the correct right thing.

And he's like, no, just use your iPhone app,

the weather app on your iPhone.

I'm like, it's never right.

It always says 70 or 80 and it's going to rain and it doesn't.

I go out, go to the internet, go to the internet.

And then just to diffuse the tension

when it gets real hot like that between us,

like in a public place,

I always look to his left to an imaginary person

and I go, try living with it.

God, wait.

So when you go to the internet, what do you-

I go to AccuWeather.

I go to AccuWeather.

That's better than the Apple app.

Where do you go on the internet, Sean?

I go to Weather Channel.

Oh, well, there's an app for that.

Yeah, but it's just like, I just go to the,

I just look it up.

By the way, I can't imagine you ever fighting with anyone.

I was talking about you the other day with somebody

and I said, with all seriousness,

I've never seen you in a bad mood.

I've never seen you angry.

I've never seen you fight, obviously, with anybody.

You saw me, I got angry with you three years ago.

What did I do?

What did you do?

We were just arguing about something on the phone

and then we called each other after and you said,

I think that was our first ever fight.

And I said, yeah.

And you smiled and you laughed and you said,

how does it feel?

God, I don't remember.

You guys got a little scrappy.

I remember you guys got a little scrappy.

We got in a discussion.

But I have been angry like twice.

There's only like one or two people in my whole life

that can actually push me in a corner so bad

that when I come out, I sound like the most brilliant

like speaker in the world.

Like when my buttons are pushed so much.

Laser focused.

I am so, I sound so smart, otherwise.

Yeah, I mean, like watching you in the play, you know,

your character gets pretty, he's not a happy guy.

Yeah, I think I get it out in that way.

That was really interesting to see.

So you know how to be grumpy, you just never are.

Why are you so fucking happy?

You know, and then that's why you guys are such a great.

Yeah, cause I'm grumpy all the time.

But I have, I'm not upset about anything.

I just, I think my rest is just like, yeah,

Amanda's always asking me, well, are you okay?

You in a good mood?

Yeah, yeah, I'm just, I just chill all the time.

Yeah, you're always chill, you're always super chill.

So you're in a conscious state of chillax,

would you say that?

I'm always chillaxing.

And then, but you, but Sean, you're always,

you're always obviously happy.

I'm never obviously, well, I'm not never happy,

but I'm, when I'm, I'm just sort of normal.

You're never normal.

You're always happy.

Well, that's sweet.

I honestly think it's the dumbest cliche answer,

but it's the truth.

I think the way I grew up, I grew up so shit, shit poor.

We all did in my family.

That it sounds so dumb, but I walked down the street

every day going, oh my God,

I don't have to go through a winter in Chicago

without any heat.

I don't have to go without food.

I don't have to go without,

all these things that we didn't have as kids.

That's still tangible to you.

That's, that's still.

Yeah, I'm just like, it's why I work hard

and it's why I'm grateful every day.

Huh, pretty good.

And that's the end of the show.

Will, what's, what's, you're always kind of just normal.

Like when you're happy about something you can tell,

when you're upset about something you can tell,

but you're usually right in the middle.

Like, like me, you're not, you're not on some,

I've never, I feel like Sean might be taking something.

I wish.

Well, you know, I think about him every once in a while,

but Will, I, I, I've never seen you really,

I see you hot when you get opinionated about something,

but I've never seen you angry at a person.

Well, this is the other thing that I have to,

and I've been warned by Alessandra and even by my ex,

by Amy, which is just-

Stop hitting people?

No, Amy used to turn to me, I'd get about,

I'd get heated about it and she'd just look at me,

she'd go, tone.

And I go, sorry.

And so-

That didn't, nothing will get me hotter than that.

That's why I tell her to relax.

But I don't get-

If somebody just said tone.

Yeah, I'd be like, oh really?

What kind of tone would-

But you see, I don't take it that way.

I don't take it personally that way.

Cause in that moment I'd go like,

oh, the other person's going through

is being subjected to my, to my shit.

And so like, I got it.

Cause that's a blind spot, you know?

It's like, I get in this thing where I go,

I'll hear somebody in a relationship or whatever,

or somebody in my life and they'll say,

hey, you said that and blah, blah, blah, and I go,

boy, I really didn't see it that way.

I'm really sorry.

Yeah, I appreciate getting heads up like that too.

But I also don't want people walking on eggshells around me.

I just assume that no one's paying any attention to me.

So I can just be, just level and normal.

But I realize that, oh, well,

if I'm not sending signals that I'm in a good mood,

people might be uneasy around me or anyone else that might-

I heard that the people over at aggregate,

all the staff got together.

You know what they're going to call the company now?

Here it comes.

Eggshell Productions.

I thought you were going to say aggravated.

Oh, agri-mon, that would have been better.

All right, let's get to our guests.

I love this person.

I'm so excited for you guys to meet this person.

We're all fans of this person.

And Jason, just a little hud's up,

she was on your list too, I found out.

Really?

Yeah.

You stole her?

I stole her.

She's going to fit right in here

since she isn't a stranger to dealing with idiots.

In fact, some could agree, some could argue, sorry,

she's made a career of it.

Oh, he's written this.

I totally read it.

Chat G.P.T.

And chat G.P.T.

Right, me, audience.

Oh my God, that's so funny.

In college, she had a competitive backstroke

with the William & Mary Athletic Tribe

before eventually deciding to dive

into the mean waters of political campaigning.

And though it would be difficult

to be the most mean employee at the White House,

she's got to be in the top five.

I'm a big fan of this super smart, super cute ginger.

Jensaki, Jensaki, Jensaki, Jensaki.

Get it out of here.

I love the transition from backstroke.

I was a mediocre college swimmer,

I'm just gonna acknowledge at the start here

to politics, so thank you for that.

And I also love this conversation about happiness.

I was really joyful. I thought you were like

a superstar backstrucker.

No, I was mediocre.

You think you're in shape until you try to swim.

I mean, any kind of swimming is really impressive

because boy, you try two laps and you're down.

I'm with you.

And it's the hardest thing to do,

that in full corp as well.

Jensaki, Jensaki, nice to meet you.

I'm so glad you're here. Nice to meet you.

What are your thoughts on treading water

as a form of exercise?

Because I've heard that that's like,

it involves all the muscles. Water polos.

It is hard.

Now, when you, I was a lifeguard growing up

and you have to be able to tread water

for a certain amount of time.

I don't know if any of you are aspiring lifeguards,

but you might have to practice.

It's part of the journey to save people.

Let me tell you, I went with my friend once a long time

when I went as a kid to this lake

and in the middle of the lake, there was this like,

you could lay out this, hang on, hang and stay with me.

Sorry.

This little platform that you could swim to.

And we got out there and I swam, I couldn't swim back.

I panicked. I had to grab on his back

and he had to swim.

This is the plot of stand by me.

What are you talking about?

You just made that up?

Then we found a dead body.

Jensaki, I'm so excited that you're here.

I'm excited to be here.

I'm a huge fan.

Can I just say, and happy third birthday.

No way.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

It's bananas that you even know that we're on the planet.

I watch you every single day.

I'm totally starstruck.

Your world is far more exciting and interesting

and respectful than ours, respectable than ours.

Yeah.

Well.

Yeah, well, her side, shall we say?

Her side, her side, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I want to, first of all,

I just want to get this out of the way,

the dumb stuff at the beginning.

How many people pronounce your last name wrong and do?

Oh God, I mean, 80%.

What do they say?

Pusui, Pusaili, Disaki, they add letters in between.

Then I'm sympathetic to hard names

and I really try hard to pronounce them,

but I overask sometimes how to pronounce names as a result.

Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure.

How are you liking doing a show?

Are you, what's the schedule like?

Is it nuts or easy?

Oh, yeah, it's great, I love it.

I mean, it's different

because my show's on Sundays,

I have another show on Thursday as a Peacock show

and I have a newsletter and a couple different things,

but yes, on Peacock, you can stream it.

But there's a lot of buildup to the Sunday show

and so I wouldn't say the schedule is,

and I appear on other people's shows too,

so it depends on the week,

but it's just, it's different from the White House,

where I was just in my last job

because then it was all about the briefing every day

and you work 24-7, it's not like that anymore,

but I do spend a lot of time with this amazing team

trying to figure out what unique we're gonna say,

what guests we're gonna have on,

spend a lot of time reading,

so it's just a different schedule,

but it's not as insane as it used to be.

Well, so speaking of the insane times,

you were at the White House and what was that?

What was that like?

Where were you when you got the call?

Well, yeah, where were you when you,

first of all, when you got the call?

What was it like?

What, where were you when you got the call?

I was just gonna say is the answer Peter Ducey,

I don't know, people always ask me that.

I love that, I love that.

Go ahead, that was not your question.

Well, we can do that.

Where were you when you got the call

that they were offering you that job?

Do you remember that, how that went down?

Yeah, so I was a bridesmaid twice before I was a bride,

as they like to say.

I was the runner for this job twice,

which is relevant mainly because a lot of times

people don't get jobs and then sometimes it works out, right?

And that's always, that was a big lesson to me,

but I was working on the transition.

There's a presidential transition, right,

between every president.

And I just felt like I was working in the private sector,

I was working for CNN, but I felt like I wanted to do

something for government in that period of time post-Trump.

I didn't know what it was, so I was working on that.

And Anita Dunne, who is still one of President Biden's

closest advisors, called me.

I need it done right now.

Yeah, right, she's got a fabulous,

isn't it a great name?

I love that name.

She called me and she said,

would you be interested in being considered for this job?

And I said, I'd be honored, but I really have to talk

to my family about it, which sounds a little 1950s,

but the truth is, I mean, some people think,

just you're a woman, just do it.

I believe that, but I have two little kids, I still do.

I had them then as well.

And I wanted to factor that in and see how that would be.

But then, fast forward, she called me and said,

can you go see the president, President-elect tomorrow,

or the next day or something?

And so that was all, it was kind of a little bit

of a short journey.

Can I ask you, was one of the considerations,

when you said I have to talk to my family,

obviously you have to talk to your family,

no matter who you are when you take a job like that,

because it's so all-encompassing.

And it threatens to take a lot of your time

and a lot of your energy and a lot of your focus.

And so you've got to say to your partner

and your kids and whatever.

And all of a sudden, it's a public choice.

That was gonna get to that.

So what I was saying was two part,

which is the first part is it's a big job,

blah, blah, blah, we know that.

But also, did you sort of give you some pause

knowing that the environment had changed dramatically

on in November, 2016, everything changed,

the way that we approached and where all the norms

were thrown out the window and all of a sudden,

everything is on the table or off the table,

depending on how you look at it.

And now we live in a different world

that's very changed, that's without grace,

that's without norms, that's without respect for it.

All that kind of stuff is thrown out.

Was that a major consideration?

Sorry for the long question.

Oh no, I know this is gonna sound crazy,

but no, I didn't think that that I was living that

in the sense that I was consuming all of this vitriol

just like everybody was, but I didn't apply it to myself.

And actually, even when I started the job,

working as the press secretary,

because it was the height of COVID and we didn't,

I didn't go out anywhere, I didn't do anything social,

I just basically went to work just like everybody.

I went to work, everybody was tested every day.

I went home and it wasn't until maybe three or four months

in, I was, I threw out the first pitch at a Nats game,

which was amazing, but also I'd never thrown baseball before.

No, I didn't.

No, I didn't.

I would totally bounce it.

I was really, in the leading up to it,

I thought to myself, okay, Anthony Fauci

and other people really did not do a good job.

And if that happened, I was already like playing forward

in my head, what I would say about my failed pitch,

but when I was there, which was kind of the first

random social thing I did, my husband was just me.

And this older man, I mean, it doesn't matter,

but just a description of him was following me around

going, shame, shame, shame.

And it was like, what?

What?

I know, because he didn't like Joe Biden,

maybe he didn't like the policies of the world I stood for.

Who knows?

But to answer your question,

now I'm giving you a long answer.

No, I like it.

I didn't digest it in that way.

And it really, but experiencing it and living it.

And this happens to certainly people of both parties.

So, but what I think has happened in more recent years

is anyone who, and I don't know how it is for all of you.

Do people hate you in a different way,

or do they just all love you?

How does it work?

There's three categories.

I just heard this recently.

It's mostly to Sean, go ahead, yeah.

He gets a lot.

I mean, Sean's answer on happiness,

I feel like how could you not love him?

I feel outraged about those people, okay, continue.

There's three groups of people for you,

for us, for anybody that's in the public eye.

The people who hate you will always hate you.

The people who love you will always,

oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

No matter what you do,

the people who hate you will always hate you.

No matter what you do,

the people who love you will always love you.

And no matter what you do,

the people who don't care about you don't care about you

are indifferent.

Those are the three groups, right?

Yeah, you're not turning anybody.

There's not gonna be anybody.

You didn't get a lot of letters going.

Hey, you know, I really hated you a lot

for the first three years.

And you know what?

You said, yeah.

I think I was wrong about it.

Like, it just doesn't exist in that way,

which is absurd, uh-huh.

Yeah.

And we will be right back.

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And now, back to the show.

One of the things that, I think, Will,

you make fun of me for when I talk about getting news

when you're in the White House versus getting,

like, I like asking people.

Jason thinks that there's a secret news.

I've heard you talk about this.

Wait, what is the, what is this?

Well, you think there's a secret source of information, right?

No, there's not a secret,

but I think you guys get-

There's a news source for the news people.

But I think you get information inside the White House

earlier than, say, the press gets it.

And not by a lot, but maybe like by a few minutes,

maybe an hour at times, yes?

Well, not exactly.

Although, like, I do think you're onto

a little bit of something,

is that you are making a bunch of the news

in the White House, right?

So in that sense, yes.

I mean, if you're sitting,

which I did, and many others did many times,

in the situation room,

and you know that something is going to happen,

you're gonna reopen relations with Cuba,

whatever you're gonna do.

You're gonna go after that.

Or you'll get an incoming from the Defense Department,

saying we have just,

we've just gotten rid of one of the ISIS leaders

or whatever.

Yeah, exactly.

So you guys get that information before the-

Then you know it's coming, yes.

Right, but now that you're in the media,

are you, do you wish that you still had

some of those same sources or avenues?

Yes, of course.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, I mean, it's, you know, what do I admit?

This is, I love my job.

I love doing a TV show.

I get to talk about all sorts of different things

and talk to all sorts of smart people here.

But I do miss being able to just walk into

Jake Sullivan's office or even the Oval Office

and just say, what's the deal with this?

And there's certainly been news that's happened

that you think, what is the deal with this?

I wanna know what the deal is.

It doesn't make sense.

Like with airline food, right?

Like what's the deal with airline food?

But I'll bet your sources as a journalist are incredible,

right?

Because you've got many, many high, high-level friends

in the government still.

Yeah, look, I mean, I think part of-

Jen, Jen, sorry, I hate to interrupt you.

I just wanna make sure, is Scotty okay?

Cause I know he just got back from the gym

and I can see him in the background.

Is he hot?

Is it cool enough there for him?

Do you need to-

Are you okay from the gym?

I said you like the air conditioning on when you come back.

Yeah.

He's okay.

He's okay.

Cause you got the blankets off your-

I'm so sorry, Jen, I hate this.

The cashmere is off your shoulder, Jon.

It's all good.

It's all good.

I can hear Joy Reed, who I know has been on before.

I can hear her in the hallway.

She's three doors down.

No, she's literally walking by my office.

Oh, you're at work right now?

Tell her hello.

Oh yeah, this is my office.

That's so rad.

She's on the phone.

Yeah.

So where is that?

Washington or New York?

Yeah.

Washington.

Oh God, I would dork out so much in those offices.

Just come on down.

Joy and I will take you around.

We can take you on the Meet the Press site.

Just, it can be so nerdy and amazing.

We're ready.

It'll be so good.

So now, Jen, I have something to say

before I want to get into how you started

because now, since we're talking about

the White House press room and everything like that,

now watching from home, first of all,

you're on because you were also on Jason's list, I think,

because we love you.

We admire you.

I love you and your brain.

Mutual.

Yes.

And whenever you would come up-

You were on my list too.

It's cool.

It's cool.

It's fine.

Now we know.

But it's okay.

You are on my list.

I know the two who-

Not only that, you are on three of my list.

And that's much more of a tapper.

No, you are on my list.

He loves the old taps, Dean.

I like Jake Tapper.

He writes some good fiction books.

It's all good.

We love Jake.

You are on three of my list.

You are on three of my list.

Three of my list.

So, two things.

One, at the end of the question,

I want to know what the hell's in the binder.

I think everyone wants to know what's in that binder

because it's so thick and you flip through it

and I want to know.

A lot.

What if it was just menus or something here?

I just did it to scare people.

I'm like, I'll have the fried rice with it.

Whenever you would come out to speak at a press conference

and I'd be watching on TV and be like,

I'd point to the TV.

I'm like, yeah, what Jen said,

like I don't have the gift like you do

of just generally articulation and speaking

in a succinct manner.

And you always made the best points.

You gave the most clarity when explaining a position

on a certain topic or issue.

And you have the gift of communicating in a way

that makes it digestible to us, right?

And always, at least to me,

there was always such common sense to everything you said.

Sounds like there's a butt coming.

And so I say that because it's, what's that?

Okay, there's a butt.

I'm ready for it.

There's a butt coming or something.

Well, I'm asking like you said for debate

because now it seems the whole thing,

it's an interesting job as press secretary,

whether it's Democratic president

or Republican president or whatever.

And there's never going to be a situation

where the press secretary goes,

you know what, great question, you got me.

There's always going to be this thing where

you know what they're going to ask

and they know you prepared the questions.

So what's going on here?

Well, that's true.

I mean, look, the truth is, I think so.

I mean, Fox News, I called on them every day.

They didn't exactly like the Biden administration

as a network.

They were really predictable

because if you watch Fox News every day,

they kind of had a rotation of at the time when I was there.

The border is burning and hundreds of thousands of people

are coming across the border.

COVID is a disaster and there's a rotation of things.

So it's somewhat predictable.

It's going to be one of those questions.

Sorry, did we get an update on the caravan?

Did it ever make it?

Because man, there were a lot of...

It's really hard to make it

if something is a fabrication.

That is true.

I had a friend who's like, these guys know.

Who was in the caravan?

Yeah.

Well, he would know.

Is he a good friend?

He's staying with you now?

He's a friend of mine.

Again, I'm not going to name him comedian,

sort of older guy, a little bit older than we are.

And he's one of those people

who made that turn into Fox News

when he got to be about 60.

And it's a real bummer.

And I see him in blah, blah, blah.

And his whole thing was the caravan.

I'm like, man, it's not real.

I mean, go ahead.

Anyway, sorry.

Yeah, well, because you're often in a situation

where you're up there presenting facts, right?

You're sitting there in the hub of information,

what is real, what is not,

from an international level to a domestic level.

And yet they're sitting there hearing you relay that

generously and then they say,

yeah, no, I don't believe it.

Or that, I don't know where you go from there.

Well, I think you try to make a dent into it.

I mean, you're not, you try to present the counter story

or the counter of the facts

and to counter what the accusation is.

But does that feel like dropping the bucket?

Does it feel deflating?

Do you feel defeated sometimes?

Not really.

I mean, the days that we're defeating

were the days where you'd answer the same question 50 times.

You know, and there were days like that, that's okay.

I mean, the truth is the facts questions

were not the hardest ones.

They're not the hardest ones in there.

The hardest ones are the people who are the experience

in-depth print reporters who are gonna actually ask you

the very hard question that's hard to answer

because they've been working on it.

That you may not expect.

You may not expect or you may see them in the room

and you say, oh, shit, I need to like warm up

before I get to that person.

Yeah, because the point of my question was or comment

was just the fact that, and Jake,

I know you said you didn't get it,

but what I was trying to say was,

it's not that surprising the questions you know

that you're gonna get that day, right?

So you're part of the job is to prepare for these things

that are the issues of the day.

Yeah, that's right.

And there's a significant prep

before you go out there, yes?

I mean, that's why sometimes you guys are delayed, right?

Because you're gonna sit there with the man

and say, well, what should our response be on X, Y, or Z?

Yeah, sometimes, and exactly, the man.

I love, I think he'd like to be,

you're talking about Joe Biden,

he'd like to be referred to that way.

Dark Brandon, the man, the guy, the little, whatever.

Exactly, well, look, I mean, I think when I was in the job

and I think anyone who's done that job,

sees their job as, is speaking, of course,

on behalf of the president.

So you have to get feedback from that person

to make sure you're projecting what they think,

what their point of view is, what's actually going on.

And sometimes, you know, the job, when I was doing it,

I always felt like it was just,

you wanna push as hard as you can push

on the system internally, whether it's the policy experts

or the president or others to say, we need more,

we need more, we need to be able to say more

because you're kind of the bridge

between the media, the press, and the president

and the senior members of the team.

So, yeah, sometimes it was delayed because of that.

Is there a specific moment or question

or any kind of thing that really sticks in your memory

where you're super, super close to saying,

why don't you go fuck yourself?

Oh.

The people who know me well would say that like,

there were times where I basically did

without saying go fuck yourself.

So, yes, of course.

I mean, there were certainly moments

where I lost kind of my steam

when it was the 11th or 12th time of a question being asked.

And you just sort of, but then what happens is,

that portion where you lose your steam

or you don't give the full answer

or you lose your temper is what goes online, right?

So you can be aware of that.

Yeah, exactly.

There was a particular,

I don't remember who he's worked for it,

but he asked me about abortion all the time

and there was a time where basically ripped his head off.

So, there are times because you're human.

I'm an Irish lass in my heart.

I can't be level headed at all moments,

but you tried to, especially given the time

that we are in and we were in two years ago,

the whole goal was to try to be calm and even keeled

because we needed to kind of take the venom

out of the briefing room and return it to a place

that was providing information to the public.

And is the official angle that you're speaking

on behalf of the president

or you're speaking on behalf of the United States?

Because there's a difference there, right?

That is true.

That's a good, that's a very good question.

Thank you.

But kind of both.

Guys, did you get that?

We're recording.

Why do you think his nickname is stopped clock?

Yeah.

No, it's kind of the answer is both

because sometimes the questions were about

the president's view.

He is the leader of the United States

or the president's meetings or his schedule

or his conversation.

And then there were sometimes questions about

the policy of the United States.

And sometimes the president would say things

that were at odds with the policy of the United States.

That's when things got a little tricky.

Jen Psaki, I wanna get to know Jen Psaki.

You were born in Stamford, Connecticut,

is that as far as?

Well, I was born in New York City.

Oh, I thought you were born in Stamford.

It's all good.

They're close by.

When did you move to Stamford?

I mean, I was, my parents were living there

when I was born, but I was born in New York City Hospital.

Because they were gonna need to call her there.

Well, now you're arguing.

Refresh your Wikipedia page.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm also not Polish.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Not Polish?

No.

Not Polish.

That's on your Wiki page too?

No, I didn't say Polish.

I didn't say.

Oh, I don't know.

Maybe it's not on there anymore.

I'm not sure.

Are you Greek and Irish?

What else?

I am Greek and Irish.

Greek and Irish.

Yeah.

You're Gryrish.

Gryrish.

I've never heard that, but I like that.

Gryrish.

What about your, so you have three sisters.

Oldest of three sisters.

Your mom was a therapist.

Yeah, still is.

Still is.

What was that like?

Oh, she still is.

I love that.

I could use her.

Was that like growing up and did that kind of,

cause therapists are very smart people.

Is it, did it teach you to communicate better?

Oh, maybe.

I mean, my mother didn't go to college

until after I was born.

And she didn't become a therapist

until I was probably about nine or 10.

And she used to have appointments in our house

at night sometimes after we went to bed or later.

But she always, it never really, she was always around,

which was great for me as a kid.

And she was obviously doing school and stuff.

But she still is like a, this great advice giver.

I mean, as a mom, she's somebody I call

and I think, what, what should I do about this?

Oh, that's great.

She's biased a little bit.

So did she masquerade the therapy as parenting?

Ever, you know what I mean?

Like did she mix the two?

Yeah, she did.

Although my sister and I still,

my sister's two years, one of them's two years younger than me.

And we still laugh about this time.

I mean, my mom, did therapy for families,

troubled teens, their parents.

And when we were in high school,

we came home from high school one day

and my mother said, what is this?

What is this?

And she was holding something up.

And she thought we were like baking to drugs or something

or doing tons of drugs.

And I was like, mom, it's the drawstring to my shorts.

She has no, even though she dealt with adolescents

and all sorts of things, she really was also kind of a,

had a little blind spot around that sort of thing.

Was dad around?

Dad was around too, yep.

My dad worked in New York.

Good for you and Irish dad that stayed.

Irish and Greek, Irish and Greek.

Yeah, my dad is still, he's 80 now,

but when I was growing up, it was like family vacations

where he knocked on your door at 6 a.m.

and you went out for a four hour bike ride

and then a six hour canoe.

And then that was, maybe you could rest after that.

There was an intensity.

Sean's dad was 80.

Sorry, he was going 80 when he left.

Going 80.

You go screw yourself, son.

And then I just had the black exhaust on my face.

Sean said that when he was a kid

and it's been a source of a lot of laughs.

One lot of lies.

And then Jen, you married Greg.

Yeah.

Right?

Sweet Greg.

Yeah. Sweet Greg.

Chief of staff to Congressman Joe Kennedy.

He was.

And where did you two meet?

And do you, same question about your mom now to you

and your husband, Greg and your kids.

Do you now, is there debate that goes on in the house

in a way that you, because of your background?

Oh, between us about politics.

Yeah.

Sometimes.

I mean, we met at the Democratic Congressional Campaign

Committee, which is very DC nerdy, hot, exactly.

Hot AF, keep it a romp.

Exactly.

He brought me some graders ice cream.

If anybody knows of graders in Cincinnati.

Yes, what?

I have it in my fridge right now.

Best ice cream on the planet.

Okay.

Yeah, it was, that's where it all started.

Rahm Emanuel takes credit for us getting together.

So that's funny, because Greg traveled with him.

But yeah, we dated long distance for a couple of years,

you know, all the things, but still married 13,

what, how long have you been married?

13 years, 13 years.

Wow, that's great.

And wait, how old are your kids?

They are five and almost eight.

On Thursday.

Wow.

Oh my God.

That's cool.

And you took your daughter to the Taylor Swift concert

I saw on Instagram.

I did, I did.

Was that the greatest thing ever?

I'm about to do the same thing.

Oh.

Here it's a great show.

How old, how old, I should know.

I've got a 16 and an 11, two girls.

And do they know they're going?

Yeah, yeah.

And they're fired up.

And I'm kind of fired up.

We've, we've got a mutual friend, Willie,

that said that it's the greatest concert

he's ever been to, and he's our age.

So he's been to a lot of shows

and been to a lot of great shows.

And I don't think he was exaggerating well, right?

I mean, that sounded pretty sincere.

And so I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

He loved it.

Yeah, loved it.

And when you say fired up, Jay,

you mean you're firing up the chopper to land it so far

because you don't like to deal with traffic.

I don't like traffic.

Not too much.

I'm just going to hover, actually.

I'm going to lower the kids down,

but I'm going to stay up top.

Oh, there it is.

Oh boy.

Oh, got it.

We're holding up ice cream to the camera.

It's so good.

It's really good.

I love it.

Sean, by the way.

Pine ice cream in the house.

Jen, I'm so sorry.

If you looked in Sean's freezer, you'd see,

he's like ice cream from Ohio.

We got ice cream from Indiana.

We got ice cream from every state.

It's okay.

It's okay.

I think he's a greater fan.

So there you go.

I feel like.

I like it.

Jen, what's going on with the Hollywood correspondents

or not Hollywood correspondents.

What's it called?

The Something Correspondents Center?

The White House Correspondents Center.

The White House Correspondents, that's right.

Now, I went there once and I really.

We were there all together.

Right, yeah.

We loved it.

But has it taken, it's taken a hit lately, right?

Well, probably because of the last administration.

No one really wanted to go.

But like, can we get that back up and running

and make it kind of like.

Make it cool again?

Wait, does it not happen anymore?

I mean, it does, but I want to go back.

I think it can come back.

I mean, I'm going to put some responsibility

down all of you because in order for it to be fun,

you've got to bring fun people who are not political.

Well, why don't you invite us?

You can, why don't you have the Sockee table?

Do you all want to come with NBC and MSNBC next year?

Of course we do.

I'd love to.

Of course we do.

Let's do it.

How about, well, what about the three of us

will host it, right?

Yeah, how about that?

Oh, together.

Oh, you'd be so good.

Now the White House Correspondents Association

determines if they're going to ask to invite to speak,

but I can't even put in a good word with that.

No, Peter Ducey's not going to ask us.

You'd be good.

There's better ones than us.

Ducey family doesn't want us to do it.

No, I will say one,

I actually have a good relationship with Peter Ducey,

but also this year it was the most normal,

it's not a real good thing to describe me

because it's sort of a weird dinner,

but people of all parties, different backgrounds,

doing different things, all interacting,

that's how it always used to be.

And it kind of had a gap when it wasn't like that.

So this year it felt like that, which was kind of nice.

And when is it traditionally, I forget.

Ends of April.

Or well, sometimes, but usually end of April.

Okay.

I want to know original career aspirations.

Did you always, what were you doing?

Jay, sorry, Sean.

Jay, how many gummies before the White House

corresponded to something?

Oh boy, I'll be really fired up for that one.

Oh boy.

Dude, I don't, I never leave the house

with a gummy in my body.

Okay.

Crazy?

Okay.

And I don't have a freezer full of ice cream

from every state.

Yeah.

And we're talking about vitamin gummies, right?

Yes, of course.

Of course.

I'll be, Sean, go for Sean.

Original career aspirations, earliest memory,

like the kind of career you wanted,

like was this always your trajectory?

Were you like?

No, I have never had a five-year plan.

I certainly didn't when I was five.

I still don't.

I love it, I love it.

I did, remember 2020 with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs,

I still remember the music.

And when I was a little kid,

I just thought that show was great,

which is kind of a weird thing.

I really exposing my nerdy side,

which is kind of obvious, but...

It was like more than just murder and mayhem that show.

It was different, it was different type of thing.

Totally.

Yeah, it was good storytelling.

I mean, I wouldn't have defined it that way,

but I liked that.

I did say at some point that when Barbara Walters

was ready to retire,

or maybe I said something more heartless,

like when she died, when I was little,

because you know, you're insensitive as a little kid,

that I wanted her job, because it seemed fun.

And it seemed like she was telling stories.

That's not insensitive.

No, it's just that we're all gonna die.

Did you set it at her funeral, though?

That would be.

And it's five, six, seven, eight year olds,

you're a little, you're a honey, but you're a little off.

What is that?

Now you say you don't have a five year plan,

but is that a natural progression

of sort of the lane you're in now, as far as media goes?

I mean, I really, the show's about three months old,

four months old now, and...

It's so good.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, you're doing such a great job.

You're awesome.

Every week, we just try to think of

who we wanna know more about, right?

And try to have them on as a guest,

and what we wanna know more about,

and then I usually try to spend a couple hours with somebody

so that we can do a piece about them

that isn't just about the news of the day,

but who are they, and what are they thinking about?

And actually, it's a show I think I would wanna watch,

but I always thought about what I wanted people

to come away with, right?

And I want them to feel like they're learning something,

even about someone, something they didn't know.

Maybe it's somebody they didn't think they agreed with,

or whatever.

You know what I feel like

I could probably watch a multi-episode series on

is Ron Klain.

I bet he could fill a bunch of episodes.

Oh my, I would like to do a bunch of episodes

on Ron Klain.

He is just such...

I mean, who is that?

He was the chief of staff.

Just go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

You know who he is.

He was the chief of staff, right?

Biden's first chief of staff.

He's now no longer, right?

Where did he go?

He was a fan of SmartList.

I heard it really.

Oh yeah, I've never talked to him, but I bet he is.

And he was hugely instrumental

in fixing our COVID situation

before he became chief of staff, correct?

Yeah, well...

This was during...

This was in the...

Transition and figuring out...

Yeah, I mean, he was one of the smartest people

I've ever met,

and he is a person who doesn't really sleep.

And so one of those people who you go to a meeting with

and you think,

I'm so prepared, I'm ready for all the things.

And then he's 400 steps ahead of you.

Where'd he go now?

What's he doing?

He's at a law firm.

He's a law firm now.

It's a huge asset we've lost, dammit.

Yeah, I know.

Very good.

How do you...

Were you privy to confidential information

in the White House?

Yeah.

But the stuff that the president knows?

How about everything, Sean?

Sorry, he's trying to work his way towards aliens

and UFOs.

Oh, 1,000 percent, right?

1,000 percent.

I know, of course, I knew it.

I knew it.

I could smell it.

That was quite a flirtation.

I was like, where are we going with this?

You wanna know if I knew who the bad guys were?

Was he killed?

I'm gonna fucking ask her about the bad guys.

You know, I will say,

I had a lot of access to classified information,

but there's this thing called need to know.

And if you don't need to know,

you don't necessarily have access to it.

And I wasn't on kind of the alien portfolio.

UFOs, that wasn't in my...

Do you have any boxes in your bathroom at home?

I don't.

I don't.

I don't have boxes in my bathroom.

What can we do about what seems to be

a very lightweight, cheesy wood,

blue-painted sliding door there for the press room?

I'd like a switch.

Let's switch out something about it.

Let's put a glossy blue on it.

When you come and you do your tour of Meet the Press

in the NBC and MSNBC offices here,

we'll take you to...

Have you been to the briefing room?

You've seen it, right?

Have you been in there?

At the White House?

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

It's very sad in there.

I know.

For these reporters and journalists

who are doing amazing work.

I mean, it's borderline disgusting, actually.

Where they work and they do their work.

So it needs a whole reboot.

That little pocket door.

It's so sad, that little pocket door.

The pocket door, I mean.

Yeah, the little blue one.

Yeah.

I know.

Now, right behind that, right behind that,

there seems to be a lot of action right behind that.

What do we do?

So if you walk out of the briefing room,

back into the White House,

how far are you from the Oval Office from there?

Or is there like a press room right there?

There's the lower, what's called the lower press office,

where a lot of the spokespeople sit

and journalists can come in and out.

Then if you walk up a hallway,

if you go to the right,

and then one more left, you're right at the Oval Office.

If you go to the left, you're in the Rose Garden.

Yeah, it's pretty small, right?

Yeah, the whole White House is not big, is it?

It's very small.

I do have a funny story about the pocket door,

can I tell you?

Oh, please.

The pocket door.

In my first year working for Barack Obama,

Bill Clinton came to visit and was meeting with him.

And they were having this private meeting.

It was also during a lot of the holiday parties,

so a lot of the staff were over celebrating Christmas

and holidays they celebrate.

And only one or two, maybe 22 or 23 year olds,

were staffing the press office

in case anyone needed anything.

And President Obama, President Clinton came down

and were trying to open that pocket door, which locks.

Like Jason on the airplane in the dock.

Oh, I don't, here we go.

They were trying to open it because,

and the 23 or 24 year old said,

can I help you with anything?

And they said, we have some things we wanna say

and share with the press.

Now, the reason this is funny, a number of reasons,

but one of them is, I think they were envisioning

that anytime you open that door,

there's a bunch of reporters sitting waiting.

Right around, yeah.

And really, a lot of them were at the holiday party

and other things.

So they had to go run around and say to the reporters,

get in your seats, get a pen, put shoes on,

come back to the briefing room

because two presidents are coming in.

The pockets are some history.

I don't know if you wanna get rid of it.

And then you've got like those stables outside, right?

Where the reporters will do their hits from outside there

along the driveway, right?

Pebble Beach is what it's called, yeah.

Pebble Beach.

Why do they call it that?

I'm not even sure, but it's kind of a row of cameras.

So you think they have the backdrop of the White House?

They're like individual little sort of cordoned off tents,

right?

It's like a swanky hotel pool

where you got a bunch of cabanas, right?

I don't know if it's a swing.

Yes, or they stand on boxes in the freezing cold

when it's raining and tell you what's happening

at the White House or something.

Jen, what's your biggest regret?

Can I call you, Jen?

What's the biggest regret?

Sure, what else did you call me?

I don't know.

What's your biggest, what's your biggest,

I guess Jennifer, what's your biggest regret?

Or do you have any that you can share with us

that you were like, oh, I wish I had done this

or said this or responded this way.

Every day, every day I did that job.

Every day I do a show now, every time I end it

and I say, I wish I would have said this,

I wish I said that.

Some are bigger than others.

But when you're, and when you're working on a show

and we've had that all as performers and actors

and stuff, you have those days where you go,

oh, I wish that, but I mean more like

because of what you were doing

when you were working in government.

Yeah.

And the stakes are so much higher than as you now see.

Now that you're doing TV,

you see how low the stakes really are.

Do you, when you're actually helping to,

what you're doing is part of shaping policy

and doing all that kind of stuff.

Did you have any regrets going like,

I wish that had gone this way or something like that.

Yeah, again, you don't have to get specific,

but you can just.

Oh no, I mean, one, I didn't say there was

the president's select confidence in the FBI director

on my first day.

By my first day, I already had a regret.

I kind of made fun of the space force unintentionally

because it has a funny name, but it has an important job.

Yeah, cause it's a clown show.

Cause the name is absurd,

but like they do an important job.

Now to the credit of the guy who was running it,

he sent me a note and even a pin, it was very nice.

But my biggest one is probably at the height of COVID.

When we were, there was a demand for tests

and there was a shortage of tests.

And people asked me a hundred questions about this every day.

And this was one of those moments of exasperation

where it was like the 19th question about it.

And I said, what do you want us to do?

Send them to every American.

And that's not actually what we ended up doing

because it wouldn't have, it would have been a waste,

but we did end up doing a website

where people could order tests.

Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Either way, it was just flippant and insensitive

and wasn't what I meant at the time.

It was just like, I was like,

I'm tired of answering this question.

But yes, I wish that, that would have gone differently.

But there's plenty of times.

Yeah.

There's so many things that way

as Sean had done differently.

And he sends them to me.

Yeah, I wish he had a different flavor of graders,

but that's for another comment.

Yeah, I know, I love that.

Now, Jen, we can cut this question or whatever you want,

but it's on my list.

It's something that I wanted to ask you about.

We touched on it before about the massive,

the feeling, the sense of division in this country

that kind of has never been here before.

And being on now both sides as the press secretary

and now having your own show,

do you think the press is to,

what level of blame, if any,

is the press to, about the division of it?

Do you think they use too many superlatives

and try to draw on these kind of,

make the biggest wave out of this story

and that story just to get viewers like,

or do you think the opposite?

And the press is just doing their job

and they're doing a great job?

I mean, from having been on both sides of it,

but even, I think the majority of press

are doing a good job and not just doing a good job,

but doing kind of following their role,

which is to kind of get to the bottom

of the truth of things, right?

I think the majority of reporters,

and even though I've only been on this side

for not that long,

I've worked with reporters and journalists

and media for decades, right?

So that has always been my belief.

There are bad actors and people

who do not behave that way.

And do not and share misinformation.

I've been accused of being.

You correct yourself pretty quickly,

even when you spread, you know, moments.

You have moments.

But even for those who, there are bad actors

who spread this info,

who spread inaccurate information,

who escalate things.

A lesser violation, I would say,

are people who get too freaked out about everything,

which also is not healthy.

Everything is not a crisis.

And if you keep projecting, everything is a crisis.

People are gonna turn off the TV

and stop reading the newspaper.

Right.

So you can't tell everybody to freak out about everything.

That's right.

And we even sometimes do segments we call don't freak out,

because otherwise, your nerves are so frayed,

and you just, it's a little boy who cried wolf.

You don't know when it is actually something

that is a crisis and something we should be worried about

and not.

But there are some people though, you know,

I have over 2,000 employees in Minnesota, you know,

who would do, who all need pillows,

and you know, I'm not freaking out about anything, Jen.

That's pretty good, Willie.

That is good.

That is pretty good.

That's pretty good, you know.

That is pretty good.

You know, I see Jen Saki on the one,

the bunch of those liberal-leaning Hollywood elite

on the, she's on the podcast, you know.

What is, what's your favorite,

little piece of memorabilia that you still have

from the White House?

Oh my gosh.

Either official or that maybe no one knows

that you've taken.

I'm trying to think of what I've taken.

Yeah, you can tell us.

What have I taken from the White House?

I didn't really take much.

I do have my briefing book.

I don't know that that's a real White House memorabilia.

It's like from my experience.

I didn't really take anything off the walls, I would say,

because that would be bad.

That's stealing.

Well, it's stealing.

Did your office have windows?

Yeah.

Your office did have windows.

Yeah.

There are many that don't, right?

Yeah.

Were you in the executive building?

No, I was in the West Wing.

Oh, you were?

Yeah.

Because you loved that show.

Why did I say that?

Of course you were.

Oh, I do, I do love that.

Actually, I did not watch the West Wing when it came out.

I did watch the whole entire series in 2012

after I left the Obama White House

and it made me go back to government.

So I was like a late bloomer of the West Wing,

but it brought me back into government.

I need to watch it.

I'm such an idiot.

You've never watched it?

I've never seen it either.

I've never seen it either.

It's such a good show.

So your show, is there, is it complicated?

Because I know it's complicated

on the nighttime talk shows about booking guests.

There's, you know, well, you can't do this show

after this show or you gotta leave a couple of months with.

Oh yeah, there's some of that.

So, yeah, I'll bet.

And I don't want to get you in trouble

or make you uncomfortable,

but that is part of the job,

is trying to negotiate the guests, right?

Because certain shows want certain guests

and then you have to kind of wait your turn

or there's a hierarchy, yeah, I'll bet.

Well, I don't know if it's a hierarchy

as much as you do have to do legwork,

reaching out to people and engaging with them

about being on your show and why, you know,

you never tell them like, this is what I'm gonna ask you

or I won't ask you this.

But, you know, sometimes I think everybody

has different pitches about the experience of their show.

So for me, I would tell people,

we're gonna give you more time.

We wanna explore more than just the news of the day.

I wanna go take a walk with you or cook with you

or run with you or whatever,

which is a little bit different than other shows.

My show's also newer.

So some other shows are like,

I've been around for a long time

and my viewership is whatever it is.

Everybody has different pitches,

but you gotta do some legwork on it and do your homework.

I mean, I'm always,

because I've been all sides of the pitches of things,

I always laugh.

I mean, I can't even imagine the number of pitches

you all get, I don't even know.

But people send me emails to pitch being on the show

that it's like, have you ever watched the show?

I mean, it hasn't been around that long,

but they're like things that have nothing to do

with what we do.

Well, them wanting to do it right.

Right, and so, you know, it's from well-meaning PR people.

That's completely fine.

I respect the profession,

but what I've learned is you really have to do the homework

and read the 20 articles about a person to say,

I thought it was so interesting about this or that

or what have you.

So, yeah, you gotta do, you gotta do.

But there, you know, of course,

there's like a little competition

about who has who and all that kind of stuff.

Sure.

But if somebody likes to say Andrew Weissman

who's like on salary, basically,

like is he told what shows to do

or does he get to pick what shows he does?

He gets to pick what shows he does,

but if people...

Cause I could watch him all day.

Oh, he's the best, isn't he?

And you do, and you do.

And he has a dog named Innes.

I've been to his apartment.

We did a whole thing.

That apartment, that apartment just shoots

and crad up, I mean,

the room Raider must be out of their mind.

He always scores highly with the room Raider.

He's got art you can't even see in the apartment.

I know he's got the metal staircase.

You know you've got good art if you're not showing it.

You know what I'm saying?

I mean, no, he picks, but people book people up.

They kind of lock them in if they know

because the legal story is going to be big for a while,

it seems, that's my most diplomatic way of saying it.

Do you get to decide your fill in

when you go on vacation,

you get to decide who takes over for you

or is that to come from the high up?

Yeah, I think so.

I think you kind of have a conversation.

I haven't missed a show yet, so I don't know yet.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, you can go on for Oscar for me.

Yeah.

Listen, Jen Saki,

you've taken up way too much of your time.

I love you.

It's like two minutes, damn it.

I want to leave with this, Jen,

because I really mean it.

I want to say thank you for always imbuing the idea

and the sense that every human being

should be treated equal.

And you've always said versions of that

throughout your entire career.

I don't understand who wouldn't be for that idea

that all human beings should be created equal,

but so thank you for always saying that.

You've always seemed to be a very decent person.

Thank you.

I believe that.

I mean, in a lot of ways,

I don't see myself as a partisan or as a Democrat,

even though I've worked in Democratic pugs,

I see myself as somebody who believes

in kind of morally what is right

and not justifying discrimination.

And that is what gets me.

It came across.

It came across.

Yeah, you're very exciting to listen to and to watch

because of your intellect,

and some people can have an intellect,

but they're kind of old and stodgy.

There's a current, there's a relevance

to your sensibility about things

and your way in which that you articulate that

is always exciting to listen to.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

So great to meet you.

Thanks.

Huge fan.

Happy third birthday.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And good luck with the show.

We'll keep watching.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Jen.

Thanks, Jen.

Goodbye.

What about that Jen Psaki?

Jen Psaki, huh?

Jen Psaki.

I mean, are you kidding?

I love Jen Psaki, you know?

Anybody with a silent P.

Especially with, she should open the sushi place, right?

Jen Psaki.

I mean, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

I saw that coming a mile away.

And Jay, she was behind your list for a while, right?

She was, yeah.

But, you know, I mean, I've got a lot of,

I don't push for the political folks

because I know we try not to get too political on the show.

But man, I've got a long list of folks.

I should, maybe I should,

I should start a different podcast.

There's a little one on the side, right?

But yeah, I'm fascinated with all that political stuff,

especially now.

And I love the way she said, Sean,

and sort of in answering your question at the end

when you were talking about just about this idea

that she's not trying to be one way or the other.

Like, in fact, if anything,

she just wants to come across as very, bye, Partisans.

Oh, nice, bye.

She works for Joe Biden, and her used to.

Don't harmonize.

You can't harmonize the bye.

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