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White House press secretary Jen Psaki joins Andy fresh off a press briefing to talk about rebuilding public trust in the government, working with President Biden, and what it was like becoming a household name overnight. Andy shares his thoughts on the ultimate COVID-19 question: bat or lab? Plus, In the Bubble field correspondent Dr. Lisa visits a federal vaccination site to see what a government in action can do.

 

Keep up with Andy on Twitter @ASlavitt and Instagram @andyslavitt. Follow Dr. Lisa on Twitter @askdrfitz.

 

Jen Psaki is on Twitter at @PressSec.

 

Check out In the Bubble’s Twitter account @inthebubblepod.

 

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Check out these resources from today’s episode: 

 

• Watch Jen’s first-ever White House press briefing on January 20th, 2021: https://youtu.be/N4WMxMJ-J3Y
• Order Preventable by June 30 and complete the form to receive a free set of limited-edition stickers, a custom-printed Preventable mask, and a signed bookplate: https://read.macmillan.com/promo/smppreventablejunepromo/

 

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For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com/show/inthebubble.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Jen Psaki, Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, Andy Slavitt

Andy Slavitt  00:17

Welcome to IN THE BUBBLE. I’m your host, Andy Slavitt. The question that I get asked most frequently about my time in the White House is not “did you meet Joe Biden?” “But did you meet Jen Psaki?” Jen Psaki is on the show today, she’s the White House press secretary, which is either the best job or the worst job in the world, you’ll be able to judge for yourself when you listen to Jen, she may be the nicest person. And the most straightforward and interesting to talk to the person that you’re going to meet. I did get a chance to work with her in the White House. She’s not just universally loved in the White House, but she’s also universally respected. So some of the questions that emerged during our first week—IN THE BUBBLE – Our Shot—are questions around trust, and the politics and our leaders and do they have our best interest in mind?

Andy Slavitt 

And these next couple of episodes, we’re going to be talking with two great women, I might call them super women. Jen Psaki today. And on Wednesday, we have Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who is the head of the CDC. And these are the people that are leading us. The question is, do we trust them? And are they leveling with us? Because that’s the experience that we need to have, particularly with public health crisis. So we’re going to talk a little bit about public health communication with both of these great women. when we do this shortly. Before I do that, I want to talk about one question that appears to be on everybody’s mind. And that is the question. Bat versus lab. Was COVID-19 created in a lab? Or did it come from a bat? Was it […]? Or was it a lab leak? So let me give you my perspective on this.

Andy Slavitt  02:05

Number one, nobody knows. Anybody who tells you they know, doesn’t know. Number two, there is an intelligence report being written right now, that will go into more depth than the one that’s been written before. And we hope that there will be more information. Number three, the Chinese have been uncooperative, which has given people reason to be suspicious. Number four, you could make a good circumstantial case either way. If you’re gonna make a circumstantial case, for a lab, you’d say, oh, this is a virus that aerosolizes, all you’d have to do is picture a broken test tube. And you could picture a virus escaping into the air and people getting infected goes home infecting their families. And you can imagine that happening, there’s no evidence of that, but you could certainly imagine it.

Andy Slavitt 

Or you could say, these viruses tend to come from bats, they almost always come from bats. And it’s undoubtedly this virus at some point came from a bat. So it’s more likely that this came from a bat like SARS. So unfortunately, these things sometimes take years to find out. But I want to address two of the subtle points that I think you’re coming up around this. One is this sort of triumph. That, you know, Trump supporters are saying now that like, Why didn’t anybody listen to President Trump when he said this came from a lab? To some extent, they have a point, you know, we don’t know we should be open minded. But I do have to say this. If you lie a lot, don’t be surprised if nobody believes you when you open your mouth. Okay?

Andy Slavitt 

President Trump spent a lot of time lying, saying things that weren’t true. making things up, improvising, generally trying to avoid accountability by pointing fingers when you do that, and when you get caught in lies. Don’t be surprised if your credibility shrinks. That’s one of the costs of line. My parents told me this when I was a little kid, crying wolf. And by the way, whether it came from a lab, or whether it came from a bat, we should expect our president to take the exact same actions to protect the public, no matter what. So I’m not saying it doesn’t matter where it came from, it matters. But pushing this on to the Chinese does not change in any degree, the responsibility that we had, that President Trump had to protect the public from this.

Andy Slavitt  04:46

So whether it’s the Chernobyl or a 9/11, or a lab leak, the first and most important obligation of our elected officials is to protect the public, period. Second thing that’s very interesting is, if you look at the book Preventable, which by the way, still available to you a signed copy, you can find the link right in the show notes. But there’s a really interesting part in the book, where then President Trump says that he believes that this was cooked up by the Chinese in a lab.

Andy Slavitt

And as a result of that, it was explained to him by one of the characters in the book Blythe Adamson, telling him a bedtime story, a bedtime story. Yes, a bedtime story. And you can hear that bedtime story if you buy the book. And of course, again, we’ll get you a signed copy. So back to where we were. We’re talking this week about communication. We’re talking today to Jen Psaki, then Wednesday will be going to be talking to the head of the CDC, and we’re gonna talk about how we regain public trust. So I’m very excited to introduce press secretary Jen Psaki.

Jen Psaki  06:11

Hi, Andy.

Andy Slavitt 

Hey, Jen.

Jen Psaki 

How are you?

Andy Slavitt 

I’m Good. How are you? Are you post briefing today?

Jen Psaki 

Yes. Post briefing.

Andy Slavitt

What was the toughest thing today?

Jen Psaki 

It was a lot on crime and voting rights.

Andy Slavitt 

Are you pro-crime?

Jen Psaki 

Oh, I’m anti-crime. Yeah, people have been the reporters would be like, I have a question about your crime, your crime stuff. And you’re like the anti-crime speech the President’s giving? Okay, so yeah, so it’s good. Oh, and the Vice President’s going to the border.

Andy Slavitt 

Yeah, that’s right. Any questions today on the 70%?

Jen Psaki

Actually, no. Yeah. I was all ready to be kind of on offense there. But no, no, no, you’re missing the forest through the trees there, guys. This is a […] we set.

Andy Slavitt 

Exactly. Exactly. And I think the President’s goal was that we would have small barbecues by Fourth of July outdoors without a mask. I think he’s blown that away.

Jen Psaki 

Yeah, we’re having 1000 people here as you will know, on July 4th, it’s more than a small backyard barbecue.

Andy Slavitt 

Exactly. It’s a south lawn barbecue.

Jen Psaki 

Exactly. Exactly.

Andy Slavitt 

I didn’t realize you worked for Crowley.

Jen Psaki

Oh my god. Yes. How do you know that? Do you have like, are you friends with Joe Crowley?

Andy Slavitt 

Him, I did Charlie Rose together. And it was just another story. Right? But he and I had And we have like a couple beers beforehand. But like, and then I didn’t your husband worked for Joe. And like Joe and Joe were like, really good friends. So I hung out with the two of them a little bit.

Jen Psaki 

I mean, I love Joe Crowley. He’s a great singer, too, which is a little-known thing about him. But I also love Joe Kennedy so much. I mean, my husband worked for him for 8 years. Am I upside down on your screen? Is that okay?

Andy Slavitt  08:02

Yeah, you’re upside down. It’s a blood rushing to your head. So what are the things you have to know is this show our show is completely over proportionately listened to by moms, It’s a very female oriented audience.

Jen Psaki 

What does that say about your demographic? I kind of love that.

Andy Slavitt 

I’m like the opposite of Jon Favreau, who is like, oh, like the 25-year-old guys and maybe 25-year-old women and I have like, marriage proposals from people like my mother’s age and things like that.

Jen Psaki 

Take the support wherever you can get it.

Andy Slavitt 

The moms never liked me when I wanted to take their daughters out. But now they  seem to like me more. The reason I mentioned that is because what I hear, and you may hear this too, and you’re generally speaking, you’re very modest person, but a lot of little girls really want to grow up and be Jen Psaki.

Jen Psaki 

Well, that’s amazing. I don’t know if my daughter does.

Andy Slavitt 

I bet she does. I bet she does. But she might not tell you. What did you want to be when you were a little Jen Psaki?

Jen Psaki

Oh my gosh, when I was a little Jen Psaki, so 5 or 6. I actually really liked Barbara Walters, believe it or not, I thought that 2020 was a really good show. And if I clean my room, this makes me sound really nerdy. I was a fun kid. But if I clean my room, and you know, you have to do when you’re five or six or seven, I got to stay up a little bit late and watch 2020 so I probably always liked storytelling, you know, and when I was a little kid, I used to say to my parents, by the time I’m old enough to have a job, Barbara Walters won’t be around anymore. That didn’t turn out to be accurate but she’s you know, still cooking and still out there and TV but that was I think maybe what I wanted to be Barbara Walters I don’t know what that meant. Exactly. But otherwise, I don’t know, I think I wanted to be what little kids wanted to be.

Andy Slavitt  10:03

You were gonna take her out.

Jen Psaki 

As a seven-year-old.

Andy Slavitt 

Turns out there’s room for Barbara Walters and Jen Psaki in this world.

Jen Psaki 

It turns out for sure, for sure. Absolutely.

Andy Slavitt

So what I know about you, as you then had a political career working for, you know, Crowley, obviously in Obama in the White House. And there’s this thing in Washington, which people outside of Washington don’t use these expressions as much, but they talk about staff, and they talk about principles. And, you know, you were clearly like a senior staff person. And now you’re kind of a very much front facing person. What was that transition like, Barbara? I mean, Jen.

Jen Psaki 

I’ve always wanted that. Thank you, Andy. You know, I always still think of myself, I am still a staffer. I’m a staffer for Joe Biden, who’s the president, right? So yes, I go out there. And I do the press briefing every day, but I’m really on my best days, I’m projecting exactly what he thinks about things. I did have a little bit of a prelude to this, as you mentioned at the State Department. And what was funny about that one, it was amazing, great job and experience is that nobody in the United States really watches the State Department briefing, I shouldn’t say nobody, but most people do not. Although it is the way that a lot of markets in the world get the news about the United States position. So when I was in that job, nobody, I could go to the grocery store. No one would ever recognize me anywhere, right?

Jen Psaki

But if I went to Ukraine, you know, people would know who I was, which was always kind of a funny and startling, startling thing. And it was also it was kind of my first exposure to how much it matters, what you say from the podium, whatever podium you’re at in the United States, you know, I mean, I used Ukraine as an example, because when I was at the State Department, Russia illegally intervened in Ukraine. And so therefore, when I went to Ukraine, it was like, people wanted to take photos. And it was like, wow, that’s not because I determine the policy of the United States, it’s because they see me as someone projecting the support of the United States for Ukraine, right?

Jen Psaki  12:17

And so that was a good prelude for me, because it was kind of a reminder, or even coming into this job of, you know, you go out there you do the briefing, you are somebody who also enjoys as to I engaging with the media and having that back and forth and forcing yourself to kind of learn things you don’t know a lot about. I mean, you have to because otherwise, you’re going to fall on your face. So I enjoy that. But it’s that that experience before this was kind of a great lead up to me, because it is funny to me, when I kind of go to the grocery store or a restaurant and people seem to know who I am. I always am always like, surprised by it still.

Jen Psaki 

But also, I remember that experience I had at the State Department and kind of like when you go out there, what you’re trying to project. And it’s like really trying to capture, frankly, when you were in government with me or Jeff or Dr. Nunez or Dr. Fauci. And certainly the president, like, what are you guys working on? And what do people need to know about it? And like, that’s what I so that’s where I’m like, I’m always going to be felt like a staffer in this job. Because I do think that that’s what the job is.

Andy Slavitt

Spend a minute on the day in the life, because they’re the things that would appear all over people’s calendar, that are called Psaki briefing or JP briefing, or JP prep, or Psaki prep.

Jen Psaki 

It’s the COVID team thinking what problems will be created for me today? Note it. So we know afterwards.

Andy Slavitt  14:05

No, it’s like there’s a generally speaking, I think people come together and I imagine from like every department, every cabinet, comms teams from all walks of life, and they sit in room with you in the morning before you go into your briefing. And tell you, you know, what they’re hearing from reporters or what news is being made out of their agencies or you know what problems exist, so that you can have some amount of time to prepare, before you go out and face the reporters talk a little bit about like, well, how does that […] tend to work?

Jen Psaki 

Sure, sure. I mean, my day, like, I feel like everybody who works in government and probably other industries is a little bit messy. And also I have two preschoolers. So the morning I’m not I don’t like have newspapers splayed across my, you know, kitchen table making copious notes about what I can say, I don’t really have that luxury. But people don’t see though is that well, the press office is about 10 people and so there’s anybody who’s in this job. My job relies hugely on this group of people. And we divide up the team by beats just like reporters do. So we have, you know, Andy, a great guy, Kevin Munoz, we call him Dr. Munoz. He’s not even old enough to be a doctor, but it’s fine.

Andy Slavitt 

Fauci goes to him for medical advice.

Jen Psaki 

He might, I don’t know. But he as an example, you know, he goes and kind of looks up, what are going to be the issues reporters care about, he talks to reporters, he looks at the news. We talked about it in the morning. And then he helps put together some press guidance. That is, yeah, for the briefing. But it’s also for a follow up stories. And it’s also for members of the administration who are going to be out publicly. So there’s a whole process that happens in the morning, that there’s a lot of gathering some writing, then you talk it through sometimes you do practice back and forth, if it’s a particularly sticky wicket. And that’s what you do before the briefing, and you do it kind of with each issue area. So whether it’s COVID, or national security, or the economy or immigration, depending on what the day is, you’ll spend more on different topics.

Andy Slavitt  16:04

Got it. So you get prepped, then you go out there. And what was it like the first day, I was at the 21st of January. What are you feeling? Was it 20th?

Jen Psaki 

Yeah, it was the 20th. That’s the first day, the inauguration day. Well, we did a briefing the first day. And it may be it’s been done in history before, but I’m not sure. Because typically, maybe Coolidge. It was important to us. And we talked about this during the transition to do a briefing the first day because it was sending a message no matter what I said, I mean, hopefully I didn’t start a war or anything I didn’t. But because we want to send a message that we were going to be an administration that was transparent, that engaged with the press that had those difficult back and forth. And doing that from the very first day seven o’clock. 7pm was my first briefing was important to us. Now, that day transpired in sort of this funny way, because of COVID, but also because of the security.

Jen Psaki

So we literally met to get on a bus at the zoo. So I’m on this bus at the zoo with like my briefing book, like, okay, hopefully this is going to be good. You get into the building. And then I remember before that briefing thinking, it’s important for me to one set the tone and the tone. And that was really important to the president and something he conveyed to me directly to, that we are going to engage with a range of viewpoints of outlets, we’re going to have that back and forth. And we’re going to treat you with respect and a range of topics we’re going to come up but the tone and being clear. And I remember thinking in advance about what I wanted to say when somebody inevitably which they did ask me if I would vow never to lie. And so that was a huge part of my thinking in advance. Now I also the night before 11:30pm, or something I was saying to my husband, oh god, what if they asked me about Venezuela, there’s only so much I know about Venezuela and what’s happening right now.

Jen Psaki 

And he was like, they’re not going to ask you deeply about Venezuela on the first day I was like, I don’t know why Venezuela, but that was on my mind. But I just remember just kind of taking a deep breath. And I had a little shimmy before I went out. And I was definitely nervous the first day for sure. Because I’m a human being. And I had also sat in this office and worked for the White House press secretary during the Obama administration. So it was kind of there have been surreal moments when you’re like, should I tell people I’m going out to the briefing room, you know, so I had a little bit of that on the first day too. But, you know, it was also a huge honor and exhilarating to be out there. Representing the president and kind of this moment in history in this moment in time.

Andy Slavitt  18:38

Well being asked by the president to represent and reflect him is such an incredible honor, especially for a president who really wanted to commit and send a message of empathy, and sincere leadership and commitment to the country. And I think at a time when trust was so perilous, we forget because it was only four or five months ago, but things were far darker five months ago than they are today. The faith in government was low. People’s sense of is the government still going to be here, let alone is it working for me. And it is a man who his whole life I think the various points in time was ready to be president. But at the particular time he became president was a time when the country so needed someone like him, and there you are out there to speak for him. Incredible.

Jen Psaki 

Yeah, even being asked to have a conversation about the job was a huge honor. But I think you’re exactly right. It is how I felt, you know, this moment in history. And he’s exactly the right person, in my view to be serving at this moment in history. And for so many reasons. I mean, obviously his experience but also kind of his steadiness and his empathy for human beings and for the country. And, you know, with a conversation I had with him about this job. He wasn’t testing me on the South China Sea. We did talk about that, because he would share a nerdy love of foreign policy, but it was more about what we were conveying to the public. And some of that’s tone. But also it is how can we rebuild that trust, as you said, and how can we do that?

Jen Psaki  20:25

And what are the steps to take and some of that is how you engage, who you engage with, what tone you use, some of it is bringing policy experts in which we’ve done quite a bit of into the briefing room so that people can, the American public can see oh, this is the person who’s leading the effort on housing, or transportation or energy, or whatever it may be. And so I always think, you know, now I’ve learned […] I’ve traveled with him, and I’ve spent a lot more time with him. But early on, I thought to myself, I just need to stay kind of exactly aligned with where he is right on how he’s kind of conveying what his objectives are, what the public needs to know, and worry about or not worry about. And, you know, staying aligned with him is something I think that’s been a big part is always a big part of this job. But especially in this moment.

Andy Slavitt

And it’s also what he doesn’t do, like, he doesn’t get thrown off his game, he doesn’t take the bait, you know, rarely takes the bait, when the governor kind of throws sometime in the water to pick a fight that’s distracting. I just get the sense he knows who he’s talking to. And, you know, he tells us all the time, he tells you all the time, I’m sure, you know, don’t talk over people, right, let’s make sure we get people that are helpful. Whereas the people who came before you, they had the singular audience of the president they had to perform, I found it very freeing to feel like I was working for a president, who is there to fix things for real people. And that’s, I felt for me, and I had such a small public face relative to what you do. But I felt like I was free to go out and talk to people about what would help them. And that was my only job. And to be honest, I can’t imagine if I had to do that job under a president with very different expectations.

Jen Psaki  22:16

It is so true. I mean, I definitely feel that way. I mean, look, it’s a hard time in the country for a million reasons, right? And for the majority of which is what we inherited. But there’s other challenges too. But what makes my job doable is in part that I know, I can always go ask him what he thinks about anything. And he actually welcomes that. Because he understands because he’s been in this world for long enough. I mean, as the vice president, he understands what the role is of conveying that to the press. But also, I know that if I mess up, and we all do, I’ve said a zillion words publicly, that I can fix it.

Jen Psaki 

And he’s not, he understands that too. And so it kind of allows you to and the third thing I know is that if I speak in a way that is full of acronyms, and inaccessible, that’s probably like, that’s the failing grade right there. If you kind of mess something up, you need to clean up, you can clean it up. But the big thing is making sure people and he’ll kind of not tests, but he will say, how are you gonna explain that nobody will understand that. He’s very, he’s very attuned to how we’re communicating with the public and making sure it’s clear and accessible.

Andy Slavitt

So I have this, it’s this theory about public health communication, and I’m going to read it by you. Which is that, like, most of what we do in communication, what you do in communication is you’re taking policy, which is basically done, and you’re explaining it or positioning it to people, or if there’s policies you want, we want past your explaining and positioning it, and the communication goes over and wraps around it. Whereas in public health, and I’m sure there’s other examples, particularly before you have a vaccine or the communication is actually the policy itself. Because what people do, how they socialize, gather, whether they wear a mask, or they don’t, that’s our medicine, until such time as we have an actual clinical medicine.

Andy Slavitt  24:05

And so the burden on how you do public health communication feels totally different in people’s expectations for what they hear, are totally different. And then, you know, the first part of the plan of the COVID response was to restore trust with the public, right? those were the words in the playbook. So how did you think first of all, do you agree with that in any way? And then how did you approach coming out of talking about the pandemic? And I’ll remind people, this is at a time when 3000 people a day were dying, 40% of the public only said they would take the vaccine if they could get it but didn’t matter because nobody could get it. There was no inventory. People were very frustrated. They’d been promised something that we had been delivered on. How did you manage that?

Jen Psaki 

You know, a big part of it I feel like was going back to kind of the fundamentals of what the truth is, and I know that sounds overly simplistic, or maybe even spin itself, but it’s not intended to be.

Jen Psaki 

And I think especially with COVID the ultimate spin, I’m playing three-dimensional chess here and you never know it. Especially with COVID. I totally agree with your point about, especially following the last administration, that people didn’t think they could believe what the government and public health officials in the government and not all. But you know, to some degree, we’re telling them, as you will know, and in order to reset that we needed to be very clear from all of you, of course, but also from me, yeah, that is a challenge, whatever it may be, it is a challenge that we don’t have enough vaccinators. And so that’s what here’s what we’re gonna do about it, or you’re right, some of these mass vaccination sites in some places are not getting as much uptake as we thought. So we’re going to close some of them. And some of it is acknowledging that there’s no playbook, and that we are going to make changes and adjustments as we go. Now, that was also what the strategy was, right?

Jen Psaki 

So in some ways, it was kind of simpler than people would might think. And because there was a decision made at the beginning, which I full heartedly agree with, I was an advocate for the multiple COVID team briefings every week. But to be as transparent as we could be about what was actually going on, where we had successes, but also where we had challenges. And I think that served us because people built some trust, including in the vaccine and the effectiveness of the vaccine for a range of reasons. But I do think that some of the reliability of how the government was communicating had to have had a factor, an impact.

Andy Slavitt  26:05

I remember when we ran by you that idea of doing these three times a week briefings it started out three times a week, and I think it moved, moved a little bit. And you said yes, like right away. Or at least at least that’s how it came back to me. Was, we were like, we’re gonna run this by Jen. And a part of me was a little bit surprised. I didn’t know you very well. But I was like, wow, she is not a control freak. I mean, that was kind of what I, what I like went through my head was like, and what’s going through my head was, how do I go out and do this in a way that make Jen’s job easier? How do I take some of the questions? How do we take some of the things that are likely to come at her or that are to your point about State Department briefings, that are like seven layers in about, you know, Turkey, and the country of Turkey, right, and absorb some of that, and then still walk that place where it’s consistent with how the White House wants things done. And of course, I had just gotten to the White House. So what did I know?

Jen Psaki 

And they were like, Andy, can you do this every day? Or three times a week? Yeah, exactly. No, I definitely was an advocate from the beginning. And one because we hired great people, but also, because if we were going to rebuild trust with the public, we needed to put scientists, experts, public health experts out there publicly. And, you know, I love my job. I think hopefully, in most days, they don’t start a war or don’t say anything that contradicts the president. But I’m not a public health expert. And I recognize that and I think the more my view is, the more people we can have out there to introduce to the public who they can trust, or, oh, this person has been working in public health, or they’re an operational expert, or they’re a medical doctor, the better was going to be at a time that we felt so pivotal for rebuilding that trust with the public on what they could trust with the government on how we were doing, how we were getting the pandemic.

Jen Psaki  28:32

And it’s people forget how I mean; you don’t forget how bad things were in January when we came in. I mean, they were scary. They were scary as a human being bad. And it just felt so pivotal for that reason, and people tuned in and watch them, you know, I was my mother and father-in-law are always kind of my arbiter of like, whether something breaks through or not, or is working in some ways. Because they live they’re like made for a focus group. They live in Ohio, they might be registered independence, I’m not really sure. I think they voted both ways. One is like a retired teacher. Well, they’re also lovely people, but like, some, you know, they would pay attention to these and get information and sometimes things like that are telling it’s like nobody knows to where to go to say, when is there going to be a vaccine? When can I get it? What’s safe and not safe? I mean, these were like fundamental life things at the beginning. So my sister is a public health expert. So I have to had to deal with like a data person. Yes, she works. She works at HHS. But so I’ve had to I’ve had like a you know, I see this public health expert at Friday night, pizza night, every night for the course of the pandemic, who’s like, studying data, you know, you know how your crew is. Late at night.

Andy Slavitt 

Well, you know, everybody’s a public health expert now. You’re at this for like three weeks. Do you like look sis let me tell you. This is really how it works. It was scary those first few weeks. I mean, I go back and think about, I had difficulty sleeping, not just because I was working, but because I was so stressed out and wired up from just the fact that 1000s of people were dying every day. Yeah, but I will say this, like, the thing that was most, the most common feeling like the best part of it all, was both the President and Vice President and the team, everybody, everybody around. Who was so I don’t know, this is gonna sound to the audience, but so good at what they did and so trustworthy and so low ego, that it felt like you didn’t feel alone. Like, there’s one thing to carry a burden and feel like you’re carrying it by yourself. There’s nothing to carry burden and feel like, you know, everybody around you is as good at what they do. And you’ve got the tools you need; you just have to kind of stick with it. And I think that’s a feeling at least that I had in the White House. For the time that I was there.

Jen Psaki 

I don’t know how this will sound to the audience, either. But I remember thinking early on being being I mean, first of all, none of us had worked in an office or I had not, and most of us had not come into an office. So you kind of coming into a building. We’re not fully vaccinated yet.

Andy Slavitt 

There have been a lot of COVID in that building, to be fair.

Jen Psaki

There’d been COVID in the building to be fair, we’re all wearing masks. And you’re kind of even in your daily life. You’re like, how is this, right? But I do think, you know, and having worked in the Obama administration, prior with an amazing, wonderful group of people, but I was also younger in that stage, I came in. And also one of the things that stuck with me is like, wow, this is like a really experienced group of people, some of whom may not have returned to government had it not been following Trump because they had their moment or they had their job or what have you. But from a lot of people, this is always the case to some degree, but there’s a pull to public service in this moment, because of what we’re digging out of that I think is unique to this time. And that also makes this group of people you work with to be you know, it’s really amazing. Some of the people who’ve come back to do different jobs just because they want to serve the country and make it better. And that’s a cool thing to be a part of.

Andy Slavitt  32:18

Totally, I totally felt that. What’s it like, being Jen Psaki, now that you’re not little girl, Jen Psaki, but you’re growing up Jen Psaki and you go to restaurants, and I imagine or wherever you go play in a park with your kids. People say hi to people, what do people say to you? How does it feel?

Jen Psaki 

I mean, first I will say my kids are three and five. So they know I go to work. They don’t really know what I do there. They don’t know anything about it. It’s very centering. My niece did think that she could she like a couple weeks into this job. My sister said to her, oh, we’re gonna see and Jen on Friday, we haven’t seen her and a week or two. And she goes, she sees me every day. Like, you know, I can see her through the TV or something. You know, it’s funny, I’m still surprised when people recognize me, which I you know, I realized I go do the White House briefing every day. And I always think about how I never know the right thing to say, because people, you know, people say, oh, I’d see you or you this person or, or what have you.

Jen Psaki 

But it’s hugely humbling and flattering and everything. And I get to be a part of like, kind of a restabilizing of government. And I think that is sometimes what people react to. Right? It’s just, you know, some people will say, I don’t watch the briefing every day, but just thank you for being there. I’m like, I hope you don’t watch the briefing every day. Oh, my goodness. So you know, it’s just it’s still surprising to me, I still haven’t figured out the right thing to say, because you’re just so you’re so surprised and flattered when people recognize you and all those things.

Andy Slavitt  34:13

I told you this, but it is true. If I add up the number of people when I say, oh, you worked in the White House, who said to me did you know Joe Biden versus, did you get to meet Jen Psaki? Like Jen Psaki. Sorry, I’m sorry, Mr. President, people love and respect you, you let us out of this crisis. Your principled leader, but you know, Jen Psaki apparent according to the now maybe it’s just the people that I interact with. I get it, but I don’t know if we can put it into words, but it’s your tone, your humanity, your humor, and just being very real. And I’m sure those are things that the President saw in you. And that’s probably why you don’t know how to react when you run into people because you don’t feel like the person they see you just feel very much like you always did.

Jen Psaki

No, thank you. I’m usually flattered. I’m blushing right now, as you can see, because I’m Irish, so I’m probably always blushing.

Jen Psaki

You’re either blushing or you’re drinking.

Andy Slavitt

For everyone, it’s 4:30 in the afternoon, Jen is not drinking.

Jen Psaki 

I’m not drinking. The truth is, I love this job. And I love what I get to do every day. And I’m incredibly blessed that I get to do it and get to go out and do the briefing every day and learn from the president learn from you learn from policy. I mean, I can call it policy people every day and ask them questions, just because I mean, you know, hopefully, it’s something the press wants to know. But sometimes you’re just curious, you know? So, I think some of it is also I get to do this every day. And that’s, you know, that’s a huge honor to but yeah, and my kids are, you know, very centering when they’re like, mom, why are you on the phone? What are you doing? Get me milk, get me this, get me that, you know?

Andy Slavitt

My kids, they’re now 23 and 19. They care a little bit about what I do, but not anything compared to like what’s going on in their life. And that’s the way it should be. I don’t want them to, if they call and talk to me about what’s going on in their life, I’d be 10 times happier. But you know, they’re boys. And you know, they don’t always talk. Well, thank you, thank you for spending the time. And thank you for all the partnership and being a great colleague and welcoming me into the White House for my brief stay there and really meaningful.

Jen Psaki  36:29

You too. I mean, all of your listeners already know this, because they listened to you. But you were like as a communicator, you’re the rare unicorn of a policy expert, who actually also knows how to communicate. So you know, you’re a rare breed yourself. So it’s a pleasure working with you, but also fun to talk to you about all this stuff.

Andy Slavitt 

Thank you. Thank you. Well, that will go to my head because I don’t know. I mean, cuz I’m looking for a compliment.

Jen Psaki 

If your team’s listening, let’s delete that part. Thank you so much. Great talking to you.

Andy Slavitt

Thank you, Jen, for coming on. She’s so busy. That it’s a real treat that she came on to talk to you, talk to me. I really think she’s great. You know, one of the things that she talked about is actually funny enough, the subject of our great field correspondent Dr. Lisa’s visit this week. And that’s the federal vaccination centers. I mean, one of the things that was so different about what the Biden administration did when we got there was we made sure there were more vaccines. We made sure there were many more vaccination sites, we made sure, there were more vaccinators to the field. And standing up these federal sites was this big symbolic gesture. And actually, Jen talked about this.

Jen Psaki 

We want to meet people where they are. So that means investing in community health centers, places where people are used to going to getting their health to receiving health care, giving more to our pharmacy programs, people can go get toothpaste and also get vaccinated at the same time, more mass vaccination sites, because we know that access is one of the biggest barriers around the country to getting vaccinated for people.

Andy Slavitt  38:10

Dr. Lisa visited a federal vaccine site in Washington DC at a nonprofit called Bread For The City. She also did a lot of work at the federal vaccination site herself. Take a listen to what she found here.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

So tell me a story that really touched you at the vaccination site.

Speaker 4  38:28

I a story that touch me with vaccination sites that we also vaccinate our staff members, and so we had a particular employee who was against getting vaccinated. And recently, just a couple of weeks ago, he had lost his uncle to Coronavirus. And so it was just amazing to see his turnaround because when I first had the discussion with this person, he was very adamant that when it’s his time to go, he’ll go and he doesn’t believe in the vaccine. But after he lost his uncle, I think he pretty much realized that he needed to take the extra steps to get to get vaccinated. So ultimately not only protect himself, but protect his family. And so how is he now after he’s been vaccinated? He’s good. He is awesome. And I think that he’s actually advocating for other staff members at the southeast side to get vaccinated as well.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

Tell me why you decided to get vaccinated

Speaker 5 

Because I don’t want to die. I want to live, I want to live for myself, my family, my kids.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

What are you most looking forward to doing now that you’re vaccinated?

Speaker 5 

Trying to survive, stay alive.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

So what do you most looking forward to doing now that you’re vaccinated? Well, after

Speaker 6

Well, after I get the second one. I have an AA in hotel restaurant management, food service, so I’m going to try to you know, get a temp job. I don’t want to work full time anymore when I want to relocate. I want to go back now to trade. They opened it up a little bit out. You know, I had a friend that I was working for, as a manager down in Dominican Republic. So I want to you know, I want to do some things.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick  40:02

You want to travel.

Speaker 6 

I want to travel and I want to recreate myself. I want to do someone, you know, want to be beneficial. No, I’ve always had some deferred dreams. I never really got to.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick

So what are you most looking forward to doing now that you’re vaccinated?

Speaker 7 

You know, going out do my normal, you know, without, you know, worried about him going out the house. Okay, let me put on my mess. Let me put this on. He pays me I’m gonna put my mask on. So yeah, just want to be normal.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

So what were you most looking forward to when you get vaccinated?

Speaker 8 

Well, I was hoping that what’s going on down that all everything’s gonna drop, everybody’s gonna be fine. Everything’s gonna go back to normal. So that’s what I was hoping and wishing and anticipating and of all the good stuff.

 

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

And does it feel like we’re back to normal?

Speaker 8

Not quite, but we getting there.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick

What still needs to happen?

Speaker 8

I just think the world still need to slow down just poquito. And just, you know, and just take it easy, you know, and just, it’s gonna get better. It’s getting there.

Andy Slavitt

Deferred dreams. That pretty much finished me.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick

Yeah. Pretty striking, isn’t it? And how many of us have been doing that, too?

Andy Slavitt

Did you go to any of the vaccination sites early on when it was kind of electric atmosphere?

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick

I did. I also worked at some.

Andy Slavitt

So tell me what that was like.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

That energy was very warm, very much of hopefulness. People were very excited. They were, you know, thinking about Wow, it’s been such a long time. And I’m, this is the lease on life I’ve been waiting for. People were talking about their plans. They wanted to travel. Families were coming together. So it just it varied.

Andy Slavitt 

Now, you volunteered to vaccinating people?

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

No, I was one of the people who were ushering we’ve had so many health care workers, all the health systems have deployed people to all these vaccine sites. Yeah.

Andy Slavitt  42:07

Did you see people get emotional after they get vaccinated?

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

What I encountered most because I interviewed a lot of the people after they got vaccinated as they were coming out, or as they were waiting in line. And some of it was anxiety. Some people still had questions. And so I was one of the doctors at some of the sites, who was on hand just to answer people’s questions in case they had, you know, a last-minute question before they got vaccinated. But I still think overall, there was an overwhelming sense of hope around getting vaccinated.

Andy Slavitt

It’s interesting, I was talking to a journalist who was doing my exit interview with the Washington post that she said, the federal vaccination sites were failures. And I said, why do you think they were failures? And they said, well, you didn’t vaccinate that many people there. And, you know, I was like, well, you know, 40,000 people a day, that’s 40,000 people a day. But what I said to her was, do you know that 60% of the people that we vaccinated at federal vaccination site were people of color. Now, the beginning, we had the problem of the first one we opened up was in Oakland, and day one, everybody there was from San Francisco.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick 

Oh, wow.

Andy Slavitt 

But we fixed that, we fixed that by saying you have to be for a large number of hours, you have to be from the zip codes where the site is located. Because we located in Oakland, for reasons people, San Francisco, were getting their vaccines, and they would find out how to do it. So we said, you know, depends on your idea of success. But for people who are living in these communities who might not otherwise have access to the vaccine, I think the federal vaccination centers are one of the most successful things we did.

Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick

What’s interesting to me, I have a different perspective on this because the communities I was serving and still serving throughout the pandemic, are groups that were in the beginning, largely vaccine hesitant, and not interested in getting the vaccine. But then we also had seniors who were very enthusiastic about getting the vaccine and many of them couldn’t access it, either because of transportation issues, or they’re not tech savvy, and we have not done a good job improving digital literacy for seniors or providing the support they need to understand how to access these websites to make appointments. So I think, in the end it worked out, but in the beginning, I think I would agree with the reporter. But it’s okay. You know, we’ve learned this whole situation has been one huge learning opportunity for all of us.

Andy Slavitt  44:45

Yes. And part of what we wanted, we’re trying to give people among other things in these episodes is that your government can actually do something, you know, it’s that like, Trump basically was like, you know, we’re gonna give the states the vaccines and be done with it and you can’t trust government. And we came in with people believing that government couldn’t or wouldn’t. And we tried to basically say, you know, we actually can do something, we’re here for a reason. And, you know, we did 100 things, but the setting up the federal vaccination sites is just symbolic, because it’s one of the most concrete things that people can see and feel. And when, when people would see on the news, you know, our own military, vaccinating people, it filled people with a sense of pride, and a sense that we could do this and a sense that we can overcome obstacles, and we’re, you know, 1000 people from FEMA on the ground, setting up these sites, you know, people were participating it was the building and it was sort of like, getting off the sidelines and working and that’s we’re trying to convey it to certainly said in these episodes is we’re not powerless, and we can’t have the government do this for us and with us.

Andy Slavitt  46:07

Okay, so let me tell you about upcoming shows. On Friday, we have the other half of our Superwoman duo, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who is the head of the CDC. We will be finishing talking about communication and trust. And then beginning next week, our next theme at our series, week three, is about getting back to normal life. And to do that, on Monday episode, we will have Caitlin Rivers and Farzad Mostashari playing the game we like to call Safe or Unsafe. And then on Wednesday, we will level set where we are with Dr. Scott Gottlieb. Dr. Gottlieb, you know who he is. He was the former head of the FDA. He sort of my Republican counterpart; we’re going to have a great time with him. And we’re going to talk about getting back to normal life and where we are and moving forward. Have a great couple days till we talk again.

CREDITS

Thanks for listening to IN THE BUBBLE. Hope you rate us highly. We’re a production of Lemonada Media. Kryssy Pease and Alex McOwen produced the show. Our mix is by Ivan Kuraev. Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs still rule our lives and executive produced the show. And our theme was composed by Dan Molad and Oliver Hill, and additional music by Ivan Kuraev. You can find out more about our show on social media at @LemonadaMedia. And you can find me at @ASlavitt on Twitter or at @AndySlavitt on Instagram. If you like what you heard today, most importantly, please tell your friends to come listen and please stay safe, share some joy and we will get through this together.