Mixed Signals: Jen Psaki on her journey from politics to cable, what the Trump White House is doing right — and whether there was a Biden cover-up

Max Tani:
Welcome to Mixed Signals from Semafor Media, where we are tracking the wild changes in this media age. I’m Max Tani, media editor at Semafor, and with me as always is our editor-in-chief, Ben Smith. Hey, Ben.

Ben Smith:
Hi, Max.

Max Tani:
This week on the show, we are talking to Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary under Biden and the host of an upcoming primetime show on MSNBC. We’ll ask her about what cable news is for in 2025, why she disagrees with the idea that there was a cover-up of Joe Biden’s mental decline, what Trump’s team may sort of be doing right in the briefing room, and how she hopes her television show can help shape the future of the Democratic Party.

Ben Smith:
I’m excited about this. I feel like we have a lot of questions for Jen.

Max Tani:
We’ll get to those questions and dig into a lot more right after the break.
So Ben, I don’t know if all of our listeners saw this because I don’t know how many of them have true social accounts, but somebody sent me a text message at around 9:30 PM on Sunday and was like, “Do you follow Trump on Truth Social because he just tweeted something that has your name in it?” And I quickly rushed over to see it and saw that the President of the United States had tweeted out a clip from this podcast, actually.

Ben Smith:
Yeah. Very exciting day. You don’t really exist in American media until Donald Trump has engaged you at some confusingly oblique angle. In this case, it was my admission, I suppose, so it’s not new that I feel really ambivalent about publishing the dossier.

Max Tani:
It was interesting, though. He just literally tweeted out the clip. He didn’t actually have any sort of commentary or anything about it.

Ben Smith:
Yeah. It was a clip picked up by the website, Just The News. And I should say thank you to our friends at Just The News, who when I frantically DMed them, “Wait, please include the link to the podcast,” they very kindly did include it. That’s how the media really works.

Max Tani:
So we want to thank any new subscribers who may be coming over here from Truth Social. Tonally, the show is a little bit different, obviously, than the stuff that’s on there, but I think that they will-

Ben Smith:
Love and have a lot of questions for our guests today, come to think about it.

Max Tani:
Yeah. That’s a great segue. Today on the show, obviously we have Jen Psaki. She was the press secretary under Joe Biden and is actually one of the people who emerged from his administration having a better job afterwards than she had going in. She’s gone from being in the briefing room to having a primetime show on MSNBC of a similar name called The Briefing.
And Ben, you’ve known Jen Psaki for a really long time. This has got to be a little bit strange to having seen her go from being a run-of-the-mill press flack on campaign buses to now hosting a primetime show on one of the most watched networks in cable?

Ben Smith:
Yeah. It is funny. I mean, I met her probably in ’07 when she was kind of mid-level PR person working for Obama. Basically a kind of professional political staffer and a good one, but not one of the ones who you felt was just absolutely desperate for the spotlight of whom there are also a lot.
And so it has been kind of surprising to watch her go from a kind of behind-the-scenes, capable person in the Obama administration into, in some sense, the most effective communicator in the Biden administration, which by the way, low bar, but was kind of like a beloved public face for Democrats in that context and took that to being a very, very successful talk show host on MSNBC. Although, I mean, you covered that White House. Who was she there?

Max Tani:
Well, it was interesting because she obviously commanded a tremendous amount of respect as press secretary and I think was generally really well-liked by most members of the press corps, and adeptly, obviously not answering many questions.
Actually, I will say one of my claims to fame is one of the only times I actually was in the briefing room, and I did get the opportunity to ask Jen a question, it was a media question, and she actually did answer it and make a little bit of news.

Ben Smith:
What was the question?

Max Tani:
This was during COVID, and I asked her a question about a decision that Spotify made at the time to start putting labels on shows that talked about COVID, essentially misinformation labels. And I asked what the White House’s view was on this because they had been kind of calling for something similar to it. And she thanked Spotify, said she’d seen it, and said that she was encouraged and hoped that a lot of other places, tech companies and platforms, would follow Spotify’s lead.

Ben Smith:
That’s the kind of hard-hitting journalism that you see a lot of in the White House press room box. Great job.

Max Tani:
No, but actually, she made news, because obviously, a lot of the trade press picked it up, and I think it did put some pressure on other companies. I mean, obviously, the interesting thing looking back on that moment now is that all the tech companies have run in the opposite way, and all the people who used to work for her are talking about why is there no Joe Rogan of the left?

Ben Smith:
The Joe Rogan of the left talking about how good food coloring is.

Max Tani:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I do think that it’s really interesting to have Jen on because not only is she taking up the mantle as the top primetime host in MSNBC at a time when cable news viewership is declining and the meaning of that role is less clear than ever, but also the party that she worked for is really in the wilderness and is trying to figure out what it means to reach a lot of people who have tuned out their message and have tuned out their media.

Ben Smith:
Yeah. I want to ask her about the core Biden story, the sort of sense that his age was covered up, and I do want to understand what her position is now partly relative to all these other people we’ve been talking to on this show. Is what she’s doing different or the same as an Ezra Klein or a Piers Morgan?

Max Tani:
Well, I guess we should ask her about that right now because she’s waiting for us. Let’s bring on Jen Psaki. Jen, thank you so much for joining us.

Jen Psaki:
No, no, of course. Thank you guys.

Max Tani:
The challenge for us in this podcast is that I have watched you and many people have watched you basically answer questions for an hour and definitely not make very much news, and that obviously is the world’s worst thing for a podcast. So it’s our goal, we got to get you to loosen up and get really kind of deep and intimate with the listeners.

Jen Psaki:
I’m very loosey goosey, but it depends, Max, on your questions.

Max Tani:
That’s true.

Jen Psaki:
And so-

Max Tani:
That is true.

Jen Psaki:
... go ahead. If you ask me all the things I’ve answered 1000 times, well then, it won’t be unique. Have at it.

Ben Smith:
But actually, to begin with, one thing that I think about in watching your career is that you’re not somebody who kind of tried to be a celebrity and an influencer in Washington. I remember one of the great awkward moments of the early Obama years when Politico-

Jen Psaki:
Oh, boy.

Ben Smith:
... was trying to turn staffers into celebrities, and there was a what’s in your purse, Jen Psaki?

Jen Psaki:
Oh, God.

Ben Smith:
And it was sort of mortifying for us and mortifying for you, and it was obviously Washington is full of self-promoters who just want to be on cable television. And I don’t think you really are particularly that, so how did you wind up on cable television?

Jen Psaki:
You’re right. I mean, I am not a person who goes to all of these events every week. I think I ended up here in part because I never thought I was going to go back to the White House, first of all, so that was not my intention at the time. I was a contributor at CNN during the first Trump administration. I’ve known reporters, I’ve known you, Ben, probably since you were in New York. Was that? Did we meet-

Ben Smith:
Yeah. I believe so.

Jen Psaki:
... when you were in New York?

Ben Smith:
Yeah.

Jen Psaki:
So there’s reporters I’ve known. It’s like I’ve known Glenn Thrush since he was working at Newsday, right? And all these people, I’ve always had a respect for media, even though we were disagreeing. I started to get contacted by networks and people who were asking if this was something I was interested in doing.
And what was appealing to me about it was I actually find, even though there’s different objectives, there’s similar types of kind of curious, slightly nerdy, sometimes awkward, sometimes just focus myopically on one thing type of personalities that exist in government and politics and policymaking that exist in media. And I really thought about I’ve known reporters, I’ve worked with reporters.
As you know, I’m not a big yell-at-people-on-the-phone person, but I do still have disagreements, I was curious if it was an environment that I thought it would be like, right? Where it’s just a bunch of smart, nerdy people wandering around looking for more information, and it really has been, so I wanted to see if I could do it full-time. That was the question. I didn’t want to be a contributor. I wanted to see if I could do it full-time.
So I don’t know. It was sort of an unpredictable journey, not one I set out. I’ve never had a five-year plan, but here I am.

Max Tani:
So before we kind of get into talking more about your old job, which we are pretty interested in, you have this new cable show, you’re going to be in primetime soon. First of all, congratulations.

Jen Psaki:
Thank you.

Max Tani:
But you’re joining the primetime lineup at a moment when cable is really shifting, the network that you’re working for is being spun off from its parent company. There’s all these kind of viewership changes which have shifted audiences really online. And I guess I’m curious, and I think you’ve probably thought about this, what is a cable show, and a primetime cable show, for in 2025?

Jen Psaki:
Yeah. Well, as I used to say, there was a lot packed in there, Max.

Ben Smith:
That’s what you would say when you were stalling for time, though.

Jen Psaki:
No, no, no. But I really do mean it. Well, this is a podcast, so you can ask me anything I didn’t answer. It’s a different format.

Ben Smith:
That’s true.

Jen Psaki:
The way that I’ve thought about it is that it’s clearly evolving, just to state the obvious, I don’t think we have to deny that. But there’s still, at this moment, a million, two million, depending on who you are, more for Rachel Maddow and Fox News than everybody else, but viewers who watch. And so the way I see that part of my job here, or future job, is it has to be tied and connected. You want it to be tied and connected to what the big story of that day was.
Now, you can define what the big story of that day was. The conclave is next week when my show launches. It’s hard for me to envision starting my show any day with the conclave. It doesn’t mean it’s a huge story is my point, right? I’m not going to start the day to give people my analysis of what’s happening in the conclave. Nobody’s looking to me for that, right?

Max Tani:
I don’t know. I think that’d be pretty fun and interesting, though. You could swerve a little bit.

Jen Psaki:
I could really swerve. I could swerve on that just to keep people on their toes. But I think of it as this is a moment, once a day, four days a week, to draw from my own background and help people understand what the heck just happened in Washington, in politics.
But I don’t think that anyone, and I think this is true for politicians too, right? There’s an overlap because everybody’s trying to reach people. I can’t end my show at 10:01 and just crack open a bourbon and put my feet up ’til 9:00 the next night because that’s just not how people are consuming. And this will probably be an evolution for us, but I think you have to think about how are you connecting with viewers in between? In an ideal world, you’re a point in television for the people who care.
And yes, it’s not 10 million viewers, of course not, but people tune in to Rachel Maddow every night because they want to know what she has to say about whatever it may be. Sometimes, they’re curious, as I am, like, “How’s she going to connect Botswana, cigarettes, and the budget debate?” And she’s going to, right?

Max Tani:
Yeah.

Jen Psaki:
If you do your job right, and for me, that’s listen, I’ve been around politics and government forever, for 20 years. So if I do my job right, people learn something from what I have to say, and we have an interesting person who makes some news about that topic or another topic.
But then at 10:01 or the next morning, it’s like, “Well, let me do a TikTok video, let me do a YouTube conversation,” whatever it may be. So I think of it as a part of what I do, not the only thing I do, if that makes sense.

Ben Smith:
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that we talk about on here a lot is this convergence between what used to be called podcasts, but now have often very high production video, and what used to be called television, but now is all over TikTok and the internet, right? And so just lately, we’ve talked to Piers Morgan, and interviewed Megyn Kelly, and talked to Ezra Klein the other day.

Jen Psaki:
I listened to that.

Ben Smith:
And what they’re doing, I don’t know, is it different at all from what you’re doing? I think they feel in some ways freer because partly they don’t have time constraints, but also, of course, they don’t have a built-in audience. But ultimately, is this the same thing, or is television still something distinct?

Jen Psaki:
What is the word I’m looking for? It’s like an expanded map of things that are closer and more related than people acknowledge they are, right? But I do think, yes, I mean, we did a podcast, we did nine episodes, we’re going to relaunch it in the fall.
What I learned from that experience, I don’t know. What I thought was interesting is I talk to some of the same people that I’ve talked to on television, and people are just much more relaxed, and the tone and tenor of the conversation is totally different. Why is that? We’re the same people talking. I don’t know entirely, and how do you take some of that and bring it to TV?
Now, the TV audience still trends older, right? And if you’re an older viewer, are you still hoping that everybody you’re watching on television is wearing a nice suit and nice shoes?

Ben Smith:
I should hope so.

Jen Psaki:
I don’t know. Well, but why? I mean, this is the thing. I think it’s a little bit, the audiences are different, as you all know, and that’s what makes it interesting.
But one of the things I’ve thought about on the podcast to TV front is you can’t do this every show. But what we’ve tried to experiment with a little bit, and we want to do when the new show launches is, I mean, yesterday, we had Senator Adam Schiff on, he does plenty of TV. I mean, he’s an accessible guy. But we were like, “Let’s just try.” We had him on for 16 minutes, two blocks, two long blocks, which as you know, is a lifetime in cable television.
And it’s like, “I don’t know.” You’ll know if it works or it doesn’t work, but to me, it’s not quite podcast-y, but it’s a little bit, because if you can get through a block where you do the news of the day, then sometimes you can have another block where you can have different types of conversations. But, yeah. I think it’s all on a spectrum. That was the word I was looking for.
What’s challenging about it is it’s part you, as much as I joked about the type of questions you’re asking, it’s also part the guest, right? And sometimes, people can hold attention and be interesting and compelling, and sometimes you run out of steam after a bit, and you still want to keep people. The dream for any TV cable host is you keep people through the show. You don’t have a massive drop-off. I don’t know that we would do one guest for a whole show, probably not, because that’s just so much time.

Ben Smith:
That’s for the Barack Obama booking, right?

Jen Psaki:
Sure. Barack Obama, come on down. We’ll have you on for the whole show.

Max Tani:
So I agree with, I think, one thing that the new Trump administration is doing when it comes to the briefing room, which is shaking up who gets to ask the first question, who has access to the briefing room, and not just kind of following the same order that’s been used for 20 or 30 years. And it does, in my view, kind of align with the ways in which media is changing in which the hierarchy isn’t as clear maybe as it always was.
And I’m really curious actually what you think about it? If you set aside for a second the rhetoric and kind of just generally sometimes the rudeness that this White House has towards the press, do you think that they have something there? Do they have a point that this order that we followed for a long time is maybe a little bit antiquated?

Jen Psaki:
Yeah. I would say they have a half a point in this sense. They’re right that it’s outdated. The briefing room is outdated. The way that it’s structured, the way the seating works, who ask questions. Like or hate Sean Spicer and Melissa McCarthy, that’s all I think about, I can’t get Melissa McCarthy out of my head, he actually tried to bring a screen in and tried to bring other people who couldn’t be physically in the briefing room. I actually think that was very smart to do. We did that a little bit. We could have done more of it.
Because in 2016, when I was leaving as Obama’s comms director, if Hillary Clinton had won, we would’ve said to them, “Don’t do a briefing every day. Change it up. Do it two or three times a week, and then other days do something else. Do a gaggle which is off-camera. Do just regional reporters, do other media that isn’t in Washington.” Whatever it may be. It’s long overdue.
But what I think is troubling, at least to me, is that their whole talking point about we’re going to change the way it’s done, is cover for cutting out media who frankly have given press secretaries and White Houses a hard time for good reason for decades, right?
So, yeah. Bring some new people in. I don’t even care if they’re left-, right-leaning. But then you’re cutting out wire reporters and all these other people from the conversation who are actually asking questions about maybe they’re boring, but government functioning and policymaking, that now you have less of and that’s not a big part of what you do.
And I think my bet is that they’re trying to make it more and more Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriends and others like him than the AP, right? That’s the troubling part. It’s cover for that in my view.

Ben Smith:
I think they’re a little torn, right? They do take their share of questions, quite a few, from the fake news media as they like to call them. And in fact, Trump picked up the phone for an Atlantic reporter the other day, I noticed.
I think they’re a little torn because he likes to mix it up. And Ezra said this. They obviously see a benefit to the heat that comes from tough questions. Sort of interesting. And so what do you make of Karoline? Do you know her? Have you ever talked?

Jen Psaki:
No, I don’t know her. If the totality of the job, and it’s part of the job, that’s an important part of the job, was somebody who was good on television, which she is, who could command the room, which she can, and there are a lot of press secretaries, Democrats and Republicans, who can’t do that and can be eaten alive by that room. If the totality was that and just speaking what was on the mind of your boss, then yeah, she should get good marks for that. That’s not the totality of the job.

Ben Smith:
What’s the other part?

Jen Psaki:
The other part of the job is speaking honestly and candidly about the issues that are happening in the country and providing actual useful information to people. And what she’s doing is she is just projecting the view of Donald Trump. That’s part of it. It’s not the only part.
And I also think that, I mean, she’s a person who goes out there on a regular basis and projects propaganda points, right? What I would consider propaganda points. I know the right wing says that about me, but that is just not the same-same, guys.

Ben Smith:
So what’s the difference?

Jen Psaki:
The difference is she’s projecting things like, “No, we didn’t illegally deport anyone.” “You didn’t? I mean, the courts just said you did,” you know? I mean, she is projecting, “Oh, Elon Musk is accomplishing his goal.” He is?

Ben Smith:
But wait a second. You had your share of underperforming cabinet members, say, and somebody says, “Is so-and-so doing a good job?” You never went up and said, “No, he’s kind of screwing it up.”

Jen Psaki:
Ben, I don’t watch her briefing, honestly. I see clips of it, but I don’t think any human being who’s being objective would say that I did the same thing that she is-

Ben Smith:
No.

Jen Psaki:
... doing.

Ben Smith:
No, I agree.

Jen Psaki:
And I don’t think I need to list examples of that. I think that’s pretty apparent.

Ben Smith:
Let’s take a quick break, and we’ll be right back with Jen Psaki.

Max Tani:
Your old boss, Joe Biden, is going to be in the news again, or is starting to be in the news again because the time has elapsed between the campaign and now we’re getting some of the books that have come out.

Ben Smith:
All of the books.

Max Tani:
Yes. There’s a lot of books to be sold, yes, exactly, of which I’m sure you’ve gotten a lot of calls from those reporters six months ago, and now that’s starting to bear fruit.
I guess I was really curious, you mentioned this on Dylan Byer’s podcast, and I wanted to kind of draw something out a little bit further from it, which is you mentioned how there was a moment in between the debate between Biden and Trump and when Biden dropped out in which you said that Biden probably didn’t have a path forward, and that that was kind of a difficult thing for you to do as obviously someone who had defended him and his administration and been a very visible face within his administration.
I mean, I’m curious what that moment was like for you and what the reaction was from your colleagues, many of whom are still in the White House, or felt that Biden shouldn’t drop out?

Jen Psaki:
Sure. Well, we can roll the tape, but I don’t think I said it was difficult to do. I just think I acknowledged that there was a reaction from people who were strong Biden supporters online.

Max Tani:
Wait, sorry. It wasn’t difficult to do?

Jen Psaki:
Well, I don’t think that’s what I stated. I don’t think I’ve said that. I wouldn’t describe it that way. I think it really started with the debate. And watching the debate, and watching the debate, I remember thinking halfway through, and I think I said, I mean, anyone watching would’ve thought this, said to my colleagues, because I was about to go do hours of television afterwards, “This is a fucking disaster,” right? Which it was, of course.
And then afterwards, we all went on television. And I don’t remember exactly how I phrased it, but I think I said what I had seen, which was that I didn’t say fucking, because you can’t say that on MSNBC, but some version of that. I didn’t know what was going to happen from there. I don’t think anybody exactly did. It just became clear.
And what I started saying on television was I’m talking to a lot of Democrats who were saying, it’s not for me to determine if he has a path forward, that there is not a path forward, right? That they don’t see a path forward. And that was more what I tried to stay centered in every day, was who I was actually.
I’ve been in this town, I’ve worked in democratic politics for a long time. What people privately were telling me, which was an indication of where this was headed, the reaction still to this day, I will tell you, you can’t look at Twitter, you can’t look at people’s replies, because you’ll be hiding under your desk. Anyone would be. But sometimes, they pop up. I’m like, “I don’t know how to turn off some of these.” And it’s to this day, the new show is announced, and I have people like, “I will never watch her show. She stabbed Joe Biden in the face,” you know?
And it’s like, “I didn’t determine the past. I am telling you what Democrats who are telling me,” including people on the campaign I was talking to at the time. So that was my experience in the moment.
This is where it’s I hope I can continue to be a contributor in this way to the conversation, is there also can be a leap to, “Well, it’s going to be Kamala Harris and nobody’s going to challenge her,” right? Including on cable television conversations. And I was like, “Maybe or maybe not.” Do you remember that period of time where we didn’t exactly know? It’s like, “Well, the DNC is saying this is how the process is going to go. Is it going to go that way? I have no idea.”
And this was what’s difficult about that period of time. Yes, random people, who cares, who are messaging me, but I care about him personally, right? I like him as a person. And there were people, I didn’t actually hear from them, honestly. They didn’t reach out to me to say they were pissed, to say anything.

Ben Smith:
But to go back before that, I think that at least for a time when the history of this period is sort of written and understood, I think there’s a consensus that the media generously missed and ungenerously covered up Joe Biden’s frailty.
And I want to read you something Ezra said in, gosh, this is like the Ezra Klein show readout now. But Ezra said in February 2024, so this is during the presidency, “I have this nightmare that Trump wins in 2024, and then in 2025 and 2026, outcome, the campaign tell-all books, and they’re full of emails and WhatsApp messages between democratic staffers and democratic leaders where they’re all saying to each other, ‘This is a disaster. He’s not going to win this. I can’t bear to watch this speech. We’re going to lose.’ But they didn’t say any of it publicly. They didn’t do anything because it was too dangerous for their careers, too uncomfortable given their loyalty to Biden.”
I mean, that feels like where we are. And what do you make of that question? Did the White House cover this up? Did the media cover this up? Just sort of in retrospect. And you weren’t in the White House in those later moments, but how do you read this? I mean, something I feel I have complicated feelings about, but I’m curious what you think?

Jen Psaki:
Yeah. I mean, I obviously do too. I think cover-up is such a loaded phrase, but also to your point, I left in May of 2022, just for the facts here, and I have seen Biden once since then when I took my daughter to the holiday party this last December after he had lost. And so I hadn’t seen him in person during that period of time.
I never saw that person, not a single time, and I was in the Oval Office every day that was on that debate stage. I’m not a doctor, aging happens quite quickly. Were things that people saw during that period of time that were similar to that or would’ve been in a category of that? I don’t know. Possibly, right? And all these books are going to tell us.

Ben Smith:
But let’s sort of take it in two pieces. First, your old colleagues. I mean, and you talk to these folks, I talk to these folks. Where they actively covering it up? Were they sort of in denial, or was that just a bad debate? What is your read on that?

Jen Psaki:
Well, this is what I mean about cover-up is a very loaded term, I think.

Ben Smith:
Well, it means you knew that it was really bad and you’re pretending otherwise, versus you’re deluding yourself, which I think is what people do a lot.

Jen Psaki:
Well, I understand, but I still think it’s cover up is often a crime, right?

Ben Smith:
They say it’s worse than the crime.

Jen Psaki:
People use that term as they relate to Watergate or the covering up of not sharing public information about a war.

Ben Smith:
Yeah. And I’m not accusing anybody of a crime here.

Jen Psaki:
I understand, but other people have used that term, and I think it’s a bit of a dangerous term. I don’t know. I have not talked to them, any of the people in these books about this particular question.
And I think that at their root, a lot of the people who were mentioned are good human beings, and so I like to think that no, they would not be a part of an active, “Let’s hide from the public what we see happening privately,” and I don’t know the facts of what was happening privately.

Ben Smith:
Right. And then what about us? I guess you and me and the media now? I mean, I think I probably wrote about his age once or twice, got beat up on social media, but also didn’t really feel like it particularly moved the needle.
I mean, do you feel like we were too tentative writing about it? It’s a sensitive thing to write about, and it was hard to report? I don’t know. Should we have been more aggressive about it in ’23, ‘24, as a story? Because obviously, in retrospect, pretty big story.

Jen Psaki:
Well, what I don’t know, Ben, and maybe we’ll learn from these books, is what the facts were behind the scenes, so what the media missed, and maybe the media missed a lot. And so maybe in retrospect, which is always easier to be critical of the media about, frankly, there were major stories and moments missed.
What I think is challenging, if you don’t know about what’s happening privately, is that Joe Biden, he was in his early 80s during that period of time, so we all knew his age. That was not a secret.
What was also true, that I would find actually a little tricky if you’re a reporter of any kind, is that while we know there were problematic things behind the scenes now in ’23 and ‘24, there was an aggressive all-out pitching operation from the right wing and from the Republicans about Joe Biden’s age and how he was in decline and sleeping in the Oval Office, a lot of which wasn’t true, most of which, the majority of which wasn’t true, in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, right? So it’s-

Ben Smith:
Yeah. I mean, I know the feeling, right? It’s there’s this distorting effect of you’re in this noise machine, you’re under attack, you fight back, and at some point, there’s some underlying reality that slips away or something?

Jen Psaki:
Which is, yes, that’s what I’m getting, right? And it worked. I mean, when we had got polling before ’23 and ’24 on nearly a weekly basis, the biggest vulnerability for Biden was his age, even before all this.

Ben Smith:
I mean, they were correct, weren’t they? They were saying, “This guy is too old to be president.” And it wasn’t just spin. It really-

Jen Psaki:
Well-

Ben Smith:
... turned out they were correct. At best, he aged very fast in those last couple of years.

Jen Psaki:
Well, and that may be, but here’s the thing. My experience with him was that he was a person who told a very long story in the Oval Office, but that was the case 30 years earlier, right? So how do you differentiate? I don’t know. You can still be critical of people for not differentiating, right?
And also was still somebody who put together a coalition to address Ukraine, who still was the person primarily negotiating big legislative deals. So it’s like, “What does it mean that he wasn’t able to be in that period of time?” Should he have run? I think if he had not run, this would’ve been a different thing, a-

Ben Smith:
Yeah, totally.

Jen Psaki:
... different conversation.

Ben Smith:
I mean, in retrospect, you must wish he hadn’t?

Jen Psaki:
Of course. Of course. Because I think in the period of time I worked for him and later, he did a lot of great things.
And I’m not saying everybody has to agree with him, they don’t, but he did a lot of great things as president, and I think that a lot of his legacy has become, for at least this period of time, based around this question of him running for reelection, not being aware or not being honest with himself about not being able to do another full term.

Ben Smith:
Do you think that’ll change? I mean, I agree with you. I think that for the next five years, that’s going to be the story of Joe Biden, was the decision to run, his age. But do you think when Jon Meacham is writing the history books? Well, if it’s Jon Meacham, obviously it will be very positive, but you know.

Jen Psaki:
I was like, “The Jon Meacham who helped write the State of the Union?”

Ben Smith:
Right. When the historians of the future who did not work for Joe Biden are writing these books, how much of that book is about this? Is about his age?

Jen Psaki:
I’ve never thought about this question, but my gut reaction here is that I think it depends on what happens in 2028, because I think if Trump runs, or whoever, I know, well, this is possible. I mean, tries to run, it’s not legal, but I don’t know. Or Josh Hawley or JD Vance or some continuation of an iteration of the MAGA movement continues, then this moment and this election will be thought of as an even greater breaking moment in history.
And Joe Biden will get some blame for that, right? And is that fair? Is that not fair? That will be debated in the history books. If there is somebody else who has a different, maybe it’s a Democrat, I don’t think the Republican Party is nominating someone different from the MAGA movement in three and a half years, but we’ll see, then I think that could impact the history books on Joe Biden because it will be seen as not a blip, but not a history-changing moment.

Max Tani:
Yeah. So when you were in the White House, I used to talk to a lot of your staff, and I think they made points quite correctly about the vapid nature of some cable news segments that were so horse race-focused or not focused enough on the issues.
And I’m really curious, do you ever find yourself, now that you are a cable host who has to fill an hour every single night, falling into any of the traps? Or do you have more sympathy for some of the hosts and cable news executive producers who have to fill time and program it?

Jen Psaki:
Well, yes. I mean, here’s the thing. Head-to-head polls at the national level tell you nothing. I still think this. I’ve said this publicly. That is coming from my past background. So it does inform, yes, some of the things that drove me completely insane from being a spokesperson to, I think, inform how I approach this.
The other thing that’s kind of been funny is, as somebody who wrote talking points for people for 20 years, is now people will come on TV and they won’t stop talking, and they’re just, you ask them-

Max Tani:
So annoying.

Jen Psaki:
... about democracy, and they’re talking about bridges, and you’re like, “What the hell?” You know? So-

Ben Smith:
Taste of your own medicine.

Jen Psaki:
... that’s also a truth. One thing that I think, what I get annoyed with everybody about, is the head-to-head polls and that sort of thing, and this proclamation that happens sometimes on cable sets of, “The Democrats will win back the house in November of next year.” It’s like, “Well, how do we know that?”
I mean, yeah. There’s lots of trends, but there’s a lifetime of 100 news stories between now and then. So those type of predictions things have always driven me crazy, and I try not to do that now, but sometimes you’re forced to because you get asked a question.

Max Tani:
Yeah. There is this divide in media between people who approach it from authority and people who approach it from curiosity, as in, “I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen, and let’s explore what’s going on here, and maybe we’ll come up with some theories or maybe not, and who knows?”
And I actually do really think that people usually approach it from one or two sides. I approach this with curiosity, Ben approaches with authority. I think that’s how this podcast works.

Ben Smith:
Wow, that’s a great insight, Max.

Max Tani:
I’m just joking, by the way. Though, Jen, imagine trying to explain. I’m not sure when we first met in person, it may have been in ’07, I have some vague image of you getting on one of the buses in Iowa when I was sitting in the back. But can you imagine trying to explain to us then what we are doing now?

Jen Psaki:
Well, I know. It’s even in the evolution of media, think about it, right? I mean, imagine telling people at that moment the Today Show will be in their homes for a year and a half, or however long it was, right? Or some of the most popular things will be people in ripped T-shirts talking with a microphone in their basement. It’s like, “Are you saying bloggers will have some sort of means of communicating and we’ll see who they are?”

Ben Smith:
Yes. We’re letting the bloggers out. In fact, all of the bloggers, all of the annoying bloggers of that era, are the most influential. That’s Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias. Yeah. It’s hilarious.

Jen Psaki:
Well, people will be paying attention more to what the bloggers are saying than any network nightly news broadcast, or most of them, right? So, yes. It would’ve been hard to explain at the time.

Max Tani:
Yes. The blogger in that case is now wearing a suit on our show.

Jen Psaki:
I know. I’m like, “What’s the deal with the suit, Ben?”

Ben Smith:
And Jen is the towering figure in nightly news.

Jen Psaki:
Well, we’ll see.

Ben Smith:
What a world.

Jen Psaki:
What a world.

Ben Smith:
Thanks so much for joining us, Jen. This was fun.

Jen Psaki:
Thank you, guys.

Max Tani:
Jen, we really appreciate it, and good luck on the new show.

Jen Psaki:
Thank you so much.

Ben Smith:
What did you make of her answer on this? I do think it’d be the big question looking back of what happened with the White House and Joe Biden’s age? I mean, do you buy that she doesn’t talk to people? I don’t know.

Max Tani:
I thought it was really sharp, the distinction that you drew between this idea of an active cover-up as in holy shit, we know something is really bad and we have to avoid the public knowing this, and delusion.
And I really do think, and you see this among people who are close to Trump and people who are close to any leader, anyone who drinks the Kool-Aid. I feel this way about Semafor sometimes in which you really see what you want to see and you tend to push aside in your mind the things that might cause you to have some doubts. I don’t know, Ben. What did you think of her response there?

Ben Smith:
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know people in that very inner circle very well. I did talk and wrote about over the summer to a very panicked person in an outer circle saying, “There’s a cover-up. We’ve got to stop these people.”
And I tend to think that we underestimate that people are usually telling the truth as they see it. Even people doing very bad, crazy things have usually deluded themselves into thinking they’re doing the right thing. And I think almost people watch House of Cards, and they imagine that it’s full of these sort of brilliant cynics, but as we all know, it’s always much more Veep.
And so, yeah. I mean, you can kind of see, although Jen, she was very, very close to the situation, sort of interesting to watch her wrestle with that. I think journalists also need to. Your old partner, Alex Thompson, gave a speech, I mean, saying I think very optimistically that people would trust the media more if we admitted that we made mistakes. I’m not sure it actually does make people trust you more, but obviously there is some question of how did we let them get away with this?
As I think about it, I really do think part of the answer is just access. We don’t live in a world where you can just hide behind layers of gatekeepers. If you’re in one of these jobs and there’s some question about whether you can hold a conversation, there’s no excuse for just not being out there engaging with journalists and with everybody else. And I think that’s, when I look back, it’s just how infrequently he was in loose, unscripted situations. It was a huge red flag and should have been a bigger scandal at the time.

Max Tani:
Exactly. He couldn’t do it. And that gets at your point between gets delusion and cover-up. People knew in the back of their minds that there was a lot of risk of putting him out there in these situations, or maybe didn’t even know in the back of their minds. They knew quite clearly in crafted strategies very much around that.
And maybe they were telling themselves, “Oh, he’s a little too loose, and we can’t really have him be doing that, but he is really smart and ends up making the right decisions.” But the reality was, when it comes down to it, he couldn’t really perform in those times.

Ben Smith:
Yeah. I mean, the one place, and I’m totally sympathetic to Jen in this, but the one place where I did feel like she had this sort of melted brain that comes with being in the White House was the, “These bad people were attacking us over his age, and so we had to push back, and these were lies. And maybe the lies became true at some point, but they were still lies.”
And there is a impulse. I think it’s broadly in this kind of social media space that if the guys on the other team are saying something negative, you have to just fight back and you can’t consider that it’s true.

Max Tani:
Yeah. But one of the interesting things that I’m really curious about is the surprise of Jen Psaki becoming kind of this really, really popular personality on cable news. Personally, I didn’t really see it at first.

Ben Smith:
Didn’t see it coming either. I mean, she didn’t see it coming.

Max Tani:
She clearly didn’t see it. I mean, what do you make of her role in the ecosystem and what you think she represents both to MSNBC and her surprising popularity represents more broadly about what liberals are looking for in media?

Ben Smith:
I mean, I think she won the hearts of a lot of liberals as somebody who could stand up to the running dogs of the media, these terrible media people who were attacking poor President Biden. And Jen was very good at standing-

Max Tani:
It’s true.

Ben Smith:
... up to us, and I think that bought her just an enormous amount of affection from Democrats who then are interested in watching her and seeing what she has to say on MSNBC. And she’s turned out to be really good at that.
But I do think that her in the press room fighting back against the terrible media is basically what bought her all that love in the first place. But thanks for bringing her on, Max. I think that was an interesting interview.

Max Tani:
Yeah. It’s really fun, I think, to kind of get to see. You got to see her at a very different point in her career, I got to engage with her a little bit as White House Press Secretary, and now we both get to cover her as people who write about and think about the media. It’s totally fascinating, and it’ll be really interesting to watch where her show goes from here. Thanks, Ben.

Ben Smith:
Well, that’s it for us this week. Thanks for listening to Mixed Signals from Semafor Media. Our show is produced by Sheena Ozaki, with special thanks to Max Toomey, Britta Galanis, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Anna Pezzino, Garrett Wiley, Jules Zern, and Tori Kaur. Our engineer is Rick Kwan, our theme music is by Billy Libby, our public editor is Alex Thompson.
And if you like Mixed Signals, please follow us wherever you get your podcasts and feel free to review us. I don’t know where Max went, but if he was here, he would tell you that if you want more, you can always sign up for Semafor’s Media Newsletter out every Sunday night, and please add us to your secret group chats.