Jen Psaki’s show on MSNBC debuted on Sunday.
Was it groundbreaking? Not really. Was it different? A tad. But was it solid? Sure.
“Inside with Jen Psaki” looked and sounded, for the most part, like the kind of show you would expect to see and hear on a Sunday morning cable news network. The former Biden White House press secretary had Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and New York City Mayor Eric Adams among her guests.
But there was a bit of a twist, and the show should get credit for at least trying. Psaki’s interview with Adams took place on the subway and at his home. It was the first of what the show is calling “Weekend Routine,” where Psaki interviews subjects in less formal settings.
At least it’s something different.
As far as the guests, Psaki asked Whitmer if she would ever run for president. Whitmer said, “I don’t know what the future looks like. When I left the legislature, I thought I was never going to run for office again, and here I am in my fifth year as governor of the state. I know enough about myself that if I see a problem that’s not getting fixed and I think I can do something about it, I’m going to roll my sleeves and try.”
Meanwhile, Psaki closed her first show by saying, “This isn’t just work for me. I care about what’s happening in the world because I am a mom, and I care about the country my two amazing kids will grow up in. I worry about the active shooter drills that all of our kids now experience as a regular part of childhood. I worry about social media and the impact it is having on an entire generation struggling with their mental health. And I worry about the continued crackdowns on people’s rights, from what you read, to who you love, to the choices you make about your own body.”
She added, “Disagreement is a healthy part of our democracy. From my 20 years in politics I learned one lesson: Outrage alone doesn’t win elections. People who are informed and engaged are the engine of our democracy. We are going to focus on the search for solutions to the biggest issues the country is facing. More than anything I hope this show is a place each week where you’ll learn something — about an issue you care about or about a person you want to know more about.”
It’s never fair to come to conclusions after one show, but overall, it was a good debut for Psaki. The “Weekend Routine” was intriguing, and Psaki has said she hopes to occasionally venture outside of politics for guests. You would also expect Psaki to become even more comfortable in this new setting. In the end, anything that from time to time steps away from the typical Sunday morning format is worth a watch.
Oh, one more thing about Psaki’s opening show …
Earlier in the show, Psaki addressed what seems like the favorite talking point for many conservatives these days: wokeism.
She said, “For Republicans, ‘wokeness’ is public enemy No. 1. By the sound of it, there is simply no greater threat to American liberty. Whether or not they actually believe it, they clearly think it's a winning message ahead of 2024. And it makes you think, are they onto something? Should I be freaking out about how right-wing Republicans are co-opting ‘woke’ and ‘wokeism?’ My gut here is no. You don’t need to be too worried about their war on ‘woke.’ Because the Republican crusade against ‘wokeness’ may not be as potent of a campaign issue as they hope. And here’s why: Most people don't think of the term ‘woke’ in the way that Republicans would like them to. It’s simply not the boogeyman they’d have you believe.”
Psaki pointed to a recent USA Today poll that found 56% of Americans think of “woke” as meaning “being informed, educated, and aware of social injustices” as opposed to “being overly politically correct.”
Speaking of woke …
Bethany Mandel is the conservative writer who predicted her own viral moment last week when she struggled to define the word “woke” even though that word is part of the central premise of her book, “Stolen Youth.”
Mandel was doing an interview for “Rising” — an online program from The Hill — when she stumbled and stammered to define a word that she uses all the time. (I wrote about this in a newsletter last week.)
Newsweek, to the criticism of social media, extended a hand to help Mandel climb out of her hole. It turned over its “My Turn” column to allow her to give her explanation as to what happened.
Mandel partly blamed the host for saying something she took as negative about parents just before the interview began. Mandel wrote about the struggles of being a mother of six children and striking a work-life balance. And she said she had a panic attack on air and broke down after the interview.
It read like a bunch of feel-bad-for-me excuses. While one can be sympathetic to anyone — especially a tired parent — for having a bad day, it’s important to remember how Mandel has weaponized and profited off of the word “woke.” Seems like she’s the one to blame for being unable to answer a completely legitimate question.
The word was a topic of discussion on CNN’s “Inside Politics” as host Abby Phillip asked the question that seems to be at the center of all this: “If it’s so hard to define, does it just kind of come to mean whatever anybody wants it to mean?”
“Inside Politics” guest Ramesh Ponnuru said, “Well, that’s the nature of a lot of political terms. … All of these things are sort of fuzzy concepts and different people are going to give you different definitions of it. I do think that we should try to be as precise as possible when we’re arguing about a specific thing, to talk about that specific thing and not go straight to this abstract term.”
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