Q&A With Former White House Press Secretary
Earlier this week, we issued the first of a two-part blog series featuring former White House Press Secretary (and my former boss from Glover Park Group) Joe Lockhart.
He addressed what the next White House press secretary should know in the wake of Katie Zacharia’s short tenure. Joe shared candid stories from the podium, from why he waited months before his first briefing to how he got through to President Clinton, along with lessons every communicator can use.
This is the second part of our interview.
The following conversation has been edited for length.
Succession Communications (SC): How do you calibrate messaging when you’re concerned about affecting things like global markets, international relations, as much as domestic markets and relationships? You were at the podium during the Kosovo campaign and in the aftermath of the Asian and Russian financial crises. Was there ever a word or phrase you fought to change because of how it would land in a foreign capital or on a trading floor?
Joe Lockhart (JL): These areas are connected but a little bit separate. You always handle the markets question by the following formula: a sentence that basically says, “I’m not going to comment on the markets,” and then a sentence to say here’s what our policy is, and here’s why it’s working. Or if [the policy] wasn’t working, how it’s addressing a problem. You don’t comment on the market and put your thumb on the scale, but you have the latitude to deliver some other useful information to people covering it.
Our intent was never to move the market one way or the other on any given day. When I took the job, one of the rules that Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin had was, “Don’t ever let me hear you talking about the strength of the dollar.” He would come and sit in my office every morning. Every day I’d say to him, “How’s the market look, Mr. Secretary?” And he’d say, “Sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down.” Then we both would get back to our coffee. Thanks to that, I could tell people every day that I talked to the Treasury secretary about the direction of the market. I just didn’t tell them what he said.
It was tricky with foreign policy, and it was dependent on how sensitive the issues were. Some were so sensitive I would have a written answer. I carried this prep book that had all the questions that anyone could ask on any issue, and someone, someplace in the government would write an answer. Sometimes I’d look at something, and I didn’t like how it sounded, and [I’d think about saying it] a different way. But China is probably the best example [of when] you cannot deviate [from the message]. [So, with the press] I would deliberately open the book, let everyone see, get to the page, and read it like I was Siri. I wanted them to know I was giving them nothing new [in the moment]. I was giving them the official word for word, comma for comma, position of the government.
Greece, [Turkey] and Cyprus were another example. This was a very difficult foreign policy issue. They hated each other so much and were at each other all the time that words became a big part of that warfare. So, I had a very unusual arrangement — the only one I had with any reporter — because he was a Greek reporter who came to the White House every day, and he would do his story every day on Greece. Whether anything was happening or not, they’d find something [to ask the White House about]. I [couldn’t] take 20 minutes [of extra preparation] every day just for this one reporter on one issue. So, we [arranged that] he would give us the question in advance. I know that everybody thinks that we get the questions [in advance, but] no one ever came close to [that]. At most, some reporters might call and say, “You know, I’m going to push you a little bit on the budget deficit today,” which gave me the ability to dig in a little more on the topic, and that was helpful to both sides. But I never had the questions in advance from them.
“Sometimes deviating a word — freelancing — on some issues is too dangerous.”
This worked perfectly for 18 months until one day he had two questions [during the briefing]. The problem was he had a very thick Greek accent. And after 18 months, you would have thought I would have understood what he was saying. But he read one of the questions, and there at the podium I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked him to repeat the question. I still had no idea, so I turned to my national security guy and just thought, “I have no choice here.” I looked at him and I said, “Is that question one or question two?” Thus, blowing the whole arrangement. But the consequences of reading the wrong answer were worse than the risk of looking silly. Sometimes deviating a word — freelancing — on some issues is too dangerous.
SC: I wonder which White House skills turned out to be surprisingly useful in the corporate world, and which were less useful than you expected. You’ve done all sorts of different roles from speaking for presidents and candidates to co-founding the Glover Park Group. Which ones came with you and worked, and which really didn’t?
“I think [the communications] skill is adaptable to any situation. One hard and fast rule is: don’t get out over your skis.”
JL: Overall, every place I went, I took something that helped in the next job. I think [the communications] skill is adaptable to any situation. One hard and fast rule is: don’t get out over your skis. If you’re in an area where you just don’t understand what they’re talking about, say, “I don’t understand it, I bet a lot of other people don’t understand it either,” and that starts a very productive conversation of, “Why don’t we say these things in a way that’s accessible to everyone you care about, as opposed to a few people you care about.”
One private sector difference was financial communications. When it comes to things that can move the market, there are a lot of rules, regulations, and laws around what companies can say in material information. It was easier because as long as one of the lawyers was in the room, or even the CEO themselves, they knew that better than I did. In prep sessions, I would often start with, “Here’s what I would say,” and then ask, “Can we say that?” The CEO or the general counsel would answer, “No, we can’t say that,” or “That’s fine.” The sports industry was different, too. When I went to work for the NFL, I quickly learned that sports reporters care about different things than political reporters. But I got up to speed and it was fine.
Otherwise, it was the familiar job of telling leaders, “You can say that, but here’s how I believe reporters will respond to that, and how they’ll write or broadcast on it.” That was an effective [approach] with some and not effective with others. I’m not arguing for a second that I was [always] right. You’re always working to get a better understanding of the CEO and the media. But you build trust over time, whether it’s the president or a CEO. If you have one of these disagreements over how to answer something and then your prediction comes true, you earn more trust [for next time].
SC: From what you can see from your position now, how is the press secretary role changing, given the shrinking of the media industry, AI misinformation, and a whole lot of competition from DIY journalists?
JL: I want to answer that two ways. Let’s put Trump aside for a moment because that’s a whole different answer.
First is that the media landscape has fractured so much, and the interests of each of the media organizations are so different than they used to be. There used to be monolithic media companies and institutions, and [their leaders] had an outsized power. When I started doing this [work], there were probably 50 people, generally white men, who went to Ivy League schools, who decided what the news was.
If you could convince them, you were good. If you couldn’t convince them, even if you had a good case, you were bad. But there was a sense that the media still served as a very important referee. [It was he said vs. she said. They presented both, and] at the end of the day, they said, “‘She said’ made a better case.”
But now, technology and the ease of distributing information has distorted the media so much that now there are new media set up to push a point of view, not to referee. And as consumers of that content, we go to the stores we like. If you’re a progressive Democrat, you’re not shopping at the Fox or Newsmax store. As good as their merch is, you’re not buying. And those have sort of taken over. [Pushing a point of view isn’t entirely new.] There have always been columnists, and people who were not dependent upon the big media monolith. But by and large, [media] refereed. Today there’s no referee, and I think that even without Trump, we were moving that direction anyway. It was more of a reaction to technology and the things you could do than it was about an evil force having taken over the government and the government information. So that’s why I separated [these answers].
Now Trump is a different animal. It is an evil force. It is a force that’s not just trying to get its point of view out. It’s trying to destroy the other point of view and punish anyone that opposes that point of view, which is very different and very dangerous. He’s exercising the power of the government and the power of the executive branch as far as he can go. And one thing I know about politics is most people don’t come into office and immediately say, “Let’s give up some of that power. Let’s just give it back to them because we don’t need this. We got plenty of power here.” So, what I find interesting to consider is what happens next.
“People are going to go and find the information that they like, as opposed to what they need.”
Trump’s media ecosystem, which he controlled, was very effective for him until Trump’s base started to shrink. It became less and less effective because of the same technology that helped it. People are going to go and find the information that they like, as opposed to what they need. That’s a vast overgeneralization, but I’m going to stick with it anyway.
I give Jen Psaki [White House press secretary under President Biden] a lot of credit for her approach [as the Biden administration took over from the first Trump administration]. She got up there the first day and sent the message that sanity had been restored, and I’m just going to stand up here and tell you the truth. And I’m going to talk about issues. I’m not going to attack you. I remember writing about it at the time. It was an important moment because they could have just taken the point of view that we’re just going to take what we want out of this Trump philosophy and shine it up a little differently and use the government to control and to punish the media. But they didn’t. It’s not inevitable that whoever gets elected [looks at presidential power] and says, “The end justifies the means.” Normally that’s what politicians do genetically, which is I’m going to do these things that I’m not sure are right or that I know aren’t right because what I want for the country is best for the country. And any politician I’ve ever talked to has at least considered that in the way they structure how they work.
SC: Part of that also seems to be the pace of what’s coming at you. So, for instance, let’s say a convincing AI-generated video of the president saying something inflammatory goes viral early in the morning, you’ve got maybe an hour before you have to respond to that. What’s the job like now with that kind of pace?
JL: I have no idea. Thank God I don’t. I didn’t have to learn. It’s kind of like a wildfire. You have no idea where it’s going, and it’s come out of nowhere. You have to be prepared. There are some things that come out of nowhere, but if you do a good job preparing, there’s not much that’s different from what you’ve prepared for.
If you have an underlying philosophy and message philosophy, and message architecture (to use a big word), you know how to respond to 99% of the things. It doesn’t matter what the particular development is. You know how to push back on it, or you know how to take advantage of it. You know if it’s something gone viral that really helps you.
The flip side of it is that a lot of it doesn’t matter. The most overused word in communications is crisis. A bad story is not a crisis. The example I use, which I’ve been using for 20 years, is that you’re X Airlines. If you have a story about 3,000 flights being canceled yesterday, that’s a bad story. People depend on you when they go to the airport to get to where they’re going. That’s a bad story, but I don’t think it gets to the fundamentals of their brand. But if a plane crashes, that’s a crisis because it’s not [just about] the time a flight leaves.
The underlying value that people trust in an airline is you’ll get me from point A to point B safely, and when they don’t believe that, it’s existential — the entire business is at risk. Thank God it doesn’t happen very often. Cancellations do, and people get into trouble when they deal with a bad story like it’s a crisis. The good news these days is you have so much data on how people are responding that [showing something is just a bad story isn’t just your opinion]. You can show social [media] data. I think this is something that is misunderstood by many communications practitioners.
“Your job as the press secretary is to be the intermediary between the politician, the government, and the press as the proxy for the public. Many people say that and they don’t mean it. But it is meaningful. It is a foundational element of democracy. If you care about democracy, you have to care about that.”
SC: What advice would you have for the next press secretary? Any conditions before accepting the job? What should they be thinking about?
JL: I think one of the biggest pieces of advice is that there is a temptation to use power if it’s made available to you. My biggest piece of advice is: use the power wisely. A lot of people will say that, but I don’t know that a lot of people mean it. Your job as the press secretary is to be the intermediary between the politician, the government, and the press as the proxy for the public. Many people say that and they don’t mean it. But it is meaningful. It is a foundational element of democracy. If you care about democracy, you have to care about that. And that’ll be the trickiest thing for the next [press secretary].
Then there are just some things that I think that anyone going into the job has to know. You will think [or be told] you can go into any meeting you want, or [the president will] always be available to you. But none of those things happen until you’ve built some trust. There’s no one who goes in on the first day and has that. So, my advice would be: yes, ask for [that access], get them to say it. But don’t completely trust it. Use it where you can, as in “you said I could.” But understand that it’s something you have to earn.
Originally posted on LinkedIn