It's the Ryan Lera Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone, in our spring membership drive,

trying to reach our goal of 10,000 donors. Thank you for being one if you can.

We begin this week with our usual Monday morning politics segment today with President Biden's first press secretary, Jen Saki.

She was previously White House Communications Director for President Obama and worked on presidential

campaigns for Obama and before that the 2004 John Kerry for president campaign.

She is now an MSNBC host on Sundays at noon and Monday nights at 8 o'clock Eastern Time,

and Jen Saki has a new book called Say More, Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World.

Jen, thanks for coming on with us. Welcome to WNYC.

Good morning, Brian.

It's great to be here with you. To let people know you a little more first, if I'm seeing your bio right, you were born here in New York City and grew up in Stanford, Connecticut. Is that right? Are you local to our area in that way? I did. I did. I grew up, my mother grew up in Woodside in Queens.

My uncle who since passed away was a retired New York City cop. So I do have some connections locally, sure.

And was there something about your childhood or upbringing around here or those roots that you just cited that led you to career in politics?

You know, I think my mother who's such an influential person in my life, and she's very present

in my book. She's still a family therapist. Her roots in Queens and just her groundedness

and grit but heart is definitely part of what led me to want to join be in public service.

And she always tells me that, you know, I'm rooted to Queens too because of her.

Before we get to the news of today, including the upcoming debate between Biden and Trump,

if Trump actually goes through with it, and the fight for the youth vote, you write in the book

about the challenge of following Donald Trump. The inauguration was two weeks after January 6th,

in case people forget. COVID was still raging too. What a time to be sworn in as president for Joe Biden.

And what a time to become press secretary. How did you in the president see the job at the

beginning of its administration? You know, Brian, one of the most important conversations I had

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