Pod Save America co-host Dan Pfeiffer

Channels with Peter Kafka

Vox Media Podcast Network

Business News, News, Tv & Film, Technology

4.4 • 585 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2018

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Former White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, now the co-host of the popular liberal podcast Pod Save America, talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about his new book, “Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump.” Pfeiffer outlines the ways in which the political media landscape has been profoundly warped and upended since he went to work for Barack Obama in 2009, arguing that today “the press” is such a broad term that it has lost all meaning. He warns his fellow Democrats that the thing they should be most scared of is how successfully the Republicans have tapped into tools like Facebook and Twitter to develop a “media advantage” built on outrage. Pfeiffer also talks about why he decided to write a book after initially rejecting the idea, and why the White House press briefings delivered by Sarah Huckabee Sanders are “always pointless.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:22.3	This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka. That is me. I am part of the Box Media Podcast Network where I dispense parenting advice to any and all guests like Dan Fifer from Pod Save America. That's him laughing. I'm just going to thank you guys in advance for telling someone else about this show. Thank you. Welcome, Dan. Thanks for having me, man. My intro here says you're Dan Fifer from Crooked Media. That's not correct. You're Dan Fifer from Pod Save America.
0:23.6	Which is part of Crooked Media, correct?
0:24.7	Which is part of Crooked Media.
0:34.7	Normally, when we have a guest on, we say, oh, you worked at the White House. You were communications director. That's a big deal. Tell me about that. We'll get to that part. What's it like to be a co-host of Pod Save America,
0:37.8	the world's favorite, everyone's favorite political podcast?
0:39.7	I don't know that it's everyone's favorite.
0:37.8	I can think of a few people, many of them. co-host of Potsave America, the world's favorite, everyone's favorite, political podcast.
0:39.7	I don't know that it's everyone's favorite.
0:43.7	I can think of a few people, many of them work at Fox News, who are not fans of the podcast.
0:44.9	I bet they're secret listeners.
0:45.8	That's exactly right.
0:47.9	They're self-hating listeners of Potsave America. I mean, it has been the most unexpected, fun journey to be on.
0:54.8	When we originally started keeping a 1600 back during the 2016 election, we were working
0:59.8	with Bill Simmons on the Ringer, it was just like a little thing we were going to do for a few months.
1:03.7	You and John Favreau did once a week for giggles, basically.
1:06.5	Basically, yes.
1:07.4	We basically did it for giggles.
1:08.7	And then it did better than I think any of us possibly imagine. We thought it would be like our family, maybe some Obama staffers would listen to it. But people listened. And then so we eventually added a second podcast with Tommy Vitor, John Favreau, and John Lovett on Mondays. The idea was that we were going to stop after the election.
1:28.4	I have very specific sense memories of listening to you.
1:31.2	I remember driving around Minneapolis,
1:32.9	listening to you're on time of the public convention.
1:34.8	You're telling me not to worry about it.
	...

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