by Jen Psaki | Sep 26, 2026 | The Briefing with Jen Psaki, White House, World
This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 24 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
On Thursday morning, journalists from MS NOW, CNN and Politico were granted access to the White House grounds for the first time in days after a judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate press passes to reporters from those networks. However, later that evening, reporters from MS NOW and CNN were blocked from attending an event at the White House.
Now, what makes this all so on the nose, and maddeningly ridiculous, is that the event those reporters were denied access to was a greeting ceremony that Donald Trump hosted for the leader of a country with a truly reprehensible record on press freedom: China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Washington this week for a three-day state visit. According to Thursday’s print pool report, American and Chinese photographers were separated and brought in for two sprays with the leaders. And during the second spray, Trump made a joke about how the Chinese had the friendliest press corps. That’s right: Trump praised China’s state-run media while actively battling to prevent American media from covering his administration.
For context, the Chinese government has a long history of suppressing independent media outlets and keeping independent press from other countries out of events like this in China. U.S. presidents are supposed to condemn that behavior, even when they’re conducting delicate diplomacy.
In 2016, during a trip to China, President Barack Obama called out the Chinese government for restricting press access.
“We think it’s important that the press have access to the work that we’re doing, that they have the ability to answer questions,”
by Jen Psaki | Aug 15, 2026 | The Briefing with Jen Psaki, White House
This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 13 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Something is happening in the Trump administration that I have kind of been dying to weigh in on. This week, Karoline Leavitt announced that she is officially leaving the White House and will step down as press secretary at the end of August.
Now, there is a lot to say about her time in the briefing room, her role in the Trump era and her departure. But let’s start with what is not problematic about Leavitt leaving the White House.
More than a few armchair critics out there have gone after her for leaving the job just 19 months into President Donald Trump’s second term and saying she wants to spend more time with her family after the birth of her second child.
As press secretary, your job is to serve the public on behalf of the president.
I have plenty of issues with how Leavitt has done this job, but let me say at the outset: That is not one of them. It is really hard to have a baby while serving in a senior White House job; there are, unfortunately, not hundreds or even dozens of examples from the past to model your experience on, including how long to stay.
I was six months pregnant when I returned to the White House to serve as President Barack Obama’s communications director. My kids were 2 and 5 when I went to work for President Joe Biden as his press secretary. And that’s a big part of why I stayed in that job for only 15 months. So in my
by Jen Psaki | Aug 14, 2026 | elections, The Briefing with Jen Psaki
This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 12 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Across the country, Republican candidates are finding themselves in quite the bind ahead of November’s midterms. In race after race, they’re being forced to defend Donald Trump’s slush fund for insurrectionists and his delusions about an election he lost.
Like the new Republican nominee for governor in Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany: He voted to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in two states as a member of Congress, and he still refuses to say the Democrat won that presidential election.
And honestly, have at it, fellas. Because as Republicans are forced to defend a failed lame-duck president and his failed policies and the stories he tells himself about an election he lost, Democrats are gathering strength and energy and delivering actual messages to voters.
Which brings me to the guy who finds himself in the unexpected position of facing Tiffany in Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race, Democrat David Crowley. After his stunning upset victory in Tuesday’s primary, Crowley attended a unity breakfast Wednesday along with his primary opponent Francesca Hong.
While there are a lot of hot takes out there about what his victory means, the newly minted Democratic candidate for governor had a lot to say about what he thinks it means.
Democrats have, for the most part, not let these primary competitions dampen their enthusiasm.
“Over the past few months, you’ve heard a lot of people try to define this election as a battle between the left and the center, between progressives and the establishment, between insiders and outsiders,” Crowley said Wednesday morning. “That narrative misses the entire point of what we’re doing. Because
by Jen Psaki | Jul 24, 2026 | Donald Trump, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, White House, World
This is an adapted excerpt from the July 22 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Have you ever been in one of those situations where a friend starts to embarrass themselves — maybe they had a little too much to drink, maybe they said something they shouldn’t have, or maybe they just seem to be having a hard time keeping it together — and you have to gently cajole them into taking a break?
We’ve all been there at some point. And right now, that is exactly what it must feel like for MAGA Republicans trying to deal with President Donald Trump and the war with Iran he started.
A new Politico poll out Wednesday found that the number of self-identified MAGA supporters who think the president’s war is worth the economic costs has dropped 13% in just the last two months.
Just consider the advice longtime Trump supporter and MAGA darling Bill O’Reilly shared on his podcast this week. O’Reilly told the president to “take the next month off.”
“Get into an environment where you, like, golf and relax a little bit,” he said. “You got to deal with Iran — I understand that, everybody understands it — but you can do that on the phone, and you can do that with your people coming. But you need a breather.”
Now, was O’Reilly making that suggestion because he is genuinely concerned that Trump is not OK? Maybe. Or was he making it because he thinks this disastrous war will be easier to bring to an end if Trump isn’t sitting in the Oval Office every day? It’s possible. Or it could be a
by Jen Psaki | Jul 9, 2026 | Crime & Courts, Donald Trump, The Briefing with Jen Psaki, World
This is an adapted excerpt from the July 8 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
It’s already been a rough week for President Donald Trump, who has been facing humiliation after humiliation.
On Wednesday, a federal court officially ordered that $5 million of the president’s money be released to E. Jean Carroll, who successfully sued him for defamation. In a blistering order, the judge wrote that Trump “has been stalling this case for years.”
It’s safe to say the president is not having a great week.
“A jury unanimously concluded that he sexually abused and defamed plaintiff and awarded her damages accordingly,” he continued. “It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment.”
Also on Wednesday, another federal judge rejected Trump’s efforts to put his name back on the Kennedy Center — a loss we know has humiliated Trump because his administration has left a tarp over the place where his name used to be, as if that tarp means his name is actually still there.
On top of all of that, Trump faced even more humiliation when his so-called peace negotiations with Iran fell completely apart. (Who could have seen that one coming?) The U.S. has already launched multiple new rounds of airstrikes against Iran, including one on Wednesday evening.
Trump has now declared his ceasefire over, claiming he doesn’t even want a deal anymore. Oil prices spiked and gas prices are expected to rise again soon.
So it’s safe to say the president is not having a great week. But perhaps the most humiliating thing that happened to the president in recent days — the thing you know gets under his skin
by Jen Psaki | May 7, 2026 | The Briefing with Jen Psaki
This is an adapted excerpt from the May 5 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
On Tuesday, Republicans in the Senate took the giant spending bill they are trying to rush through Congress and added a billion dollars to it — $1 billion of your hard-earned tax dollars earmarked specifically to build President Donald Trump’s lavish White House ballroom.
Now, that $1 billion price tag would be eye-popping even if it came out of thin air, but it didn’t. Since Trump announced his plan to destroy the East Wing and build a golden ballroom, the cost of the project has just kept growing, from $200 million to $300 million to $400 million.
First, Trump said he was going to pay for it. Then donors were going to pay for it. But now it’s you, the American taxpayer, who might foot the vast majority of the costs — because congressional Republicans want to add $1 billion in public funding for ballroom security features.
The Trump administration just so happened to give an inflated contract to the same construction company that is building the president’s ballroom.
And if the new taxpayer-funded addition to Trump’s ever-ballooning ballroom price tag wasn’t sketchy enough to begin with, that new increase comes just a week after The New York Times got this scoop: “Firm Building Trump’s Ballroom Got a Secret No-Bid Contract for a Nearby Job.”
Last summer, Trump chose a Maryland-based construction company to build his White House ballroom. Then in January, as the Times reported, government documents showed that the Trump administration “secretly gave the company a no-bid contract to do another job at a sharply inflated price.”
The National
