Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki appeared on Friday’s episode of Jon Stewart’s podcast The Weekly Show to “offer insight into the forces shaping policy, the ways in which the media can effectively inform the public, and the core values that should be guiding the future of the Democratic Party.”
One such insight? That the Harris campaign’s decision to utilize Liz Cheney—a former Republican representative for Wyoming and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter—was not the right strategy, particularly near the end of the campaign.
Psaki told Stewart, “Liz Cheney is very heroic, but I don’t think closing the campaign with a message about fighting democracy with a former Republican member of Congress was the right strategy.”
This was a critique made by many at the time; the move was intended to attract moderate voters, but critics, like The Nation’s John Nichols, argued that the time spent with Cheney “prevented Harris from reaching out to the voters she needed,” namely voters to Cheney’s left who felt alienated by her neoconservatism.
Psaki echoed the sentiments of many critics, including Nichols, that the campaign’s preoccupation with Cheney prevented them from reaching out to more voters who could have potentially been convinced to vote blue.
“I’m not saying that’s why they lost,” said Psaki. “What I’m saying is there were millions of people who didn’t turn out to vote, many of whom in the past have leaned toward Democratic issues, leaned toward Democratic candidates, and Trump somehow massively won on issues like the economy... That reality means that maybe something isn’t going well.”
Cheney appeared with Harris at campaign stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin ahead of last year’s election, pushing conservatives to, among other things, vote against Trump because of what she viewed as Republican-led overreach in restricting abortion access.
Psaki, who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations and as the White House Press Secretary from 2021 to 2022, had previously called on other Republicans to join Cheney in endorsing Harris. In 2023, Psaki hosted Cheney on her podcast, Inside with Jen Psaki, to discuss the looming threat of Trump’s second term.
