From the West Wing to Hollywood: How Top PR Strategists Shape Public Perception with Eric Schultz

Hello everybody, happy Thursday and welcome to today's webinar discussion hosted by the team here at ClickBook. We're really excited for today's conversation, so we'll just honestly go ahead and jump right in. Eric, are you ready? You ready to do this?

Let's rock.

All right. We'll start with some really quick introductions. To introduce myself, my name is Adam Joseph. I'm the founder and CEO here at ClickBook. At Clipbook, we're an AI research and analysis platform for communications teams. Since our launch a couple of years ago, we've grown to support over 200 different companies, firms, nonprofits, and agencies all across the country. And, you know, today's conversation is one that I'm very excited about. Yes, as a communications professional who loves the space and loves talking to experts like Eric, of course, but also as an avid consumer of Netflix, of streaming TV, of, you know, just, just an obsessive level of streaming TV. Consumption, you know, really excited for this conversation. Our topic for today is From West Wing to Hollywood: How Top PR Strategists Shape Public Perception with our guest Eric Schultz. And there are a lot of reasons I'm excited for the discussion today. The first is this moment. It's March 2025. We have a new president, a new administration. A lot of significant policy shifts are underway. Definitely a period of change. And with that has come a lot of noise in the media today, a lot of volatility. So it's really important now more than ever to know how do you stay ahead of the curve? How are you? How do you remain in the driver's seat? How do you effectively shape public perception? So first reason I'm excited. The second is our amazing guest, Eric Schultz. Eric is the founder and CEO of the Schultz Group. The Schultz Group is a public affairs consulting firm offering strategic communications expertise to a range of clients across public and private sectors. And honestly, Eric has had a fascinating career on multiple levels. Of course, an illustrious career in politics and government, serving as deputy White House press secretary under President Obama. He actually currently serves as President Obama's senior adviser as well, which is, which is really cool. We'll unpack that a bit shortly. But interestingly, following his career in the White House, Eric made the jump to Hollywood and now serves as a communications adviser to a range of— I'll describe them as Hollywood titans from celebrities, you know, A-list celebrities, all the way to HBO's Succession, as well as the new Netflix series Zero Day starring Robert De Niro. So, you know, taking all this together, I think Eric brings a lot of interesting perspectives to the table. So we're in for a really insightful, engaging conversation. So let's just jump right into it. And for the audience, really quickly, as a reminder, the Zoom Q&A function, feel free to drop questions, thoughts into that function. We are able to see those. We'll respond as we can. So, Eric, turning it to you, would love to start to hear a little bit more about your background, a bit more about the story. Just walk me through, I guess, the abbreviated life story, you know, your path to the White House, and we can go from there.

Yep. Happy to do so. I'm also just real happy to join you today and thankful for the opportunity. I think, Adam, what you have built at Clipbook is is very impressive. And it is hard to do anything remote, anything related to what I do in terms of communicating or advising or counseling or having a strategy without knowing how what we say or do is going to fit into the larger ether and what is being reported or said or talked about, about what I'm working on or who I'm working for. And so I think the combination of sort of how you have tailored this service to be very sort of specific and not a one-size-fits-all, but also use sort of the latest technology is nothing short of super impressive. So congratulations to everything you've built.

You're making me blush, Eric. We appreciate it. Thank you.

With all that said, I'm happy to dive in. I got my first job in politics. I was working on Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate run from New York. So she's still the first— she's the first First Lady to run for office in her own right. And, um, and it was the first sort of race of its kind. Um, and I was the tracker. So I followed around our opponent, a fellow by the name of Rick Lazio.

Uh, can you explain the tracker, what that is, really quick? Because, you know, for some of our attendees who might not be familiar with the political world as much.

Yeah, so I, I followed around our opponent a guy by the name of Rick Lazio, hoping to catch him screwing up or falling down or saying something stupid. And this was the year 2000, so there were no iPhones. It was like a big camcorder on my shoulder, and I'm just sort of sneak— we wouldn't call it sneaking, but I would be present for any of his public events. And again, trying to get him screwing up or saying something ridiculous that can be used against him, that we could sort of turn into an ad or whatnot. That never really happened. I never really caught any, like, big moments. But because of the nature of the race, I was working with some of the brightest, sort of most talented minds in Democratic politics. And my little desk was in our war room. And so I was part of the communications team. And I could hear, you know, I sort of caught the bug. And so I could see one day a story in the Daily News that was based on a conversation that, um, somebody I heard talk to a reporter about. Or I could see one of my colleagues try and shape stories and shape coverage that sort of turned into the newspaper the next day. And I was just really amazed at how the sort of pivotal role, central role that communications plays in sort of the broader political system. And the other benefit of working on that race is the journalists, because it's New York and sort of it's this media epicenter, and obviously her race was a giant story that year. The journalists who covered that race have gone on to mega platform, right? Maggie Haberman covered that race. Adam Nagourney at the Times covered that race. And so I got— I sort of built relationships with journalists who who I continue to be close with to this day.

One of the attendees had asked if there are any staffers assaulting giant chickens, just given the opposition work and training, but I'm gonna assume not. So anyways, you were saying, so— Yeah. Oh yeah, go ahead.

But that was part of the theatrics was sort of staying aggressive and staying on offense as much as possible. And part of that was sort of me in enemy camp all the time, like transmitting back and forth what was being said. and how that campaign was doing. I was sort of the eyes and ears for the Hillary operation, but sort of focused on, on our opponent. Uh, after that, I went back to school in St. Louis and graduated, uh, and, and then I came to Washington, D.C., and I worked on the Hill, um, worked for various campaigns and various Senate offices, um, and I was at the DSCC, which is the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, in 2010. Which is sort of the organization, the party committee that sort of helps manage the Senate races for that cycle. And in the spring of 2011, when Republicans took over the House of Representatives, they vowed all of this congressional oversight. And so a bunch of investigations and hearings and, and, and all of that stuff. And so the White House smartly decided to hire a bunch of outside people to help manage the response to those investigations so it didn't deter the president's existing staff from his priorities. So they hired mostly lawyers, but also some researchers and communications people. And my portfolio sort of broadened from there to do, handle a lot of the crisis communications. And in 2014, when Josh Earnest became the press secretary, he asked me to be his deputy. And so I tell people it's a little bit like being Miss America runner-up. When Josh was unable to perform his duties, they sort of roll me out and I did the best that I could answering questions in the briefing room or traveling around the country or the world on Air Force One with the president. And those are sort of the glamorous parts of the job, but it's mostly the sort of bread and butter of public relations, communication strategy, working with reporters, answering their questions, doing everything possible to get the president's message across. Um, and, and I'm just thankful that what during my 6 years at the White House, I was able to sort of grow and evolve and try and sort of expand my repertoire a little bit, expand my scope. And obviously it was the best job I'll ever have.

That's great. It's funny when you think about the journey from opposition research and tracking to being brought into the White House to focus on a range of almost like a crisis sort of context or kind of defense. I mean, Opposition research in my mind exists to create a crisis for the opponent, right, in some way, shape, or form. And then, you know, on the other side of the table, right, you're playing a bit more defense with managing the actual dynamic. So I'm curious, did you find that the mentality of doing the tracking and some of the, you know, the tactics that you were leveraging, did that sort of set like a, you know, a mentality or an approach to some of the work that then, you know, would have an implication for you later in your career?

Yeah, 100%. I am very proud that I started as a researcher because I think good communicators have very strong relationships with people who are doing the work and the research. And, you know, I know you want to get into crisis communications later, but, you know, I think the most important thing we have in this business is our credibility. And it's very hard to regain that once you lose it. And I guard mine with my life. And in order to sort of protect your credibility, you've got to make sure that you're not saying things that can later be contradicted. And so that's why I think sort of having that research experience, but also really great research colleagues who can make sure you can sort of are trained at seeing around corners and also like, um, are expert in the sort of record of whatever you're working on, um, the history of it. I think it's super important. So I'm grateful that I had that background because I think for any sort of smart communicator, having, you know, grounding what you're saying in actual facts and truth and knowing that it will stand the test of time is really important.

Right, right. And I do want to pull on that thread as we discuss crises more specifically in a moment. But, you know, coming back to your story, You know, being behind the podium and the lectern, you know, in the White House press briefing room is like a massive milestone for an individual's career. You know, I mean, just the level of time vetting, you know, like, you know, trials and tribulations you have to kind of go through to get there. Right. And one of the most competitive roles in the country. I mean, it's just massive, right? It's really intense. I mean, President Obama could have had millions, you know, hundreds of people who are like solid for, you know, to be there, right? Like, what was it about you, you think, that distinguished you, you know, in terms of your experiences, in terms of your skill sets? And I know that, I mean, I'm fighting your natural humility here, you know, just as a person. But yeah, I mean, what do you think, you know, kind of got you, you know, into the role and was important to— in the lead-up?

Yeah, I will answer this question very specifically is how I counsel younger people who are starting out in this business. First of all, I always dreamed of getting to the White House, but I didn't have a path to get there. It was just I did well at the jobs that I had, and one thing sort of led to another. I feel like we don't live in a world right now where it's like a very clear career trajectory that's sort of regimented and to do this step to take the next step to take the next step. It's much more relationship-based and more connected than that. So I always tell other people to sort of take the job because you want the job and do well at it. Don't take it because it's going to lead to something else. Because that's just too— that's a fool's errand to game out. I do think, though, one sort of attribute that runs across the board in politics and probably in other industries too, sort of this no job too small, no job too large mentality that like you're willing to make the photocopies, you're willing to get the Diet Coke for people, you're also willing to drive the senator, you're willing to write a briefing memo, you're willing to meet with policy people. Like the sort of expressing an enthusiasm and an interest in whatever needs to be taken care of at that moment is sort of my own, was my sort of operating ethos. And so there was plenty of things at the White House that were new to me, especially foreign policy. There were plenty of sort of facets to the federal government that were new to me. And I think just showing an interest in terms of not being intimidated by the work, but also being interested enough to tackle whatever could be of use to your colleagues, I think was sort of one of the reasons I was able to sort of continue to get these opportunities.

Yeah, that's great. And I'm curious, I mean, just since your time in the White House, you imagine formed so many amazing relationships with folks that you work with, you know, for years and years after in various ways. I mean, I'd be curious to hear, you know, about some of those. I mean, obviously, the president, you know, aside and working with him today, you know, some of the other ones that really, really come to mind as formative for, for the next bounce of the ball.

Yeah. I mean, I would say this is the best part of working in politics, which is like there's not a lot of perks to working in politics or campaigns. Like the hours are terrible, the pay sucks, the job security is even worse.

Right.

There's like a lot of downsides. But the people you get to work with and the team environment in which you are, um, uh, which you are all sort of like rowing in the same direction. You have a joint mission, usually have like one principal or one leader that you're all working for, um, is I think might be unique to politics, um, in terms of sort of that team. Um, early on I worked for, for Chuck Schumer, uh, 2005 to 2008. And obviously he's in the news a lot now, but I'll talk about my experience, which was, you know, they call working for Chuck like the Harvard of Presbyterian schools because he is super aggressive and has very high expectations, and he's also very smart at media. And the job was extremely demanding. He was oftentimes the first person I spoke to in the morning when I woke up, and he was so the last person I spoke to before I went to sleep at night. But the cool thing about it was that we were all in it together. And so our successes were our successes, and our setbacks were our setbacks. I never felt out on a limb. I never felt, um, alone. And even again, Chuck Schumer, who was in the Democratic leadership in the United States Senate, And this little, you know, mid-level press guy, right? It was like, I felt solidarity and I felt that I was part of something bigger. And so, you know, you translate that to working in the White House and you think of just some of the most brilliant minds in policy and in media and in political organizing and technology. And And I don't think, you know, I, you, you try and sort of mark that when you're there. But I think a lot of people who leave the White House or the administration and go into other fields sort of feel that very significantly, that like, it's not necessarily the top people across the board. And so I think, again, that, that's when the person working in these positions is you get exposure to some of the smartest people in the world.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, a lot of that resonates. I mean, and, you know, being in the— on a campaign team, or I mean, honestly, communications team in a campaign or in government, I think can be such a formative and intense experience that your relationship with your colleagues during those moments is just like, you know, it's like it happens in like dog years. You spend like 6 months on a campaign with somebody and it's like you've had a relationship with them for so many years because I mean, maybe there's something about just the raw number of hours you spend together because it's a demanding job, but also it's a highly stressful, sometimes emotional context where, you know, you're not in politics just to kind of go through the motions, right? Like, you're there probably because you have a belief about the way the world should be and you want to advocate for that. And, you know, you have opposition, you have the press. It's sort of this big, you know, emotionally heightened environment. So, so there's like a bonding that sort of happens. It kind of reminds me of how people describe like their sports teams in high school or in college or whatever it might be. But yeah, it's, you know, all to say, very much resonates and couldn't agree more. So, Eric, I want to dig a little bit more into crisis management. And, you know, I was looking up some things about you a couple of weeks ago, and I saw Politico had described you as I'm gonna quote, "The White House, the strategist that the White House officials turn to in a crisis to handle communications." So all to say, you know a thing or two about crisis communications. And I just wanna start with like a high level of Crisis 101. For some of our attendees here, mostly communicators in various ways, shape, or form across business, across government, across nonprofits and advocacy campaigns. Walk us through just like, your process for developing a crisis communication strategy. You know, if you know a story is about to break or if it is already broken, you know, what's sort of the, you know, on the to-do list, you know, 1, 2, 3, how do you approach it?

So the first thing is there's no one-size-fits-all, right? Like every situation is unique. And so it's hard to give you like a plug-and-play.

Right.

Sometimes I'm asked as a consultant to come like prepare us for crisis. And it's like, it doesn't really work like that in real life. There's no binder I can give you. And maybe I'm like cutting myself off from prospective business, but there's no binder I can give you that this is how you're going to handle a crisis. And so I think we should sort of stipulate that at the top. That said, there are definitely best practices, right? We know sort of what makes sense to prepare in advance, how to handle in real time. What to handle, what, how to sort of deal with the aftermath. And so I always tell people my sort of guiding principle when you're handling a crisis is you want to be the adult in the room. Like, we all know there's going to be like heavy breathers. There's going to be people who have not been through this before. There's going to be reporters. There's going to be online scrutiny. There's going to be maybe members of Congress, maybe investigators, right? There's maybe regulators. There's going to be a lot of people. With eyeballs looking at you. And I think it's important to establish yourself as, as someone who is seasoned and taking it all in and being thoughtful about your response. And so I'm not in the, like, you got it, we'll get to this. But like, some people feel the need, like, to respond right away and be fast and put it all out and do that. And, and sometimes that makes sense, and, and I think 100% of the time you need to be responsive. We can talk about like ways to do that, um, but above all else, I want you to be seen as, as the adult in the room who is measured and is reasonable and, and again, going back to what we talked about early— earlier— stays credible not only throughout this particular episode but also in the future because, right, as we remind ourselves, like, the newspaper's coming out tomorrow too, right? Like, you're not just fighting about this news cycle and this story. Your reputation, both personally, but also whoever you're working for, their sort of public profile, isn't going to be determined in this moment. It's going to be determined based on how you react Yeah, and what unfolds. And so I, I just want to make sure that nobody sort of jumps or does anything rash again that could be later contradicted or that you later regret.

Yeah, yeah. I, you know, it's funny, I, you know, I was working with a— I can't, uh, reveal, reveal names, but a, uh, a large company that was having a crisis in their industry, and their competitor was— and, and their competitor was going through a crisis. It was a big newswave that was very targeted towards that specific company. But for our team, right, there was a, I mean, just an immediate fear that you have and like, oh, could this happen to us? What does this look like? What are sort of the questions that we're going to get? And even at the most senior levels, right, the C-suite of a big, big, you know, multibillion-dollar company, you know, there's an emotional like, oh, well, we should put out these, you know, all these things. We should comment. We should go talk to reporters. And it's sort of like, well, just, you know, are you even— it was hard to get the leadership team even to recognize that they were not in a crisis themselves, right? And the instinct to act, which in many other circumstances is a really strong instinct, but sometimes actually then you're, you know, you're creating— you're going to create a manufactured problem because you've now stuck your neck out or you've kind of responded in a poor way. And I think to your point, kind of thinking about the long-term fact pattern of, you know, that company or that principal, whatever it is, And how does the fact pattern before and after and during the crisis, you know, moment, if it is a crisis, you know, really paint a picture and build your reputation and your brand? You know, that's sort of the wisdom you have to have is knowing, hey, this news cycle is painful now. All my friends are texting me about it, whatever it is. But, you know, hey, we're going to look tomorrow morning as a new news cycle. So it's going to happen here. Right. So I think all to say, I think very much resonates how you're thinking about it. Do you find that executives and principals tend to act too quickly or too slowly during a crisis?

Let me give you an example. It was a few years ago, maybe even more. I, I think it was like United Airlines. It was one of the carriers. Yeah. And a dog died mid-flight, right? Some passengers lost their dog, had died on the flight. So, so pretty awful. Now, what is the airline gonna say? Because it's going to take some time to figure out what the heck happened, right? Like, you got to— I don't know, whatever— some medical examination of the pet, and like, where's the pilot to talk to, and was there a flight attendant who took care, and the baggage handler— like, there's a million things that it's going to take some time to figure out. That doesn't mean in the first instance you can't issue a statement that says, nothing breaks our heart more than losing one of our furry friends, right? Like, right, you can still show empathy and be responsive and show that you get it. Even before you have the specifics of a fact pattern. So I always counsel executives or whoever I'm working with, like, we can issue a statement that is responsive to the moment that just sort of reflects our values. Like, I want to have a, like, a values statement ready to go that, again, stands no chance of being contradicted down the road. And then just show a commitment that, of course, we get it, right? We get it. We're on top of it. We're going to do the right thing. But I don't think you're going to be in a position to sort of give all of the details and answer all of the questions that you're getting in real time. You just need to sort of put a marker down at the outset and then you can sort of do the due diligence required to be sort of more responsive in due time.

Yeah, yeah. It's funny, you know, because you mentioned the idea of like the company's values in that case, right? Like, That has to mean that the organization has had time and preparation to even know what those are, right? And it has, has like a North Star kind of in mind for some of these moments. I imagine that's some preparation. I mean, that's a one-off example, but what are the other types of things that companies, organizations broadly, should be doing to help situate themselves the best to handle those in the moment? Is it, you know, aligning on values? Is it something around how they structure their, their teams?

Or their technologies or, yeah, I imagine there's a million things, but I do think the team thing is very important, which is you want to know ahead of time who is going to be at the table to make these decisions because I have worked with clients who like that has been the biggest paralysis, which is like they just don't have a structure or like a plan in place for who is going to be at the table making these decisions and where is the sign-off process and all of those things. So I do think getting ahead of that is important. And again, this is not a one-size-fits-all situation. Like, every organization is different and everyone brings different strengths and weaknesses to the table. So you should make sure you have a team in place that you feel good about and that also touches all of the different components that a crisis or challenge would, would touch. And I'll give you another example. I think a few years ago in Missouri, I don't know if it was Uber or Lyft, ride-sharing companies. They got caught because one of the drivers was, um, had a camera on all of their passengers in the back seat. And so hours and hours of footage. So all of these customers were being recorded without their knowledge. That's pretty creepy.

Yeah.

The quote that came out was awful, was just like, yeah, you know, Missouri passengers need to know their rights and Missouri law section 8.3 public law safety. You know, it was like very clinical and very legalistic about like whose responsibility this is.

Right.

Clearly the lawyers drafted that to sort of, right.

Yeah.

You know, not create any more risk, but like no communicator would have signed off on that.

Right.

So like you've got to make sure, of course, the lawyers are going to be in the mix and leadership and communications, but like To me, that was like a very tone-deaf response to an episode where people would feel creeped out or vulnerable and want to make sure like the company actually gets it. And so I always use that example as a way that like, as an illustration of why it's important to have sort of everybody at the table.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, the Missouri section, you know, ABC 123 is like, I mean, it is such an interesting example because I mean, I feel like with PR communications teams or media teams versus your legal team, right, both involved very actively at the crisis, you have to kind of work with each other very actively to navigate, okay, what are the guardrails? What can't we say because, you know, of X, Y, and Z reason, right? If you, and heavens knows if you have your lawyers writing your press releases, right, or your CEO's statement and doing just the training, then you're going to just create like its own kind of challenge, right? And yeah, so I'm kind of curious, like, with that tension in particular across the communications team, across some of the other functions that might be involved with navigating a crisis, any insights on how to create like the most productive, positive dynamic across them?

Yeah, I mean, to me, this is, again, very situational and very circumstantial based on the team. I think I'd never worked with a, an organization or a company or a client that, um, where it's not pretty clear who will be like the strategic, um, team or committee or, uh, um, or set of people who will be making decisions. And obviously there's people on the peripheral, but you need to figure out sort of, um, who's going to be in the room when shit hits the fan and what your sort of operations will be like in the days, hours, and days, minutes, and hours in the aftermath. And so making sure that, again, it's just very specific, but like, do you have clients? Do you have partners? Do you have customers? Was it a hack? Was it, you know, did somebody just say something stupid, right? Like, are there operational concerns or is it just a reputational one? But I think it all comes back to A, being clear about your values, showing responsiveness, showing some empathy that you understand it and that you get it, right? That you're gonna make sure this doesn't happen again, or you're gonna do everything possible to assure that we minimize the consequence. But I think, you know, we've all seen companies or clients or personality, people, right, respond in ways that feel tone deaf, or they feel like, or you feel like, oh wait, they do get it. They screwed up. This was really stupid, but they get it. And, and we just wanna make sure we're on that side of the ledger.

Yeah. Right. No, 100%. You know, communications and crisis communications in particular has changed so much. And I was gonna say the last 5 years, but honestly the last 2 years, right? In terms of the number of digital platforms that you might be engaged in, even the complexity of the stakeholders themselves that you're navigating. If it's— if you're a company, a competitor, shareholders, you know, and investors to customers, suppliers, employees, government stakeholders. So I guess all to say, you know, the last couple of years it's changed, right? The way that you navigate crises. I'd love to hear from you. What are the biggest changes that you've seen in the last couple of years from maybe even your time at the White House to now? How do teams equip themselves to navigate the new media landscape and, you know, the 2025 media world more broadly?

I mean, I guess this is why I tried to lead with like, take a breath, right? Like, take a beat. Because I had a boss who used to say like, the candle burns hotter, the flame burns hotter than ever before, but it also burns faster. And so you will be in the limelight and it will be pretty terrible. But everybody will move on very soon, very fast. And so I think that's like a general rule of thumb and even more acute in this media environment. I remember, I think this was in 2015. Again, this comes— this counted as a scandal back then. I'm not sure it would today, but there was an IRS staffer, IRS field agent in the Cincinnati Bureau of the Internal Revenue Service. Who gave a talk about how to— how they think about C3 and C4 organizations, which are like different classifications of the tax code. Very wonky, um, and usually something that nobody outside of that sort of universe of people would care about.

Yeah, she—

she—

I don't know this person, but I feel like I do just by the way that you describe them somehow.

So just visualize what's happening. It's just sort of like local Chamber of Commerce meeting or whatever it is.

Right.

And what she said sort of set off this firestorm about how the, how the IRS or the administration thinks about political organizations, which are C4s versus charities, which are C3s. Again, those of us in the White House at the time, we're not thinking about C3s and C4s. We're not at the— we're not in Cincinnati. Like, we got a lot of big stuff happening in D.C. And but the right wing sort of blows this up and Fox News goes crazy and members of Congress are asking all these questions. And I just remember one journalist, you know, saying like, it has been 8 hours since these allegations have been surfaced. It's like, okay, it's been 8 hours. Like, it's going to take us some time to figure out what the heck is going on. "Because the IRS is an independent agency and this woman is in Cincinnati and we have no idea." It just takes a little bit of time to get our hand around the facts. That's what I say is your credibility and your public posture over the long haul is going to be determined by the entire arc of the episode, not necessarily the response in those first few minutes. My counsel is always to keep that in mind. Again, that doesn't mean you put your head in the sand and you don't respond. We can think of what you want to say at the outset, which in this instance would probably be like, the IRS is an independent agency, and President Obama feels strongly that, that the tax code needs to be as fair as possible, and so does enforcement. And we show no special favors to anyone, no matter your political leanings. Right. So you could just say something that, like, feels pretty safe and again, values-based. But to let everyone know that you're on it, and then you can try and figure out what the heck is the long-term play.

Right. And then tactically, that also means that anybody who's running the story in the first 6 hours has something from you that they can leverage. And I imagine people who know that, oh, this thing just broke, like, is the White House going to do a big thing on some random thing in Cincinnati while also running the country? I think readers kind of get that, right? So yeah, totally makes sense. We've talked about, you know, the path to the White House. We've talked about crises. I want to shift gears one more time. You know, a couple of years ago, I met this Indian American dude. I said, dude, he was like 23 or 24. I met him in like a random bar. And this guy was training to be a NASCAR driver. Right. And, you know, and I was just like, wow, like, you know, Well, one, I've never met an Indian American dude who's into NASCAR, so that was like an interesting, you know, thing. But two, I was just like, how do you get into that? Like, how do you just decide, okay, I want to be a NASCAR driver? You know, it's kind of crazy differentiated, like, and he explained, oh, he had like some friends, whatever. But I'm having déjà vu because honestly, when I think about the jump from politics and into all the work that you do in Hollywood, right? I mean, I'm kind of like asking myself the same question, like, how do you get into that? So Maybe you can just start tactically, what was that sort of transition like? Tactically, how did it happen? Let's just start with there.

Thank you for raising all this because this has been sort of a pivot in my career that I have found very fun. I told a film director that I was working with that dealing with your dystopia is much better than the real one these days. And so it has been sort of a really nice release. And I think there's a lot of similarities between industries and fields. Obviously, both Hollywood and DC are sort of mutually obsessed with each other, right? You've got a lot of celebrities who try and shape politics, and then you've got in Washington, also obsessed with celebrities in Hollywood and film and television. So there's a lot of synergy back and forth. For me, I have found that there's also a lot of similarities in terms of the culture and the sort of nature of the work. And so I'll give you a few examples. A lot of us have worked on political campaigns. Those are essentially like a startup, right? And depending on the scale, like, you've got to build something from scratch. It can be a tens of millions of dollars venture, and then you shut it down, right? And then you move on to the next thing. That's a lot of what these productions are. If you think of a TV show or a film, they're starting from scratch and then they shut it down. It's like in between is like intensive, nonstop, 7-day-a-week, 24/7, right? Like overnight shifts. And it's what we were talking about earlier, which is like a really intense bond between people forms. Um, and again, it's like collaboration is essential for success. And so like everybody needs to be supportive and on the program to help each other succeed because if one thing falters, the whole thing could unravel. And so I think part of what drew me to this work is that same sense of we're all on a team together. And obviously the storytelling nature of the work. You know, we have a lot of really strong messengers in Washington and, I think the most effective communicators are the ones who are good at telling an actual story. But obviously, we don't have the platforms that Hollywood does, nor oftentimes the creativity. And so I think being able to sort of bring some of the skill sets that we've talked about that I've used in my political career to the entertainment piece has been really gratifying.

Yeah, that's great. I mean, it's funny, you know, I imagine there are just some things that are very tactically similar. I mean, you mentioned a couple already good ones, like the temporary organization that you form in a campaign or on a movie set or whatever it is. Makes sense. The intensity of the experience, the natural platform. Um, you know, I imagine, you know, the press corps in both worlds is quite different, or maybe not. I mean, you know, I don't think Maggie Haberman is now covering, you know, like, what's the latest with Gosh, I don't know, but Blake Lively or— yeah, I'm sorry, I'm just throwing out random Hollywood names, right? I guess, like, how's the press corps different in Hollywood? So take like the Varieties of the world or the Deadline Hollywood or, you know, the Vogues of the world versus the New York Times, Politico, Washington Post, and so on.

There's similarities and there's differences. Obviously, like the transactional nature of sort of sources and reporters rings true no matter where you are. Right. Reporters want information. They want access. They want good relationships. On our side, we want good relationships. We want sympathetic coverage. We want to be able to sort of shape the conversation. And so that is all sort of part of the sausage-making process. Obviously, the stakes are very different. Again, as I sort of reminded some folks on set, it's like, "This isn't an actual election, right? We're just portraying one on television." Or like, "We're not actually talking about going to war. This is just a fictionalized sort of situation." And so I think that sort of, you know, that is sort of the broader context. But in terms of the media, I think like, again, a lot of the skills that we have developed or that I've developed in politics or campaigns or government service are certainly transferable.

Being a former political guy who got into Hollywood, You know, there's loads of Hollywood PR firms, communications teams, publicists, you know, firms, all of that, right? What are the biggest lessons that Hollywood can learn from Washington, D.C.?

At this moment, you might want to not learn too many.

But sure, fair enough.

But I think the importance of— there are certain sort of guiding principles that I think are cut across, which are one, having an overarching message, having a narrative that you believe in and that you push constantly and that you're proactive with, I think is important no matter which side of the country you're in. And I think that being creative in terms of how you communicate that applies to both industries as well. Sorry to keep hammering on this, but I do think sort of credibility and sort of taking the long view on how this is going to feel a week, a month, 5 years from now is important. And that's what I try and sort of counsel. And if I'm in DC or LA or New York, I'm just trying to anticipate how something's going to feel down the road, even if it feels good in the moment. But yeah, I mean, I think there's all sorts of lessons to apply. Political communicators are often looked at as sort of, you know, haven't gone through the most rigorous of challenges. And so I think that a lot of other industries look to political communicators But the truth is we have a lot to learn. And so like, just, and I tell this to sort of, again, younger people that like, people like me and people I work for need to get out of the way so that we can make room for like the next generation to sort of, to come in who are just much more creative and fluent in the new technologies and, and not sort of resting on sort of the tried and true ways I've been doing it for forever.

Yeah, that's great. I'd love to hear, to the extent to which you can share, some of the work with HBO's Succession in particular. I'm asking just from my own personal interest that I'm obsessed with that show, like top 3 series of all time. You know, I mean, gosh, also if we go into any spoilers from the show, I'm just gonna warn the attendees now. Also, if you haven't watched Succession at this point, like that's kind of on you, no offense. But yeah, I mean, but anyway, I mean, what was the work kind of— what was the work? I think maybe this is a good starting point. And then what was it like? Did you enjoy it? Yeah, just take us through it.

I mean, of course I enjoyed it, right? I'm with you. This is one of my favorite shows of all time. And so the opportunity to like work on it, when they called to gauge my interest, I was like, I'll be on a plane in 10 minutes. I was like, yes, of course. And so it was great. I worked on just the fourth season, which was this election. It wasn't the sort of main plotline, but it sort of culminated in the seventh episode. That was election night. And I think they just wanted to make sure that their storyline and the dialogue and sort of the pieces of politics that they were showing felt real. I think my takeaway from that was how smart they are because they understood, and what I learned was that if you get the nitty-gritty right, the sort of minutiae that feels— if that feels credible, then the whole story feels much more legitimate and packs a bigger punch. And I think If again, this will be in the weeds, especially if you didn't watch it. But the election night episode where we are watching the results of a presidential election come in at a right-wing news outlet. The results are coming in in real time. There's a lot of stuff also happening with the characters. But a lot of research went into how those election night results, how those state-by-state results were going to come in, and what the electoral count would be at a certain moment at night. And making sure the breakdown was exactly what we needed for the plot at that moment. But also that felt like it could be a real election. And so all of that research was really methodical just to make sure that viewers felt like, "Oh, yeah, this This does feel real. A few other examples from Succession. When they would just ask me, it'd be like a barrage of questions, again, trying to get the details right. Presidential candidate does this sort of OTR stop, an off-the-record stop at somebody's private residence. And they kept asking me, what would the security footprint be? Like, how many Secret Service agents? And we'd walk through that, like, how many in the room? How many outside the room? How many around the perimeter? Like, Does traffic stop? Like all of those questions. And eventually they were like, what kind of vests do the Secret Service dogs wear? And I'm like, I have no idea what kind of vest they wear. So I went to go check it out. I got them the answer. We got some pictures, but like, that's the level of detail. Wow.

There was also, again, one of the details I read in, in the coverage, Eric, was around what is on the president's desk where I'm not talking about Zero Day. But You know, I know with President Obama, it was like apples and Clinton might have been chocolate chips. Is that right? Or something?

Yeah.

Yeah.

This was in the new show Zero Day for Netflix, where Angela Bassett plays the current president. And I was— they had built the set, which, by the way, was stunning, like an Oval Office replica and a press briefing room and an outer oval. And they also built a House of Representatives. And And on the coffee table, there was sort of nothing on the coffee table. And so they were asking me what type of stuff would it be, briefing papers, like what's here? And I was like, well, actually, so it's become tradition that every president has their own thing. And so President Obama had apples, President Biden had chocolate chip cookies, Ronald Reagan had jelly beans. And so we were just sort of tossing around ideas. And I was like, let's have oranges. And so like they just got a bunch of oranges. Suddenly that became a thing. In a later scene, Matthew Modine, who plays the Speaker of the House, starts taking an orange. You're sort of like, "Nobody's going to really peel an orange in the Oval." You could say the same thing with apples, which was real life. Nobody's going to eat an apple in the Oval. Everybody starts to peel an orange almost like as a flex in the Oval Office, which was really cool.

That's funny. Not going to lie, hearing that story, I'm like, "Okay, both Reagan and Clinton had like sweet treats and Obama had a very healthy fruit. And I was like, come on, like President Obama, like you can, you know, can we get like some Reese's Pieces or Hershey Kisses? Yeah, I could not agree. Yeah, no, totally. Yeah, I also, yeah, and I do struggle to think if I'm in that context, am I actually going to pick up the apple and like, you know, like polish it off with my sleeve or something and just like chomp into it in front of like the chief of staff or some cabinet secretary. Chairs and like, like, probably not.

That did not happen, but you, you did take apples as a snack. So I, I definitely walked out with apples, but I never like chomped on one in the middle of the meeting.

Yeah, right. Uh, exactly. Um, so I mean, speaking of President Obama, um, you continue to serve as President Obama's senior advisor. I mean, that's pretty cool. I mean, what, what's that been like? Um, you know, does he still have apples on the desk or in the coffee table in his you know, in his private offices now? Like, what's it been like?

In January of 2017, when we were leaving the White House, President Obama asked me to stay with him in the post-presidency. And like we talked about, I was sort of ready to get out of politics entirely. I wanted to sort of do something new. And he was very generous and said, well, why don't you work with me almost as like on a contract, and then you can take on other clients and projects as well. And I said, sold. And so 9 years later, that's still the setup, and I'm very grateful for it. And I work out of President Obama's personal office. So it's where we oversee the entire constellation of activities happening under his name and Mrs. Obama's name. So that includes our foundation, that includes the Netflix production company Higher Ground, that includes all of his political activity, that includes you know, his books and his speeches. And so a lot of that is sort of, sometimes that's just deconflicting what's happening on a Tuesday, right? Like it's sort of air traffic control, but it's mostly trying to make sure that all of those things happening under his name are sort of consistent with the public profile he wants to have in the post-presidency. And, and so the way it is structured is, we sort of help guide that even though each of those places has their own operations and teams and communicators. We just want to make sure that it's all sort of consistent and in line with where the president wants to be.

Yeah, that's cool. How is it different having him as a boss now versus the time in the White House?

Well, it's a much leaner team.

So yeah, I imagine it is much leaner.

And, and obviously, you know, we're not dealing with the gravest of decisions in world affairs. And so we're able to have a more relaxed thing. I'll remember like the first day he came into the D.C. office, which was sometime in January or February of 2017. We all stood up and he was like, no more of that. You do not need to stand up when I enter the room. And he said, the second rule I have is we are not wearing ties. So No ties. We also don't stand up when he enters. But look, he's— I know everybody who— I'm on the payroll, so it's gonna sound disingenuous, but he is— it's amazing how he is like the same person. And people who know him much longer than I, you know, I started in 2011, but like people who date back to Springfield, Illinois, right? Like, he's just, he's exactly the same person that, A, you think of in terms of his public profile, that behind the scenes. And, you know, the best story I have about that is, like, some of his best friends are the guys he grew up with in Hawaii, and they are still his. And so, you know, they get together a couple times a year, and they And I think that just shows like, you know, he's not wining and dining with sort of a lot of the Washington fixtures. He's sort of still the same guy.

Yeah, that's amazing. Probably hanging out with the guys he played high school sports with in Punahou in Hawaii or something.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's great. Well, looking at time, I do want to jump into our final sort of round of questions. We call this the Derek Lightning Round at Clipbook. So at Clipbook, we, we tell a story that's very familiar, I think, to many of the people on this call, um, that every communications team, PR team, public affairs team has some poor 22-year-old intern named Derek who has the, the very unfortunate task to do a lot of the day-to-day tracking, research, monitoring that really supports the communications team. And at Clipbook, we worship Derek because Derek is who we support very directly and who we work with in, in many ways and as a company. So So for this next couple of minutes of questions, we're going to channel Derek, the 22-year-old intern, and his energy and do a quick lightning round, lightning round format. So are you ready? Ready, Eric?

Let's go.

All right. First, most memorable moment from the White House. What was it?

Okay, this is just going to take a minute, but I'm going to be as fast as I can. My favorite memory from the White House is when the president travels to New York City, because New York City is what it is, you don't— you fly in on Air Force One to JFK Airport, and then you take a helicopter to Wall Street. And then from there, you motorcade to where you need to go in Manhattan. And obviously, it's like spectacular views, and it's amazing. My first time doing this with President Obama, we were in Marine One. We were in the helicopter. And he— so we're going from the airport to Wall Street landing zone in the helicopter. And he turns to me and he says, Eric, have you ever done this trip with us before? And I said, no, sir, I haven't. This is my first time. He's like, well, the views are spectacular. And he said— and so he turns to the military aide and he says, which side will the Statue of Liberty be on? And the aide turns back to him and says, sir, which side would you like it to be on? And I was like, that is so cool. So that, that was sort of my favorite memory.

Yeah. I imagine if you guys go to, to like New York to go to Joe's Pizza, you'll probably get to cut the line too or something. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a busy place to be. Yeah.

Yeah. So favorite White House press secretary or communications leader from fictional sources, whether, you know, a TV show. Yeah. Favorite fictional White House press secretary or comms leader.

Yeah, I mean, I grew up watching The West Wing, so I'm just gonna say CJ Cregg, uh, who, by the way, the only right answer.

Thank you. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, she visited— Allison Janney visited, um, the White House in, I think, 2016.

Okay.

And did an appearance. This was funny to watch because she comes out to the actual briefing room as CJ. Um, she was there to promote, um, I think some cause on substance abuse. But the funny thing was briefing her about what was going to happen, she was so nervous. She was very nervous about wanting to rehearse it and prep. I was like, "You could do this in your sleep. You know what I mean? You're one of the world's best actresses." That was very fun to sort of get her ready for it.

That's funny. That character, by the way, also came from Hollywood in the show, CJ Cregg, from Hollywood to running a presidential campaign. Yeah, just realized that. Okay, last, last question. What is the most intern-y thing that you've done in your career, even when you weren't an intern anymore?

Well, just to not to go back to your company, but like when I had to do the clips on the Hillary Clinton race, like I can still smell the Xerox. Like I can still smell the ink from the newspapers that had just been dropped off at 5 AM at the campaign headquarters that we're cutting up and my hands are all inky and like making, you know, 35 different sets of clips, of hard copy clips for the staff. And so I will never ever forget that.

Yeah. Wow.

I love that.

I'm bummed that Clipbook was not around back then. We probably could have spared you the pain. But anyways, well, looks like we're just out of time. Eric, this was such a treat. Thank you. Before we run, we'll just mention to the audience, well, first, thank you for joining us today. Happy Thursday. If you're on this call, if you're in a media public affairs team, communications team, our team at Clipbook would love to meet you. We're an AI research and analysis platform for communications teams. We automate the struggles and workflows of Derek the intern. So reach out anytime. Email me directly, adam@clipbook.io. We'd love to connect. Other than that, thank you all very much. Happy Thursday and have a great afternoon.