-Welcome to the show. -Thank you.
It's great to be here. -And now you're
in the NBC/MSNBC family.
-I am.
-Yeah, anything I can do for you.
Anything -- any advice -- anything I can help,
I can give you directions to the commissary, whatever.
-I don't even know what the commissary is.
But I do need directions.
-Yes, I will tell you exactly where it is and what to order.
-I know where the lady's room is.
That's a big progression. -Yeah, see?
Yeah, since last -- yeah. -Since last time.
I make it last in the elevator bank.
So, if I'm there, my only ask is that you fish me out of there.
-I will help you, yeah. -It's a big building.
-I will give you my number.
I'll give whatever I can do to help you.
-Thank you. -How are you doing?
How are the kids? -They're great.
-How old are they now? -My daughter is 7.
She wakes up with rainbows
and unicorns shooting out of her head.
I don't know if anybody else has a 7-year-old.
But this is how it is. -Yeah, that's what they do.
That's what little girls do. -They do.
My 4-year-old is a little bit more challenging,
but he is also a lover.
He'll be brushing my hair when I'm 100.
My 7-year-old has told me she wants to run for president.
So, there's that. -Whoa!
[ Cheers and applause ] -I know, right?
Yeah. -That's major.
-I'm not announcing it here tonight
because she's got a lot of years.
She does ask me how old you need to be to run for president.
So that's the kind of discussions we have.
-Yeah, you're like, "70."
-Yes. [ Laughter ]
I'm like, "very old." -Very, very old.
-Very old. It's a lot.
You have to raise a lot of money.
It's very stressful. Exactly.
-Do they have any concept of what Mom does
or did for a living? -Not really.
I mean, which I love they don't have any idea that I was
on television and talking about hard issues.
-Yeah. -So, I love that.
I did take them to the White House.
About a year ago, actually, was
the first time I took them to the White House. I know.
-And you're like, "Yeah, I know my way around this place."
-Right. I'm like, "Look, guys. Here we are in the White House.
Look, there's a big building."
And it was actually the day that the President did
the turkey pardoning, which he does every year.
-Oh, that's a great day to bring the kids.
-Great day to bring them.
The turkeys sleep in a hotel the night before.
I don't know if people knew that.
It is true. [ Laughter ]
And so I took them to the turkey pardoning.
They met the President.
They met the turkeys, which was a big deal.
I took them -- They were huge Turkeys.
It will be a big family dinner for those turkeys.
I took them to -- walked around
the White House to the briefing room.
-Are you allowed to go -- You're like, "Hi, guys."
You know all the security and so you're, like, kind of --
-I kind of -- Right.
They let you walk around a little bit.
So, that was nice. And they loved it.
And I felt great about it because I wanted my kids
to experience what I did.
And so, at the end of the day, I'm walking them out
of the White House, and I say to my 7-year-old,
"So, I mean, today was an amazing day.
We'll remember it. You met the President.
It was so exciting.
What was your favorite thing you'll remember?"
And she was like, "Mom, I've never had Sprite before.
It was so good."
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, true. -Yes!
[ Applause ] -So, there you go.
-Kids are always win. -They are amazing.
They bring it down to Earth for you.
-That's an amazing thing, to get your first Sprite.
It's a big deal. -It is.
-It's delicious. -And then when I would go back
to the White House to work, she would say,
"Mom, Mom, can you bring me home some Sprite?
Can you bring me home some Sprite in a cup?"
-My kids are too young for phones, but they get to --
you know, if they have my phone or my wife's phone,
we'll be texting each other, which is really cute.
And I texted, like,
"I love you," or something like that.
And she wrote, "Sun kiss." -Oh.
-And I go, "That's so cute."
Like -- like, "Sun --" -Is that a good thing?
-I don't know. I go -- I go, "Great.
I love -- kiss to you too." She goes, "Can I?"
-And I go, "What?" [ Laughter ]
She was saying "Sunkist" into the phone.
-Oh. -She wanted a can of soda.
-Oh. [ Laughter ]
-I go, "Yeah, of course. You can have a Sunkist.
We have a Sunkist at the house."
-There you go. -Yeah, she just wanted a drink.
-Yes, you can have a Sunkist.
-Big deal tomorrow night.
Election night. A lot of coverage.
Are you prepared for it? Are you ready for it?
-I think so.
I mean, I am the new kid on the block here for election night.
-Yeah. -So, I have lots of snacks.
I think that's kind of what you do
when you go and you want to fit in at the lunch table.
I've got almonds and chocolate.
-It's an all-night thing. -All sorts of things.
-You need your energy up.
-And you want to share them with your --
with your new friends and colleagues to --
I want to see what they -- what they like --
-You're the new kid at school. -Exactly, exactly.
-But you've been going around the country
and seeing what people actually --
what their issues are and what they care
about for this election.
Have you been -- What have you been finding out?
What do people care about?
-You know, what I've found from working in politics
for a long time is that the way people talk
about issues and things impacting them
is not how they talk about it in Washington, D.C.,
or even sometimes in New York City.
People talk about issues
in terms of how they impact them personally.
And I spent a day walking around communities,
door knocking, following some door knockers.
And people said, "Look, I care about abortion rights.
That's of concern to me.
But I also need to pay for childcare,
and I need to be able to put food on the table.
And that's of concern to me."
So it was a reminder to me of people in their communities --
I don't know about yours, but not on my street.
They don't talk about macroeconomic data, right?
They talk about how they're living their lives,
how things impact their families and their kids.
And I think that's so important to remember
for anyone running for office.
-Yeah.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Is the -- Everything I've been seeing and reading is
predicting a red wave for tomorrow.
Is that true? -Doesn't that sound so dark?
It's -- It's a little bit -- it's a little bit --
Reminds me of "Game of Thrones" or something.
-The red wave. Yeah. -The red wave is coming.
Here's the thing. I mean, tomorrow night
I'm going to sit down with this amazing group of people
who have been doing election coverage --
I mean, Rachel Maddow could make paint seem exciting.
-Yeah, she's great. -And she is -- You know, she --
and Nicolle Wallace,
who I was watching when I was in the White House
because she would tell me what was happening
in the Department of Justice, even though I worked there.
So I get to sit with them. We're not going to know
at 6:00 p.m. when we sit down
what's going to happen at 2:00 a.m.
or what's going to happen at 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m.
We have to follow the story and see what's happening.
Where people are voting, where people are turning out.
There are going to be surprises in the election.
This is what's so exciting to watch.
The good news here, is that turnout is in record numbers
across the country in a lot of places.
In Georgia, it is at record numbers already.
-That's fantastic.
-Young people are turning out in record numbers.
People always downplay the engagement
and involvement of people under 30.
I will tell you, those are the kind of people
who are the most passionate and engaged
on the issues that matter. -I love that.
Good. Go. Vote. -Yeah.
So, those are exciting -- those are exciting things.
But we don't know what's going to happen.
I think it's our responsibility tomorrow night
to see where the story goes and share with the public
and people who are watching where there are surprises,
where things are disappointing,
where they're exciting, where we won't know,
and may not know in some cases for a couple of days.
-Wow. Before you leave, any --
as a person who communicates for a living,
any advice on Thanksgiving dinner?
And what -- [ Laughter ]
How do you handle the -- -I mean, Jimmy,
everyone has, kind of, an Uncle Frank or an Uncle Bob, right?
I had an Uncle Bob. There's people here.
Uncle Bobs and Uncle Franks. We'll give a shout-out to them.
-Yeah, they know them. Yeah.
-I would say, there's probably going to be politics
at the dinner table because Georgia is prob--
may go to a runoff.
We'll see what happens tomorrow night.
And that means the election in Georgia,
the runoff will be in early December.
And if that's the case, you're going to have to --
everybody's going to have to have
these political conversations.
-My goodness. -So, what I do -- I know.
What I do, or how I think about it,
is it's like a research project
or a research, you know, process.
But you don't announce it in advance.
So, if you are my -- Since I am more on the progressive side,
if you were my conservative Uncle Frank,
I would say, "Uncle Frank." -Yeah?
-I hope you're enjoying your turkey.
-I love it. -Great.
Can you pass the cranberry sauce?
Thank you. -Sure, of course.
-And as you're passing that to me, I would say, "Frank --
Uncle Frank, can you tell me why you think there are chips
engrained in people making them vote Democratic?"
[ Laughter ] "Tell me a little bit more
about what makes you think that.
Oh, thank you for the cranberry sauce.
It's so good to see you." -"Yeah. You're welcome. Yeah."
-So, use it as your own research process.
Listen to people who would disagree.
-Do it while they're in the middle
of passing some food? -Don't announce it in advance,
but that would be my Thanksgiving advice.
-There you go. Jen Psaki, everybody.
Thank you for that advice. [ Cheers and applause ]
Break a leg tomorrow. -Thank you.
-Jen Psaki. Watch her on MSNBC's election
night coverage tomorrow, starting at 6:00 p.m.,
then on NBC at 8:00 p.m. Anything you need, we're here.
I'm here for you, bud. We'll be right back with
a performance from Smino. Stick around!