AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
This week may bring a new White House press secretary. Or maybe not. Katie Zacharia left the role after less than a week. She posted on social media on Friday night that it had been an honor to work for President Trump. This came after questions about her credentials. She called herself a lawyer, but hadn't passed the bar exam. And she had an unsteady performance in her first and only briefing.
John Kirby was a familiar face behind the podium of the White House briefing room. He was there in the later days of the Biden administration. He was a spokesperson at the Pentagon before that and was a rear admiral in the Navy. John Kirby is now director of the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, and he joins us now. Admiral, welcome.
JOHN KIRBY: Thank you so much, Ayesha. Good to be with you today.
RASCOE: I want to talk less about Katie Zacharia's tenure, which was extremely short, and more about the actual job of a White House press secretary. Like, who does the press secretary really answer to? Does the press secretary answer to the public or to the president?
KIRBY: Well, ultimately to both, but from an inside-the-lifelines perspective, it's clearly to the president. You are expected to be the president's voice and sometimes the president's face on issues on a daily basis, which means you have to have access to the president. You have to know what the president's thinking about, whatever the policy issue is. But you also are accountable to the American people. Your job as a spokesperson is to be honest with them, to tell them as much as you can, as quickly as you can, and be as forthright in answering tough questions from the press as possible.
The other thing that's important to remember is the benefit of holding your policies up to the scrutiny of an independent press, a press that is not afraid to challenge you and the president and the administration on those policies. That actually helps inform, or should help inform, the policymaking process for the American people.
RASCOE: Can you talk about how this administration's approach - do you think it's permanently changed the press secretary's role?
KIRBY: I don't believe that they have eliminated or permanently changed what the role of the press secretary is. And look, you have to give them credit where it's due. They continue to hold near-daily briefings at the White House. Now, the information that's being shared isn't always honest or truthful, but they are out there every day. And obviously, the president still values the role of a press secretary or he wouldn't have worked so diligently and so quickly to find a replacement for Karoline Leavitt.
What they have changed, though, is the makeup of the press corps and the way the press corps is treated and respected. You know, they favor right-wing outlets almost exclusively, and they have shunned - literally and figuratively - qualified independent media outlets like Politico and CNN and MS NOW simply because they don't like the coverage. So those are dangerous practices that are indefensible, but I don't believe that the practice of having a White House press secretary has fundamentally changed. The way they do it absolutely has changed, and I'd like to see those changes reversed at some point, but I believe they still value the role.
RASCOE: Should there be something more formal regulating the role of a press secretary, like legislation? Because right now, it's mainly guided by custom, right?
KIRBY: That's right. I mean, every president decides who their press secretary is. The press secretary is not Senate-confirmed. It's a individual staff decision. But no, I don't believe it should be legislated. I don't believe that it should be regulated. I think the tradition has survived this long for a reason.
RASCOE: Before I was hosting on Sundays and with the, you know, puzzlemaster Will Shortz, I was a White House correspondent in the briefing room. And what I found was, as you said, like, the press secretary not only delivers the message, but they have to be able to explain the message. And that requires answering follow-ups, actually engaging in questions. The problem with that is that it can be combative. In some ways, it has devolved into kind of sniping back and forth (laughter). And how do you have the substantive debate without devolving into attacks?
KIRBY: It is the job of the press secretary to maintain composure and to not let that heated atmosphere become, as you put it, contentious. That is hard to do in this current environment right now, but I believe it's absolutely vital. You're not friends. They have a job. You have a job.
RASCOE: Well, can I ask you, though, because whether it's issues about a president's health, which have gone through multiple administrations, or whether it's national security issues - right? - there are questions of not just do you trust the press, but do you trust an administration, right? How can a White House press secretary restore trust to the American people?
KIRBY: When I was at the podium, I always thought about my mom. Now, she's going to be turning 90 years old here in December. She follows the news. She's whip-smart. And so whenever I was answering a question in the briefing room, I tried to think about her and how can I answer this question, how can I respond to this issue in ways that she'll understand, that she'll grasp? And let me tell you something. If she didn't, I would hear about it. I'd get a text right after a briefing or an interview, and she would tell me, like, you know, I don't understand what you're talking about there. So, like, she was a good litmus test for me.
And I think just basic, simple use of language and talking the way you would with your folks back home and your friends. And then the last thing is constantly being available - available to the public, available to the press. It's a contact sport. You got to physically be on the field to play. And I think that's really important, too.
RASCOE: That's John Kirby. He served in the Obama and Biden administrations as well as at the U.S. Navy. He's now director of the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. Admiral, thank you so much for speaking with us.
KIRBY: My pleasure. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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