It is abundantly clear that MSNBC executives view Jen Psaki as a rapidly rising star in the cable news world. The Inside with Jen Psaki host is set to hit the primetime lineup as part of a shuffle.
Since joining the network just over two years ago, her profile has only grown on the liberal news network. Just look at MSNBC.com. On the outlet’s masthead, there are three shows featured: Rachel Maddow, Morning Joe, and Inside with Jen Psaki. That’s it. Not its weeknight primetime hosts, outside of Maddow who will return to hosting only on Mondays when Donald Trump finishes his first 100 days in office. That shows you how MSNBC feels about the former White House Press Secretary.
Is the network justified in viewing Psaki as a budding star? I watched Sunday’s episode of her program to get a feel for that answer.
Psaki began her Sunday show by talking about the Signal snafu by the Trump administration’s national security team. It feels like the natural place to begin, as it was the largest story — by a mile — of the week.
But it allowed Psaki to showcase her expertise: handling a government crisis. In fact, in her criticism of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, she began by saying “Some free comms advice here for the National Security Advisor.”
That critique can really only come from one type of person: someone who has a background in public relations, crisis management, or whatever word/phrase you’d like to use. Someone like Jen Psaki.
Psaki’s comments came after playing comments from Waltz’s appearance on Fox News earlier in the week. This is something I harped on while watching Greg Kelly Reports on Newsmax last month, but I feel as if there’s an overreliance on outside media in the cable news space these days. I can’t tell you how often I see a host simply using a reaction from a show on a different network as content.
But in this instance, I think it’s absolutely valid and pertinent to play the clip of Waltz’s comments. Because Psaki’s monologue was, essentially, a blistering takedown of the response by the national security team after The Atlantic’s report showcased the incompetence — my word, not Psaki’s — in handling the communications and subsequent fallout.
In her criticism of Waltz and the other members of the national security team, Psaki’s critique didn’t feel as if it was as much a partisan attack as much as it was a criticism of the actions of those involved. It wasn’t so much “Republicans bad!” as much as it was “These folks messed this up from the get go, and then bungled their attempt to spin it into not a big deal.”
One of the things I enjoyed about Psaki’s monologue was that she “showed her work,” to borrow a phrase from my junior high math teacher. She didn’t just say “Waltz is an idiot and needs to resign.” That’s low-hanging fruit, pandering to the lowest common denominator cable news.
She laid out her argument well, taking a step-by-step approach. A “one bite at the apple at a time” view, if you will. Even if the viewer disagrees with her premise, you’re still able to at least follow why she feels the way she does, and how she reached the conclusion that it was a bungled cover-up of epic proportions.
There were several interviews throughout the show. The first coming with Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY). To open the conversation, Psaki said some had posited that “Signalgate” (adding “gate” to anything to insinuate it’s a scandal is a pet peeve of mine, for the record) would have gone away had the national security team simply admit to the mistake. But she disagreed with that position and asked Ryan for his stance.
In a follow-up question, I thought Psaki showed her interviewing chops. Ryan criticized Congressional Republicans who had said they wouldn’t hold hearings on the matter. He added that Democrats would hold “shadow hearings” if Republicans failed to discuss the situation in committees.
Truthfully, I didn’t know what “shadow hearings” were when Ryan brought that up. And the first thing out of Psaki’s mouth was “What do shadow hearings look like, for people who are thinking ‘What is that? That sounds good.’ What does that look like?”
It shows an innate ability to both helm a television program, listen to the answer given by a guest, but also have the wherewithal to think “There are portions of the audience that don’t understand what he just said. I need to find a way to contextualize that.” And she did so flawlessly.
Later in the show, Psaki sat down with Kara Swisher — who is maybe one of the world’s foremost experts on Elon Musk — to talk about Musk, DOGE, and his role within the Trump administration. A conservative could view the conversation as two women complaining about Elon Musk, arguing that each probably once viewed the billionaire in a favorable light before his switch to the Republican Party.
I can’t say there wouldn’t be some validity to that, including when Psaki asked, almost gleefully, if Swisher that Elon Musk would “wear out his welcome” inside the Trump administration. But, giving the Inside with Jen Psaki host the benefit of the doubt, the conversation seemed to me to be more of an effort to contextualize Musk’s role, and whether or not he’s being used as a quasi-human shield for Donald Trump.
It’s an interesting premise and a conversation I found interesting because it wasn’t simply “Elon Musk sucks and so does Donald Trump.” Psaki asked good questions to Swisher. Were some of them biased against Musk and Trump? Sure. But biased questions in a cable news interview are about as prevalent as Dollar General stores in low-income areas.
Each of the interviews in the show were very short. Both Swisher and Rep. Ryan were in-studio and were there for just a few minutes. Psaki executed the discussions efficiently: she got the questions she wanted in, got the answers quickly from her subjects, and did not dawdle. It was a fantastic use of the viewer’s time, and also allowed for a multi-purpose approach for the show, making them easier to share on social media apps like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
Can I see why MSNBC views Jen Psaki as a rising star? Definitely. In a cable news world full of liberal hosts shouting “Trump sucks!” with the rebuttal being “Nuh, uh! Biden sucks! Pelosi sucks! Democrats are ruining this country!”, Inside with Jen Psaki rises above that. It’s a slightly higher-brow opinion-based show, in my view. And I put a high value on shows like that in today’s media landscape. I think we need more shows with nuanced views and interesting conversations, instead of talking heads blathering about the same topics over and over again.
It is clear MSNBC is diving head-first into highlighting prominent liberal voices who are looked at favorably by the left. Few can top Jen Psaki in that regard, which is why you should expect to see more of her in the near future, I’d surmise.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
