George Stephanopoulos Secretly Coaching Ex-Biden Press Secretary Jen Psaki As She Prepares For MSNBC Anchor Chair
Feb. 22 2023, Published 8:10 a.m. ET
George Stephanopoulos is secretly coaching Jen Psaki as President Joe Biden’s former press secretary prepares to begin her new career as an anchor at MSNBC, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a surprising development to come nearly one year after Psaki stepped down as Biden’s White House press secretary on May 13, 2022, the 44-year-old political advisor-turned-TV political analyst is set to anchor a new weekly MSNBC program starting in March.
The show, titled Inside with Jen Psaki, is scheduled to launch on March 19 and will air every Sunday at noon as MSNBC works to compete with similar programs such as NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’ Face the Nation.
But as Psaki continues to prepare for the launch of her own weekly show, the former White House press secretary has reportedly received help from a number of MSNBC mainstays – including Rachel Maddow, Mika Brzezinski, Andrea Mitchell and Nicole Wallace.
Even more surprising are reports that Psaki is being secretly coached by George Stephanopoulos who, like Psaki, made waves in 1996 when he departed his role within then-President Bill Clinton’s administration to join ABC News.
“The balancing act is, how are you consistent with your past work and your past beliefs, and still constructive for the audience,” Stephanopoulos reportedly told Psaki when she reached out to him for advice, according to the New York Times. “That’s applicable then, today and tomorrow.”
“As an analyst, the thing I told myself was, ‘How do you maintain your integrity and do your job?’” Stephanopoulos continued. “For me, it was appropriate to say on the air what I would say in a meeting.”
“Sometimes that could be critical: If the president took an action that I would have argued against in the meeting, I’d have no problem making that point.”
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Psaki initially came under fire when she announced last year that she would be departing the Biden Administration for a new gig at MSNBC.
At the time of her announcement, White House news correspondents questioned whether Psaki would be impartial when inevitably reporting on her former boss, President Biden.
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According to Psaki, she is prepared to take Stephanopoulos’ advice and neither “attack” President Biden nor “applaud” him unless such responses are warranted.
“I’m very conscious of the fact that people know who I am because I was standing behind a podium speaking on behalf of Joe Biden,” she said during a recent interview. “I am not going to gratuitously attack him, nor am I going to gratuitously applaud him.”
“If he deserves applause, I will applaud him,” she added. “If he deserves critique, I will critique him.”
