USGLC

Jen Psaki is the White House Press Secretary, spokesperson for the Biden administration.  Psaki has held press and communications roles in Democratic campaigns and candidates since 2001, including serving as spokesperson for the United States Department of State and White House Communications Director for President Obama, where she addressed and spoke for the Administration on a wide range of policy issues.

Past statements on development, diplomacy, and U.S. global leadership:

On connecting foreign policy to main street: In a February 2020 interview with The World Unpacked, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace podcast, Psaki shared, “If the policy community did more listening and understanding about what’s happening in communities around the country and tried to integrate that thinking into how they make decisions and how they make recommendations, the bridges would be built. People would be more open to listening to what the foreign policy community has to say.”

On climate change and foreign policy:  Psaki has said, “Climate change is a huge foreign policy issue. Speak about it in terms people understand. What’s the impact on drought and crops growing? What’s the impact on clean air and drinking water in communities? It’s a health issue, it’s about asthma.”

On the rebuilding the State Department: Psaki has said the next president will need to “spend some time at home rebuilding the diplomatic corps within the State Department, which has been hollowed out. People have left who are middle level, which will leave the State Department in dire straits for probably decades to come, so they may need to think of a way to allow people to come back and serve and bring their expertise back to government.”

On the global pandemic: Psaki highlighted the connection between foreign policy and the COVID-19 pandemic response at an October 2020 think tank event saying, “many people think about this as a domestic issue we’re fighting just here in the United States” and continues citing the “overlap of domestic and foreign policy.” Psaki asks, “how would a foreign policy for the middle class help the U.S recover from the damage the viruses has wrought on our nation’s economy and health?”

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