‘this Thing Is A Pressure Cooker’: Politico’s Dasha Burns On The Rift Between Elon Musk And Trump’s Cabinet

Dasha Burns, Politico’s White House bureau chief, reported a major scoop last week, breaking news of a meeting between President Donald Trump, his cabinet, and Elon Musk at the White House — “intervention style” — to put limits on Musk’s outsized role in the federal government.

The move came after weeks of controversy over Musk’s aggressive cost-cutting measures at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which saw him making sweeping decisions about federal employees despite having an unclear role in government.

Her reporting exposed tensions between the billionaire — who has extensive federal contracts and poured north of $250 million into Trump’s re-election campaign — and Trump’s cabinet.

“I think this is a slight release of the pressure, but I also don’t think this is the end of the story by any means,” she told Mediaite editor Aidan McLaughlin on this week’s episode of Press Club. “I think Trump was just tired of the complaints. He likes to be at least perceived as a man of action.”

While some pundits have speculated that Musk’s dominant personality might create friction with Trump, Burns suggested otherwise. “Trump is perfectly happy to let Musk run around and make all these cuts. I don’t think Trump sees Musk as a liability—he sees him as an enormous asset.”

Yet, once Musk’s cuts started irking the cabinet who run the departments impacted by the cuts, as well as some in Trump’s voter base who work in the federal government, the president was faced with a major problem. “He likes that political capital and isn’t going to want to see that go away.”

Beyond the DOGE power struggle, Burns also reflected on the challenges of covering this White House, describing an administration that both relies on and clashes with the press. “There’s the bluster, there’s the fake news, there’s the lawsuits, there’s the threats — but the media made Trump,” she said. “And he knows that.”

She also spoke about new threats to the press, particularly with the White House taking over the White House Correspondents’ Association’s historical task of determining the press pool rotation, the recent ban on The Associated Press, and the inclusion of more independent voices in briefings.

Yet some of these new voices aren’t asking tough questions, Burns pointed out. Instead, many seem focused on pro-Trump narratives rather than accountability. “Let’s push the story forward in some shape or form,” she said. “That is the ultimate service that we are providing to one another as teammates in the press corps and to the American public.”

She also spoke on Trump’s recent address to Congress, how the president is balancing his interests in leaving a lasting legacy and protecting the GOP’s congressional majorities, and how she went from serving as a producer at NBC News to White House bureau chief at Politico.

Mediaite’s Press Club airs in full Saturdays at 10 a.m. on Sirius XM’s POTUS Channel 124. You can also subscribe to Press Club on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Read a transcript of the conversation below, edited for length and clarity.

Aidan McLaughlin: We had to reschedule this interview since you were busy breaking a major story — a meeting between Trump, his cabinet, and Elon Musk, about the billionaire taking a chainsaw to the federal government, and how, unsurprisingly, that’s becoming a problem for the federal government. Tell us what you reported.

Dasha Burns: Yeah, sorry I had to ditch you for the scoop.

You’re making up for it.

So, I got a call shortly after 1 p.m. from a source who told me that the president had just convened the Cabinet members and Elon Musk—kind of intervention-style—at the White House. He wanted to give the directive himself to Cabinet members and Musk, saying, “Hey, look, it’s the heads of the agencies making decisions about hiring, firing, and the pacing of implementation—not Musk himself. Musk is in an advisory role. Musk is great, but he is not the ultimate arbiter of what happens here. He and his people can give advice, but they can’t actually do the hiring and firing.” This came after more than six weeks of DOGE setting off fire alarms across the government and, really, across the country. Republican lawmakers were getting hammered at their town halls and had even been advised not to do them anymore. The president was getting calls from Cabinet secretaries and lawmakers. One thing my sources told me was that Senator John Thune—who Trump does have a really good relationship with—coming out this week and saying, “Hey, we confirmed these Cabinet secretaries to lead these agencies; they should be making these decisions” was a big moment. That struck a chord and, in part, led to Trump deciding to step in.

Did members of Trump’s cabinet say that they actually wanted to have control over the departments that they were assigned to run?

Oh, yeah.

So, there’s been tension between them and Elon Musk?

Yes. This thing has been a pressure cooker. I think this is a slight release of the pressure, but I also don’t think this is the end of the story by any means. All the sources I’ve been talking to still indicate that there’s no sign that Musk is actually going anywhere. But this was the first significant step—the president himself getting involved. White House staffers had been trying to get the train on the tracks and create some sort of process and guardrails for Musk, but that hadn’t been working. The fact that Trump took action here is important, but I think this is maybe phase two. I don’t know how many phases it will take before this all starts to make sense.

When DOGE was first announced at some big rally with fireworks, all of us in the press were like, “Well, this isn’t a real agency. He’s not going to be Senate-confirmed. He can’t actually have real power.” But suddenly, after January 20th, every major headline was coming out of DOGE. That took us all by surprise. This is a slight reeling back in. The trouble here, though, is that Musk still has Trump’s ear. He spent a ton of money getting Trump elected, and Trump still likes him. Now, the Cabinet secretaries are in this interesting position. Musk is still going to be advising them, telling them, “Hey, get rid of this, cut that, that’s wasteful.” But do they take his advice? If they think it’s bad advice, how much leeway do they have to reject it? And will Musk call Trump and say, “Hey, Marco Rubio isn’t taking this seriously”? What are those dynamics going to be in the aftermath of all this?

I think a lot of liberals were holding onto the wishful thinking at the start of this that Musk making unilateral decisions would annoy Trump and create a rift between them. But what we’ve seen over the last few weeks is that Trump loves this. Trump is perfectly happy to let Musk run around and make all these cuts. I don’t think Trump sees Musk as a liability, he sees him as an enormous asset. And he is. Musk has more money than God, and he has the biggest megaphone in all of media just by virtue of owning X. So, there doesn’t seem to be any conflict here. Trump probably just got tired of getting complaints from the Cabinet and Congress. Is that a fair read?

Yeah, I think he was tired of the complaints. I also think he wants people to feel heard, and he has been fielding a lot of those calls. He likes to be at least perceived as a man of action, so I think that was a big part of it. I also think that now that the cuts are starting to get closer to the bone of the MAGA base—whether it’s veterans or working-class Americans who are starting to feel the pain of this a little—that’s where the rubber doesn’t quite meet the road. But I think in terms of Musk and his presence, some people were saying, “Can you really have two bulls in a china shop?” They’re just so different. Musk is not the great orator that Trump is. The kind of spotlight that Musk forces upon himself is very different from Trump’s. So, I don’t think there’s that kind of competitive tension some thought might exist. I do think, though, that the Republican base right now is still largely on board. Everyone is behind the idea, but once the execution really starts to impact the people who voted for him, I think that’s where there’s more of a challenge. Trump will have to figure out how to deal with that.

Once you start firing tens of thousands of veterans who served in the federal government and voted for Trump, it starts to become a problem for him. Especially when members of Congress go back to their districts and face the wrath of angry voters.

Right. And he’s been proud of the fact that, so far, he’s only been an asset to Republicans getting elected. His endorsement has been mostly very helpful, especially over the last couple of years. He likes that kind of political capital and isn’t going to want to see that go away.

I want to ask about Trump’s speech to Congress this week. Did you attend it by any chance?

I wasn’t there. We were all huddled in the Politico offices in glamorous Rosslyn with some late-night food, hunched over our computers, watching the whole thing.

Give me your top-line thoughts on how you think it went and what it says about the start of Trump’s presidency and the next 100 days.

He is reveling in the mandate that he feels he received from the American people with this win—one that I think was bigger than even he anticipated. He’s facing very little real resistance at this point. He feels the wind at his back, and he loves being the disruptor-in-chief. I think we saw him take full command and ownership of that. What I was hearing from Republican sources the whole night was that they loved his speech. They loved that he stayed mostly on prompter and on script.

Pocahontas was a little bit of a deviation.

Yes, there were deviations—it is still Donald Trump, after all. But the biggest responses I was getting from Republican operatives and White House allies were less about Trump’s speech and more about the reaction from Democrats. They were downright gleeful over the hodgepodge attempts at disruption or making a statement. They thought it was completely ineffective and, in fact, helped the case for MAGA, for Trump, and for the Republican coalition. It’s been interesting to see, and I think that night, it was on stark display just how disjointed the Democratic strategy is in responding to Trump. Are you wearing pink? Are you throwing up your cane? Are you holding up signs? I think it also somewhat undercut Elissa Slotkin’s response. I think there is a general alignment on the message—maybe. But there is certainly no alignment on tactics, tone, or how to really resist or respond to what Trump and the Republicans are doing.

I think Democrats are really in an impossible spot and will be for a little while until the tide shifts because they’re caught between not really being able to do much that is visible — beyond challenges to Trump’s actions in the courts and waiting for the midterms — and a base that is yelling at them to do something. That creates this tension that manifests in holding up little paddles at Trump’s congressional address, which just looks hilariously feckless. But it’s unclear what else they’re supposed to do at this point.

Yeah. I’m not saying there’s an easy answer or that I really have one for the Democrats.

One thing Trump captured well in his speech was that he touted what has effectively been a relentless tsunami of disruption over the last couple of weeks. He described it as “swift and unrelenting action.”

Accurate.

Yes. The flip side of that is that a lot of the things he’s doing could lead to deeply unpopular consequences. Trump obviously came into power because voters were unhappy with the economy and inflation. And a lot of what he’s doing is likely to make things worse. Beyond the economy, just thinking about the administration overall, do you see a point at which the rubber hits the road, and there will be consequences or on the flip side, a boom?

Well, I think timing is everything. Especially with the economy, it takes time between the action and the effect. And sometimes that’s months, and sometimes we’re talking years. His actions have been swift, so some of the results might be swift, but others might take more time. He is not trying to get re-elected. So, for him, it’s a different calculus. It’s a matter of how much he is taking into account the midterms and what that’s going to mean for Republicans. How much he’s weighing what he wants to do for his personal legacy versus what that might mean for the electability of senators and House members in his party. One thing I’ve been trying to get at with this White House is the real conversation. And, to be honest, I think Trump has been slightly more straightforward about it than I would have expected. He’s still not coming out and saying, “Buckle up, it’s going to hurt,” but he has made allusions to the fact that there might be disruptions. Like, there could be a little pain in the short term.

But my question is: How much are Americans going to have to prepare for things to get worse before they get better? If that’s the strategy, and if he can message that to people and say, “Look, give me a couple of years of higher prices, but ultimately, it’s going to mean all these jobs are back in America,” that could potentially work. Although, when people have been so hard hit for so many years—since COVID—folks have really, really struggled. So how much of a stomach do middle- and working-class Americans have for that? I just don’t know. And the uncertainty—are there going to be tariffs or not? Are we renegotiating all of this stuff, or are we leaving it in place? Is this an Art of the Deal thing, or is this a legitimate threat? We’re going to have to see how that shakes out. Again, I think it’s a question of the patience of the American people and how much of a stomach Trump has for potentially seeing his popularity drop. And does he walk some of this stuff back, or does he stick to it because he has that longer-term vision?

I think American voters are famously impatient. We’re a little bit better than the French, who, as soon as they elect a new president their approval rating plummets to 10%. Now, I want to talk about the media.

Uh oh.

As a member of the press, what has covering this administration been like?

There’s a lot to cover there. I don’t know if people who are only listening can see the bags under my eyes — that’s what it’s been like covering this administration.

It’s only been a month! You’ve got another four, maybe eight years if Trump wins a third term.

I’m concerned I’m going to be unrecognizable in a couple of years. No, but seriously, it has been a lot for everyone. There is just so much going on. I think in the first Trump term, there was a lot of chaos in the things that were said. It was unprecedented to have someone so brazen and brash in the Oval Office—so unlike other presidents. But there wasn’t a whole lot of actual movement on policy. I think this time around, we’re all used to Trump’s tone and the stuff he says. What people maybe weren’t prepared for was how quickly things were going to move on actual policies, these EOs. The disruption is legitimate. For those of us in the press, the hardest part of this—and it’s a good and important challenge—is what to lift up, what to put the spotlight on, and what direction to point our audiences in. You can’t point everyone 360 degrees all the time. You can’t just spin them around constantly. Every day, there are a number of important storylines. You have to try to cover all of them, but you also have to figure out which ones you are going to elevate. I think that’s the biggest challenge for us right now

It’s about sifting through what is important and what isn’t.

Yeah. I’ve actually started taking notes daily on what the headlines are and then looking back to see, oh, this fell off the radar immediately — things we thought would be huge but are already gone. Or this thing we thought was kind of interesting has now become the salient topic. It’s really interesting to track.

Now, in terms of the White House press shop, I feel like we are truly in a new era—more so than in Trump’s first term. There are obviously the structural challenges facing traditional media that make the whole house of cards feel that much more precarious. But we also now have a White House that views the press not just as adversarial but one that also owes a great deal of its own existence to the fact that it found vast support in independent media. That has led to changes in how the White House press shop operates and the way it treats the traditional press. What do you make of the changes in the press room and beyond with this White House?

Well, like with anything when it comes to Trump-world, there are different ways they do things that immediately set off alarm bells for a lot of folks. But there are also elements of that disruption that I think are important and relevant. Look at what we’re doing right now—new media does matter. I think it’s smart of them to be thinking about that and to start bringing new voices into the room. I think that’s relevant. Where it gets dangerous is when a dynamic emerges where if you write a story they don’t like, they exclude you from X or Y. For me, the most important thing—whether we’re talking about old media or new media—is just to report the hell out of this story and not make ourselves the story. We all have a lot of feelings and concerns about where we sit in the media ecosystem and the importance of access for real journalists who are focused on the facts and aren’t advocates for one side or the other. That really, really matters, and we need that. I hope this administration holds onto that and realizes how important it is.

At the end of the day, for all the bluster about “fake news,” Trump loves to be out there sparring with the press. He loves getting tough questions and then saying, ‘That’s a terrible question’—but still answering it. I think the danger is us in the press at large falling into the bucket of the resistance. I think that happened a little bit in 2016 during the first administration, and I think it was fundamentally harmful to the Fourth Estate. So because this White House is making so many changes—some of which spook us—there are conversations about how the White House Correspondents’ Association should respond. But I think that if we fall into the trap of making the story about us, we can too easily slide into becoming the opposition—which is just not our job.

You make a great point there. And that gets to a deeper question about how reporters see their role in covering this administration. Did I see you do a hit on Newsmax recently?

I did.

I think it’s an interesting look into how reporters view their jobs in 2025. Why did you see that as something you wanted to do—or should be doing?

I was curious about talking to that audience. If I could go on and stick to my reporting — not as a talking head, not as an analyst or someone giving their opinion, but just giving the information. I came from NBC News to Politico, and when I show up on MSNBC, a lot of the time, I’m talking to a very specific kind of audience. An audience that probably already knows a lot of what we’ve reported. Whereas the Newsmax audience is one that probably hasn’t read or seen anything I’ve done. I was curious what it would be like to reach that audience. It’s tough to navigate right now how to do all of this. I don’t always have the right answers. But the way I’m thinking about my role is: How can I talk to and give facts to as many people as possible at a time when audiences are so segmented, so splintered? How do I reach the people I met on the campaign trail? The farmer in Iowa, the single mom in Ohio? Because they certainly weren’t watching NBC News. So how do I get to them and tell them what I’m hearing and seeing in a way that’s different from how some of the other folks on these networks are doing?

I think it’s a very important thing to do, particularly these days when the media has become increasingly siloed. We’re in a choose-your-own-adventure media-land, where people can find whatever information they want to by tuning into whatever kind of news they want. It’s important to have reporters like yourself penetrating that.

Generally, I feel like I’m the broccoli for audiences everywhere.

Don’t sell yourself short.

And I hate broccoli.

It is unfortunate that you’re wearing a broccoli-colored sweater while making this point.

That was not planned! But maybe it was some subconscious thing. No, but I felt like broccoli on MSNBC when I would go on and say, during the election, ‘Hey, Trump is doing really well with voters. There are Black voters and Latino voters showing up to his rallies.’ And a lot of that audience didn’t want to hear that. So, yeah, I was the broccoli.

That reminds me of something that people got mad at you for a couple of years ago, in 2022. You had an interview with John Fetterman, and you said that before the interview, you got the sense that he didn’t fully understand everything you were saying. And liberals got very angry about that, which was a little ridiculous because he was recovering from a stroke. They jumped in to defend him and declared him perfectly fine. You faced some attacks. It reminded me of how some in the media covered Biden in 2024. It was considered blasphemy to question his mental acuity during the campaign. Now, it feels like proponents of describing reality as it is, such as yourself, have won out to some extent. I think that’s a bright spot in the media. Does that make your job easier now? Are there fewer pressures from hysterical readers?

Aidan, I’m the broccoli. Nobody likes the broccoli. No, but seriously — day to day, especially if I look at the internet, my husband tries to take my phone from me when I’m doomscrolling too much…

Is it Twitter mostly?

Mostly X and Instagram. Instagram is a little nicer, actually.

Instagram is fine. Then I go on Twitter and it’s all Nazis.

That’s right. But no, I think the climate is still pretty pissed off online, so I get it from all sides. I’m okay with that because I don’t think we should cater to whatever people online want to yell about on any given day. But yeah, it is triggering to go back to 2022 because, at the time, I was earlier in my career of covering politics, and I was a little naive about how explosive my reporting was going to be. It was hurtful because a lot of it was coming from people who were purportedly other reporters, which was really hard to stomach. But I think my part of my naivete and my surprise at the intensity of their reactions came from how I report. If I’m in a room, reading something, or having a conversation and I think, ‘Huh, I didn’t realize this’—that’s my immediate gut telling me this is a story.

And when I got in the room with Fetterman, I had been covering him for a while at this point. I had been in his house and had many off-camera conversations with him. And everything that was being reported at the time about where he was in his recovery, I got into that room, and I was like, ‘This isn’t what I expected. This isn’t what I was led to believe by the campaign. This is probably something people should know.’ It wasn’t me casting judgment on his electability. It wasn’t me casting judgment on someone who is a victim of a stroke or someone with a disability. It was simply me saying, What has been said and what is the reality I’m witnessing are two different things. And I thought it was important for voters to know that. Honestly, I never questioned for a moment whether or not I should report that. It seemed obvious to me. So, I was completely blown away by the reaction. And yeah, it hurt. But it also calcified my belief in what I do. Whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican—if something is true and people don’t yet know it, I’m going to report it.

I think there’s a misconception — among people who don’t understand reporting — that reporting something is endorsing the consequences of reporting it. Back to the briefing room. I want to talk about the new faces. The White House has invited a bunch of so-called “independent media voices” to participate in press briefings and other media availabilities. There are a few stars among this new group. Brian Glenn is my personal favorite. He’s a host at Real America’s Voice. And he is, I believe, the current boyfriend of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Indeed.

What has it been like welcoming all these independent voices into the White House alongside the traditional media? Have you sensed any tension between the traditional folks and the newcomers?

I wouldn’t say there’s tension. More so, I think there are eye rolls or grunts when questions are asked that aren’t going to get us any news. All of us are hungry for headlines and new information from the White House, and there are just certain questions that are not going to get us there. So that’s for the press corps. I think we are all hoping when any one of us raises our hand or gets called on that we are asking about the most pressing issues for the American people. I think frustration—whether it’s new media folks or even old media—we don’t have briefings every single day. And there are a limited number of people who can be in the press pool at the Oval Office. So for people who don’t know, I’m in the briefing room because Politico has a seat in the briefing room, but I’m not in the Oval when it’s a pool-only event because there is a rotation of people who are in that group.

The White House has taken over the pool, and now it’s not the White House Correspondents’ Association that sets that—it’s the White House. They’ve added more voices to that pool, which, again, in theory, yeah, more people should be involved. I don’t have an issue with that. Where it gets a little frustrating is just, ‘Let’s push the story forward in some shape or form.’ I think that’s what we are all hoping for from our colleagues. Another thing that I don’t know exactly how to solve for, but the American public—and this is in part the fault of us in the media and how things have been structured for the past several years—there isn’t a clear delineation between advocacy and opinion and straight-up fact-based journalism.

There’s nothing wrong with the democratization of information and media. The fact that you and I can sit here and people are watching this, when it’s not NBC News but we still have the resources to put it out, is amazing. But I think there’s a lot of confusion for the American public about what is actually just news versus what is someone aggregating information or giving an opinion about information. If we can start to clarify that—have it all, but be clear about what’s what.

I’m all for the White House broadening the scope of media outlets that get access. The problem is that most of these new independent voices I’ve been watching and hoping that some of them step up to the plate and ask a tough question. But they are mostly Trump sycophants, and their entire business model is sucking up to the White House. In practice, that means they’re getting called on to ask questions like, ‘Madame Press Secretary, why is Trump’s approval rating so great?’ Obviously, that doesn’t serve the American people at all. The whole point of opening up the White House to the press — whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration — is accountability. It’s to make the most powerful office in the country explain itself to the public. So, Americans are not served by this. The whole point of having this access to the White House is to give Americans information. So, I think it’s important that Americans know that this is a waste of their time.

Yeah, and being in the press pool is a hard job, by the way. When you’re in the pool, you’re not just responsible for getting information out to the public—you’re also responsible for getting it to all the other outlets. You’re trying to ask questions and then really quickly send notes to the pool email to distribute all the information. On top of what’s being said, it’s who is wearing what and who is in the room. You have to know names and faces to be able to inform your colleagues who aren’t in the room about what’s happening. It’s not necessarily fun. It’s a lot of pressure. It’s really intense. And the White House Correspondents’ Association had this process called “pool school,” where we would all train up on how to do it and how to do it well. It’s a real responsibility. If new folks are coming in and taking that responsibility seriously, then great. I’m all for it. But I hope we are all on the same page—or get on the same page—about what the ultimate service is that we are providing to one another as teammates in the press corps and to the American public.

So the White House announced — this is one of the big changes they made — that they will now determine who participates in the daily press pool instead of the White House Correspondents’ Association. How has that been going? Have you noticed a deterioration in pool reports?

Right now, I’d say it’s been fairly normal—whatever normal even means anymore. But there have been incidents where someone who was supposed to be in the pool got sidelined. Again, I think that is a dangerous, slippery slope if there is aggressive cherry-picking of who is more often in that rotation. And frankly, I think this will just become an annoying job for the White House. All of my colleagues who work for the White House Correspondents’ Association found it to be tedious. It’s a tedious task. So, I’m holding my powder to see how this goes. The instinct when this White House makes a change is to immediately freak out. And I just think let’s wait and see how this shakes out, how they feel about doing it, what they realize is working or isn’t. As much as I feel like this administration is already ten years into its term, we’re really only six or seven weeks in. Let’s see how it all settles, but it’s certainly raising some serious and challenging existential questions about how this should all work, how the press should be functioning in the White House, and how we should respond to all of this. I don’t think anyone has any great answers yet.

Another move they made that everyone freaked out over was banning The Associated Press from White House events.  Has that created any fear that you’ve noticed in the press corps of running afoul of a White House that has shown itself to be petty and vindictive toward the press?

The chilling effect is what I worry about the most. We saw that happen on the left around Biden. And now we’re seeing it from this White House and the right. Most of us in the press corps are dedicated to our jobs and will do them regardless. The best thing we can do in the face of these ever-changing dynamics is to report the hell out of the story. Report the hell out of the story from whatever perch we have, whatever access we do or don’t have; just keep doing that. I think and I hope that this president and this White House will respect that so long as we are telling the truth and giving them the opportunity to weigh in. I think we just have to stick to the fundamentals at this point when everything else is swirling around. The uncertainty has been the challenge, the uncertainty can have that chilling effect. I think we need to go back to the basics and do what we grew up dreaming about and learning how to do.

It hasn’t felt like a total shutdown of the relationship between the White House and the press at this point? There’s still a level of respect — probably because Trump is 80 years old and grew up watching broadcast news.

Yeah. The boss still loves The New York Times. He might say he hates it most of the time, but what shows up in the media matters, which is why there’s a lot of anger with certain headlines all the time. I think all of my colleagues want to make sure that we are reflecting the White House’s input on stuff, to always make sure that we give them room for comment and that we are transparent—not blindsiding anybody. Look, the press shop still engages with us. We are right there. I can walk in and talk to the press secretary, the deputy press secretary, all the folks in the comms shop and say, ‘Hey, what gives on this? Can I get a comment on that? Is he really going to do this?’ Sometimes they don’t answer, but I can go and have that conversation, and it is still civil and respectful. I think that is a bright spot in all of this. I can tell that they do want to have a relationship with us. That’s the tough dynamic, certainly for people on the outside to understand, but even for those of us who are in it, to hold those two things at once. There’s the bluster, there’s the fake news, there’s the lawsuits, there’s the threats — but then there’s also the fact that the media made Trump. Trump is aware of that, and his people are aware of that. He’s better at wielding the media than almost any other politician we’ve seen in a long time. His people know what our jobs are. They know what their jobs are. Both of those things are true. That sometimes makes my brain want to explode, but that’s the reality we are living in.

You started at NBC News as an associate producer?

Yeah, an AP on Weekend Today.

And now you’re the White House bureau chief for Politico — a lofty and impressive title. Congratulations on that.

My mom is very proud.

I’m sure she is. How did you go from NBC to White House bureau chief at Politico?

Really fantastic mentors. Matt Carluccio, who’s the executive producer of Weekend Today, took a shot on this weirdo kid. Was it the typical hire? I think the theme of my career is ‘not the typical hire for this role. ’ I’ve heard that so many times, including during this transition to Politico. ‘Not the typical hire for Politico. ’ But I love that weirdness in how I’ve gone about this business and the people who have supported the weirdness. So yeah, those great allies who saw the potential and the focus on the story. I wasn’t ever too focused on what the next step was going to be. I just followed the things that were lighting the fire in my belly. That made me good at those things because I had the fire in my belly. I actually really avoided the idea of moving to Washington for a long time. But as I was following that fire, it kept leading me in the direction of, ‘Well, where is the epicenter of impact?’ How could I keep reporting and telling stories about the meat and potatoes of what drives and impacts people’s daily lives? That’s now led me to the White House.

Turns out that does have an effect on people. But the thing that I want to keep trying to do, because most of my career has been people-focused, like how do the things that happen in Washington impact everyone else? Part of the reason I avoided DC is because I do feel that when you spend too much time here, what’s important starts to look really different to what’s important everywhere else. So I want to keep connecting those dots, for myself and my own reporting, trying to push the coverage to think about why this matters. That’s a lot easier said than done, and I’m not going to be perfect at it, but that’s the ethos that drives me. Career-wise, I’ve always just thought, ‘What’s the thing that is going to make me better at this job?’ What is a new skill I can learn? What is the new way so that what I do can have a higher impact? That drove my move from NBC to Politico. I loved my time at NBC, but I was ready to tell stories in a new way. And that’s not to say that I might not go back into the broadcast world. I was on Morning Joe this morning, so that’s still a place that feels like home, and TV feels like home. But new media is the wild, wild West, and it’s crazy. What’s the economic model? I don’t know. How’s it all going to work? I don’t know. Nobody knows. But in chaos and uncertainty, some beautiful things can be forged, and some interesting opportunities can be made. So that’s one of the bright spots in a time when we’re all in the washing machine being tossed around.