SPOTTED: Former White House press secretary-turned-MSNBC personality Jen Psaki being fêted at a swanky dinner hosted by the network ahead of her weekend show’s debut.
MSNBC President Rashida Jones, Andrea Mitchell, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and wife Tanya, Jonathan Capehart, Symone Sanders Townsend, White House senior adviser Anita Dunn and Kara Swisher were among the guests at Maydan in Washington on Wednesday celebrating this Sunday’s launch of “Inside with Jen Psaki.”
“People often say, ‘It‘ll be so different working in government and working in media.’ And, yes, there are a lot of differences,” Psaki told the 25-person soiree at the Middle Eastern restaurant, according to an insider. “But the thing that I have found in common — which is a tribute to everybody at this table — is that in both there are a lot of people who are smart, curious, interested in learning more and telling the world about it and trying to make the world a better place in some way. And, that’s what I come to this job doing and hoping to do.”
Jones praised Psaki’s career and work in the Biden White House, saying, “What we’ve seen from you from behind the podium to being in the room and at the table has been nothing short of extraordinary.”
“They’ve seen you in so many capacities and now audiences will see you in a different light,” Jones said.
Psaki, 44, left the White House last year before joining MSNBC in May.
Her weekly Sunday afternoon show, MSNBC has said, will “break down and make sense of the most complex public policy discussions happening in the nation’s capital from the debt ceiling to the political campaign trail to the war in Ukraine and more.”