Tommy Vietor

Thomas Frederick Vietor IV (born August 31, 1980[1]) is an American political commentator and podcaster. He is a former spokesperson for President Obama and the United States National Security Council from 2011 to 2013.[2][3][4] He is a founder of Crooked Media and co-hosts the podcasts Pod Save America and Pod Save the World.

Tommy Vietor
BornThomas Frederick Vietor IV
(1980-08-31) August 31, 1980
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation
Alma materKenyon College
Spouse
Hanna Koch
​
(m. 2018)​

Early life

Vietor was raised in Dedham, Massachusetts and attended Milton Academy.[5][6][7] He graduated from Kenyon College in 2002 with a BA in philosophy.[2] While at Kenyon, he played on the men's Lacrosse team[8][9] and participated in campus Greek life as a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity.[10]

Career

In 2004, Vietor turned down an offer from the John Kerry presidential campaign in favor of joining Illinois State Senator Barack Obama for his first statewide run. His first job for Obama was driving the candidate's press van across rural Illinois. During this period, Vietor worked with and learned from Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs.[2]

Vietor was deputy press secretary for the Barack Obama Illinois Senate Campaign in 2004, then became deputy press secretary for Senator Obama the following year and press secretary the year after that. During Obama's presidential campaign from 2007–2008, he was Iowa Press Secretary.[11]

Following Obama's victory in the 2008 presidential election, Vietor became the Assistant White House Press Secretary, from January 2009 to January 2011; he then served as National Security Spokesman and Special Assistant to the President from January 2011 until March 2013.[12]

Vietor left the White House in March 2013, along with Obama's Director of Speechwriting Jon Favreau, to pursue a career in private sector consulting and screenwriting. Together, they founded the communications firm Fenway Strategies.[13]

In March 2016, Vietor became a regular co-host of The Ringer's political podcast Keepin' it 1600, along with Favreau and their fellow Obama administration alumni Dan Pfeiffer and Jon Lovett.[14]

Shortly after the November 2016 election, Vietor, Lovett and Favreau decided to pursue podcasting and activism on a full-time basis. They founded their own company, Crooked Media, and launched a new podcast, Pod Save America.[15] In an interview with Recode's Kara Swisher, Vietor explained that "If Hillary [Clinton] had won, we probably would've kept doing this as a hobby... But when she lost, I think we all had this existential crisis, where it didn't feel right to wake up every day and obsess about politics and what's happening in the country, and then go to work doing something else."[16]

Along with Ben Rhodes, who served as Deputy National Security Advisor under President Obama, Vietor also hosts a podcast covering global issues and policy making decisions called Pod Save the World. The podcast debuted on January 10, 2017.[17]

Vietor hosted a five-part miniseries about the Iowa caucuses called Pod Save America: On the Ground in Iowa. The miniseries was produced by Pineapple Street Studios.[18]

References
  1. Parnes, Amie (2009-08-31). "Vietor's the birthday boy". Politico. Retrieved 2017-04-08.
  2. Christi Parsons. Changing of the young guard at the Obama White House. Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2013.
  3. Tommy Vietor. How Will the Press Respond to Trump's Secrecy? The Atlantic, November 17, 2016.
  4. Mark Landlemarch. Spokesmanship Over, Ex-Obama Aide Now Feels Free ... to Speak, New York Times, March 5, 2013.
  5. Tommy Vietor [@TVietor08] (23 April 2013). "Lots of reasons to love my hometown of Dedham, MA. Here's one www.museumofbadart.org @BostonGlobe @MarkLeibovich @mikebarnicle @BillSimmons" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  6. Tommy Vietor [@TVietor08] (23 July 2016). "I grew up in Dedham and don't miss the wild New England summer storms. Hope you guys didn't sustain damage" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  7. Historic Preservation Commission - Rumson, NJ: A History of Sheep's Run
  8. "Stats: Tommy Vietor 2000". LAX.com. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  9. "Stats: Tommy Vietor 2002". LAX.com. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  10. Keith Peterson (November 18, 1999). "Psi Upsilon wins IM Football tourney". Archives at Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange. The Kenyon Collegian. p. 15. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
  11. "Tommy Vietor". Washington Post. 24 July 2012. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
  12. "Tommy Vietor's journey with Obama: From van driver to National Security Council spokesman". Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  13. "Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau leaves West Wing for screenwriting - The Boston Globe". BostonGlobe.com. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  14. "'Obama bros' learn to love Hillary". Politico. 2016-10-06. Retrieved 2016-12-02.
  15. Matt Wilstein. The 'Keepin' It 1600' Guys Launch Crooked Media to Counter Trump. The Daily Beast, January 9, 2017.
  16. "Crooked Media's founders aren't paying themselves anything". Recode. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  17. "iTunesCharts.net: 'Pod Save America' by Crooked Media (American Podcasts iTunes Chart)". www.itunescharts.net. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  18. "Pod Save America: On the ground in Iowa Archives". Crooked Media. Retrieved 2020-06-03.
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