Tommy Vietor

Thomas Frederick Vietor IV (born August 31, 1980[1]) is an American political commentator and podcaster. He was a spokesperson for President Barack Obama and the United States National Security Council from 2011 to 2012.[2][3][4] He is a co-founder[5] of Crooked Media with fellow former Obama staffers Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett, and co-hosts the podcasts Pod Save America and Pod Save the World.

Tommy Vietor
Special Assistant to the President
In office
January 2011 – March 2013
PresidentBarack Obama
National Security Council Spokesperson
In office
January 2011 – March 2013
PresidentBarack Obama
Assistant White House Press Secretary
In office
January 20, 2009 – January 2011
PresidentBarack Obama
Personal details
Born
Thomas Frederick Vietor IV

(1980-08-31) August 31, 1980
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Spouse
Hanna Koch
​
(m. 2018)​
Children1
Alma materKenyon College (BA)
Occupation

Early life

Vietor was raised in Dedham, Massachusetts and attended Milton Academy.[6][7][8] He graduated from Kenyon College in 2002 with a BA in philosophy.[2] While at Kenyon, he played on the men's lacrosse team[9][10] and was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity.[11]

Career

Political campaigns (2004-2008)

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.[12]

White House positions (2009-2013)

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.[13]

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.[14]

Podcasting

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.[15]

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.[16] 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."[17]

Along with Ben Rhodes, who served as Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting 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.[18]

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.[19]

Personal life

In July 2018, Vietor married Hanna Koch in Healdsburg, California.[20] Vietor was previously engaged in 2009 to Katie McCormick-Lelyveld, Michelle Obama's chief spokeswoman.[21][22]

On January 27, 2022, Tommy and Hanna Vietor suffered from a pregnancy loss, losing stillborn daughter, Margot, at 24 weeks.[23] On Instagram, Vietor wrote that "A knot in her umbilical robbed her of nutrients and us of our future together".[24] Nearly a year after the loss, Tommy and Hanna Vietor welcomed daughter Lisette Louise Vietor on December 6, 2022.[25]

References
  1. Parnes, Amie (August 31, 2009). "Vietor's the birthday boy". Politico. Retrieved April 8, 2017.
  2. Parsons, Christi (February 24, 2013). "Changing of the young guard at the Obama White House". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  3. Vietor, Tommy (November 17, 2016). "How Will the Press Respond to Trump's Secrecy?". The Atlantic. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  4. Landler, Mark (March 5, 2013). "Spokesmanship Over, Ex-Obama Aide Now Feels Free ... to Speak". The New York Times. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  5. "Team". Crooked Media. Retrieved February 17, 2020.
  6. Tommy Vietor [@TVietor08] (April 23, 2013). "Lots of reasons to love my hometown of Dedham, MA. Here's one www.museumofbadart.org @BostonGlobe @MarkLeibovich @mikebarnicle @BillSimmons" (Tweet). Retrieved November 7, 2022 – via Twitter.
  7. Tommy Vietor [@TVietor08] (July 23, 2016). "I grew up in Dedham and don't miss the wild New England summer storms. Hope you guys didn't sustain damage" (Tweet). Retrieved November 7, 2022 – via Twitter.
  8. "Historic Preservation Commission - Rumson, NJ: A History of Sheep's Run".
  9. "Stats: Tommy Vietor 2000". LAX. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  10. "Stats: Tommy Vietor". LAX. 2002. Archived from the original on December 29, 2018. Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  11. Peterson, Keith (November 18, 1999). "Psi Upsilon wins IM Football tourney". Archives at Digital Kenyon: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Exchange. The Kenyon Collegian. p. 15. Retrieved August 16, 2018.
  12. "Tommy Vietor". The Washington Post. July 24, 2012. Retrieved March 22, 2018.
  13. "Tommy Vietor's journey with Obama: From van driver to National Security Council spokesman". Yahoo! News. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  14. Jan, Tracy (March 3, 2013). "Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau leaves West Wing for screenwriting". Boston Globe. Retrieved January 2, 2018.
  15. Karni, Annie (October 6, 2016). "'Obama bros' learn to love Hillary". Politico. Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  16. Wilstein, Matt (January 9, 2017) [April 11, 2017]. "The 'Keepin' It 1600' Guys Launch Crooked Media to Counter Trump". The Daily Beast. Retrieved April 28, 2021.
  17. Johnson, Eric (March 15, 2017). "Crooked Media's founders aren't paying themselves anything". Recode. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  18. "iTunesCharts.net: 'Pod Save America' by Crooked Media (American Podcasts iTunes Chart)". iTunes Charts. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  19. "Pod Save America: On the ground in Iowa Archives". Crooked Media. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  20. "Ru's Farm Healdsburg Wedding // Hanna + Tommy". Alison Yin Weddings. May 23, 2019. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  21. Elliott, Philip (August 10, 2009). "CAPITAL CULTURE: Obamas not only White House pair". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
  22. "From Obama staffer, a stunning proposal". The Seattle Times. June 7, 2009. Retrieved February 6, 2023.
  23. Slater, Georgia (January 28, 2022). "'Pod Save America' Co-Host Tommy Vietor Shares Loss of Daughter at 24 Weeks in Heartbreaking Post". People. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  24. Hanson, Kait (January 31, 2022). "'Pod Save America' co-host shares emotional post about loss of baby at 24 weeks". Today. Retrieved November 7, 2022.
  25. Andaloro, Angela (December 13, 2022). "'Pod Save America' Co-Host Tommy Vietor Welcomes Baby Girl Nearly One Year After Loss of Daughter". People. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
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