MattH Oh how true. 🙄🤦🏼‍♂️

Almost got it.

And deserve it!

MattH...I can tell YOU are a married man!!!!!

I don't see it that way, Dan. Sometimes you don't want to confirm something, and you don't want to put the press secretary in a position where they have to lie to the press, so you cut the PrSec out of the loop. If you "trust" the PrSec and tell him or her what's going in, then they either tell the truth and let the story slip when you'd rather it didn't, or they have to lie and thus risk whatever credibility they have with the WH press pool. It seems to me that keeping the PrSec out of the loop on occasion is the better option.

crucisnh You don’t want to put them in a position where they have to lie to the Press? What bubble do you live in? That’s what the whole job is! Towing the company line. If you’re not willing than yeah, your boss won’t trust you.

..........and then @ 3:16 Leo says "You'll tell the room you spoke without knowing the facts". She can tell the room she was told that nothing was happening because IF the press didn't know what the oval office people did she would have avoided a news cycle that may have blown up in everybodys face.

nakedfaves so if you’re the press, why even listen to CJ at all? she may not know what she’s talking about and don’t even have the full facts.

Kennedy kept his Press Secretary out of the loop until the official announcement of the OAS sanctioned quarantine of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis because if he was briefed the press would find out. Sometimes you need to compartmentalize information to make sure you have options later.

Yeah, she gave him a couple heart attacks, and THEN called it even.

@@SamuelPearlman Hell hath no fury as a woman's scorn.

On the contrary, information is circulated on a need to know basis. CJ made an assumption that she would be told about something like that and went out on a limb to deny it. She could've just said "That's the first I hear about it. I will check with my superiors and come back to you in the morning." So the problem here really is, that somewhere along the way, CJ got the impression that she will always be in the loop about something like this. She ignored the first rule of engaging with the press: If you have nothing to say, say nothing.

First of all the president has to know he can trust her when's in the know but lying for a good reason like security yet she clearly doesn't do that until now. As they say she's to chummy with the press & sometimes she has to find ways of answering questions without putting things at risk & to some that means lying. It's not that big of a deal she's also only the press sec not a joint chief or even a political advisor. Honestly I'm not sure why Toby or Sam were there they're speech writers not joint chiefs or military or political advisors. Now of them even knew anything about India or pakistan yet they were in the room talking about it. I guess because bartlett trusted them some how. And an ambassador wouldn't have been any help either other then in trying to communicate the response or message of the president. THe ambassador for the USA or either india or pakistan wouldn't have known India's plans anymore then the others would. I'm invading Iran I'm not going to tell my ambassador let alone their ambassador until the very last minute & then it's only going to be the Iranian ambassador in the sense of "i'm about to invade your country because of Iranian support to islamic terrorists" that's it & let them run off to warn their people. Meanwhile mine are crossing or close to crossing the border helping hopefully to lower casualties for both sides & making a success quicker. Press Secs need to know nothing they need only to report the facts as they know it & these days how often does that happen?

Especially when they suck the Democrat’s ass. Colbert’s interview about Hunter Biden proves the media is owned by the elite rich like democrat Bezos and Zucky.

@@zippyzipster46 Oh, look, a troll wanting to pick a fight. Isn't it cute?

@@morgand.3809 Not really... After four years of constant lies, intentional misrepresentations, bigotry, fascism, and a president with the I.Q. of a four year old, it isn't cute. It's sad, really...

@@morgand.3809 Oh, look, a lefty shill that wants to kiss a Democrat prez's behind. The press is so in the pocket of Biden, they might as well be the propaganda arm of the DNC.

@@lancer525 Now, now. Talking about Biden that way is soooo disrespectful. Heck, by 2024, he'll probably be in a retirement home.

If you look at what can be considered the sitcom version of the West Wing, Spin City, the press secretary is purposefully kept out of the loop. It’s a tactic just to make sure things are played out by the politicians and not by the press. It’s not deliberately to make the press secretary stupid but to make sure they don’t leak things to the press.

Edwin J. Viera Kinda reminds me how toby had his problem with his stock because he could influence policy that could alter the value of stocks. The thing is there is always sensitive information that should be withheld but CJ should have known what she could say. If she could not know something then they should tell her that.

The problem is that it isn't as black and white as that ... The White House press secretary is the interface with the press corps, which means sometimes knowing less is easier. If CJ had announced that India and Pakistan were marching towards each other with a huge number of troops, as Toby Toby adroitly observed, any conventional war between those two may not necessarily end that way. So far, it always has, but is always the next time ... Also going into a Press Briefing announcing what had just happened, whilst the Administration was still formulating a game plan, is the worst of both worlds: firstly, the Press Corps itself can be pretty ruthless. They'll ask the pretty tough questions that CJ didn't have the answers to, and for, because she didn't know, as at that point, the White House didn't know either. Which leads to the Perception Problem: if CJ didn't know, that means the White House doesn't know. And whilst CJ is changing her clothes, after being soaked in swear from the utter mauling she would have gone through, those same reports at best would say its too early, but at worst say that firstly, why the hell there was such a massive failure in Intelligence, but equally, by the time the Press Briefing happened, why there was a clear early strategy, that the White House is clearly bungling things right now, especially when it comes the to two nuclear powers that border each other, yet hate each other with such intense passion, that _any_ minior conflict could easily spiral out into use of tatical nuclear weapons. Hence, it was far easier to send CJ in that briefing not knowing anything (and legitimately say she didn't, because she didn't ...), and give the Administration some breathing room to come up with an initial response, instead of looking like they were bungling through the whole thing ... Yes, the next day, CJ was pretty pissed of, and told Leo as much, especially as they're was at least reporter whom picked up on the rumours of massive troop movements along the India-Pakistan border, rumours she had to flatly deny, thus making her look like both a liar, and stupid. At the same time, she also recognized that had she gone into that Briefing with too few answers both her, and, by proxy, President Bartlett, would have been utterly mauled in the the first edition newspapers. So by legitimately not knowing, she didn't have to actually lie, which meant that the WH did indeed have that breathing space overnight to put in place an initial plan, or at least the very beginnings of one. When it was first aired in the 1990s, the news cycle was such you could've gotten away with such a tatic. Today, that wouldn't fly at all ... and hence why the Press Secretary has to be fully briefed, otherwise the mauling will be much, much, worse ... Hope that makes sense ...

nigelft my point is that letting her know correct or at least accurate information is necessary. If there are sensitive details then let her know why some stuff is hidden.

@@nigelft well written I completely agree. It's definitely the tactic to make press sec out of the loop unless they're as good as CJ at not spilling information that doesn't need to be said

Not sure if that would go well w rest of the press pool

She has nothing to apologise for.

If you look at Dee Dee Meyers, Bill Clinton's press secretary (and the inspiration for CJ Cregg), she was often left out of the loop, then blasted by the press for withholding information. All she could do is go home and cry, then come back the next day and do her job. It should be said all press secretaries (not just the President but Governors and politicians) have info withheld from them or even lied to.

When it happens?

@@thomasoliver270 the room where it happened…

Long range missiles.

In the actual kargil conflict where India was attacked first and Pakistan had taken a few high points, India had an escalation plan by using its navy to blocade Pakistani ports, in reality we were planning to use our aircraft carrier.

They’ve had some of these moments. One time they mentioned getting to or from Zambia via sea/ocean. Zambia is also landlocked with no coast.

There's nowhere on earth that we can't get a DDG close enough to that we can't hit them with a Tomahawk. At least that was true when I was in the Navy.

I wouldn't say she's forgiven anything. She's a professional and she recognizes in this moment that the issue at hand is more important than her personal problem of being kept out of the loop. Doesn't mean she's not gonna have some words about it when this is over.

She wasn’t forgiving. Whenever a woman says tings are “fine” they aren’t. It means she’s just being polite and telling you what an @$$ you are. Watch your back!

Toby and Sam were in the WH Communications Dept., while Josh was Leo’s #2 and had a ticket to the Bunker in case of nuclear attack, so he certainly should be there, of the group.

But in every other international incident in the show, nobody but Leo (and later CJ, but only as chief of staff) is in the room. None of the other senior advisers.

sure you would, you would just give up one of the most prestigous and powerful jobs in the world because your feelings got hurt.

While in this administration the guy acting as president can't even call on reporters without looking at a pre approved call list. Biden is the biggest joke of the world right now and we suffer for it

@@stanbrown1151 And you would prefer to have someone like ..... _Trump as President?_ jesus, you're fucking mentally ill.

I think he was saying that once the story about the war between Pakistan and India broke, that was all the reporters would focus on, rather than the embarrassing situation CJ was in from being left out of the loop. They would forget she called it ridiculous etc.

If you were watching carefully you'd realize that in the plot it was India that crossed the neutral zone. India was the aggressor. Thats why India will be the story.

Yeah, because an all out war between India and Pakistan would be limited to the Kashmir region and not also include any naval conflicts since they each have a coastline.

@@NT-fo3me hahahahaha

She was fired from her LA job and Toby got her on the rebound for the campaign, which took off.

This is the same TV show that had Canada preparing to wage war with the US, right? No reason to take it overly seriously.

***** Thats the sad part! I mean I have so much respect for Sorkin but using a war as a propoganda tool after so many soldiers had already died is very downright despicable... But I remember there was an episode in season 4 where he was singing praises of India... So I guess that was his attempt at redemption! :P

andersonjuniocollege it's a drama you moron, not a documentary -- don't expect every thing to be true to life -- and when it isn't that doesn't mean it's propaganda

First of all... I love it when people start their arguments by insulting you! Real mature buddy! Secondly, this episode came out after India-US relations had thawed due to India testing their nuclear weapons! I am not actually making that up... thats true! So its just the timing that seems odd!

+andersonjuniocollege If you call someone a propagandist for loosely basing a storyline on past events, you're going to get some names thrown back at you. There weren't that many details about who did what, nobody was being blamed, it's just a thing that happened that the staff had to react to, calm down.