JON Lovett doesn't like birthday attention. Sitting in a SiriusXM studio, he concedes that birthdays are "a fun opportunity to get your friends together," but having all those eyes on him makes him uncomfortable. It's a bit odd to hear a man who hosts two podcasts-including one he just taped in this very studio discuss his uneasy relationship to attention. It's even odder given he has just returned from filming the upcoming season of Survivor.
Lovett properly entered the public eye in 2008, when, after trying standup in New York and then working as a speechwriter for Hillary Clinton when she was a New York senator, he was hired as a speechwriter for President Barack Obama. After spending a term in Washington, D.C., with the Obama administration, he went to Hollywood and co-created 1600 Penn—a short-lived network sitcom about a fictional First Family that prompted our critic to write, “What’s onscreen is so tepid and unimaginative that it practically compelled my mind to wander.”
Still, Lovett stayed in L.A., and he and fellow former Obama staffers Tommy Vietor, Jon Favreau, and Dan Pfeiffer started a limited-run podcast for The Ringer covering the 2016 election called Keepin’ It 1600. After Trump was elected, they went out on their own with Pod Save America. It was immediately successful—post-Obama, it turned out, liberals were eager to listen to a bunch of his former staffers talk about how to get the country back on track (and shout a bit about bad Republican behavior). In the years since, PSA has grown to be just one part of the larger Crooked Media, headed up by Vietor, Favreau, and Lovett.
This story is from the July 1-14, 2024 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July 1-14, 2024 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Enchanting and Exhausting
Wicked makes a charming but bloated film.
Nicole Kidman Lets Loose
She's having a grand old time playing wealthy matriarchs on the verge of blowing their lives up.
How Mike Myers Makes His Own Reality
Directing him in Austin Powers taught me what it means to be really, truly funny.
The Art of Surrender
Four decades into his career, Willem Dafoe is more curious about his craft than ever.
The Big Macher Restaurant Is Back
ON A WARM NIGHT in October, a red carpet ran down a length of East 26th Street.
Showing Its Age
Borgo displays a confidence that can he only from experience.
Keeping It Simple on Lower Fifth
Jack Ceglic and Manuel Fernandez-Casteleiro's apartment is full of stories but not distractions.
REASON TO LOVE NEW YORK
THERE'S NOT MUCH in New York that has staying power. Every other day, a new scandal outscandals whatever we were just scandalized by; every few years, a hotter, scarier downtown set emerges; the yoga studio up the block from your apartment that used to be a coffee shop has now become a hybrid drug front and yarn store.
Disunion: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
A Rift in the Family My in-laws gave me a book by a eugenicist. Our relationship is over.
Gwen Whiting
Two years after a mass recall and a bacterial outbreak, the founder of the Laundress is on cleanup duty.
