The Strategerist

Dana Perino

Episode Summary

After spending seven years in the White House and two of those years as Press Secretary, Dana Perino became comfortable speaking on behalf of others – including the 43rd president. But as she transitioned into roles on Fox News after the White House, Dana had to develop her own voice.

Episode Notes

Episode Transcription

00:07 Speaker 1: We're joined for today's episode by Dana Perino, former White House Press Secretary, and now Fox News co-host of The Five, host of the Daily Briefing with Dana Perino, podcast co-host of I'll Tell You What, and she's a best-selling author. So you're pretty busy, thank you for taking the time to do this. It's really...

00:23 Dana Perino: I'm honored to be here. I love coming here to the Bush Centre. Whenever you would step in the front door, it's like, "Wow this place is beautiful."

00:30 S1: Thank you for saying that.

00:31 DP: And doing such great work.

00:32 S1: Thank you. And our co-host is Hannah Abney, your friend, and VP of External Affairs. She's back again. Hannah, thank you for doing it again.

00:39 Hannah Abney: Thank you for having me again, Andrew.

00:41 DP: Hannah has a good podcast voice.

00:43 S1: She has a great podcast voice.

00:44 HA: You guys, thanks. I have a real face for radio I guess. [chuckle]

00:47 S1: Oh, no, no, no.

00:48 HA: That's what Peter said. Not true?

00:50 S1: No, not even a little bit true. We'll make sure the social media that goes out proves that.

00:53 HA: Oh, stop it.

[laughter]

00:55 S1: So, Dana you're now a recording artist as well. We can add that to your resume.

01:00 DP: Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

01:01 HA: And a Dierks... Not Dierks. A Dierks Bentley super fan, right?

01:05 DP: Yeah, super fan. Also, I get to call him a friend now too, but that's what happens if you stalk long enough.

[laughter]

01:12 HA: So do you think he's gonna invite you to be on a song, now that you've already proven your backup sing...

[laughter]

01:16 DP: I don't know. Once you have a number one song in the world, it's kind of like, "I don't need to really do it again. I don't think... " But it's pretty funny. So when I worked at the White House... Well, let me go way back. When I was in college, and thought I wanted to go into media. Back then, if you wanted to get into TV, you had to start in radio. And I didn't wanna have to do my radio experience after I graduated, so I got a job, part-time job, as a country music DJ, working overnights in Pueblo, Colorado. And I didn't really... I had grown up in the west, but I hadn't really listened to country music when I was a teenager. I didn't really do that. So I was completely out of it. I did... I introduced, the first night, a song by Tracy Lawrence, and I said, "And here she is with her new song, Tracy Lawrence." And then, of course, Tracy Lawrence is a man.

[laughter]

02:07 DP: And...

02:08 S1: That was a tricky first one that.

02:09 DP: Yeah. So fast forward... And during the years at the White House, I don't think I listened to any music at all. I didn't even have an iPod. When we left, that was the technology at the time. No, I had nothing. I listened to NPR, or whatever else was happening. Rush Limbaugh, or something, so I could keep up on the news. And so when I left the White House, or when we all left the White House, I got an iPod, I guess it was. And I used to travel back and forth to New York a lot. And I just started downloading country music. And Dierks Bentley song Come a Little Closer was out at the time, And so that's how I became a fan.

02:49 S1: Would you like to sing a little bit of that song?

02:50 DP: No. [laughter]

02:51 DP: No, I do have the worst voice. But the other song you're talking about is... I don't... I'm blessed with having lots of ideas, and not a lot of time to execute however. So in 2016, The Five went on a bus trip to go to the conventions, RNC and DNC, and at one point in the back of the bus, Greg Gutfeld and I were sitting there, and he was making me laugh so hard, 'cause he was just making up nonsense country songs about The Five, about Fox News, about everything. And I... He just had me giggling so much. And I said, "We should go to Nashville, and record a song about The Five, and record it with the real recording artist, and then release it for charity." So three years later, [chuckle] it came true. We have a wonderful executive producer of The Five called Megan Albano, she helped figure it out. We teamed up with John Rich from Big & Rich, who is a wonderful person, big fan of 43s as well, and we went to Nashville, and in one take, he sang the song, and then we sang the back up part. It's called shut up about politics.

[laughter]

03:58 DP: And it's not about shutting any particular person up, it was just about how politics has entered into everything, sports, music, theater, technology, everything, it's just too much. And so we have a song called Shut Up About Politics. We released it, and within two hours it was number one on the country charts, and then that whole weekend it was number one in the world, bigger than Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber. It was astounding.

04:21 HA: That's amazing.

04:22 DP: It was amazing. And all the proceeds go to Folds of Honor. So, we're pretty proud of it. 99 cents, you can download it.

04:29 S1: Folds of Honor does great work. We've done...

04:31 DP: Incredible work.

04:31 S1: We're familiar with it, we're pretty well and they're just such a great organization.

04:35 DP: So it was pretty fun.

04:36 HA: I have a question for you, off of that though? You're right, politics is in absolutely everything, you cannot get away from it. And we talk about that a lot too. Even when you're going through your Instagram stories, it just permeates every bit of it. It's in your life, obviously, multiple times a day. How do you get away from politics, and focus on the thing...

04:56 DP: I've actually feel a little... A lot better than I did, even from a few years ago, because I've really embodied this idea that politics is what I do, it is not who I am. And I have carved off my weekends, and my evenings when I'm not working, but [chuckle] Because I... I don't go to dinner to talk about politics with people, unless I agree with them. Now, that's gonna sound like, "Oh, that's not very fair and balanced of you." But I argue all day long. And so in my personal life, I just pretty much don't. I have a rule that I wrote about in The Jasper book, which is no politics at the dog park. That's a safe place for me. And if... And even people that wanna talk to me about politics at the dog park, I'm like, "Sorry, I don't talk politics at the dog park. I have a policy." And then they laugh about it, and they move on. And I also... I care a lot less about social media than I did in 2016.

05:55 DP: I was really attacked by the Russians, even though I didn't know it was Russians at the time. I remember actually coming here to the Bush Center. Was that right before the 2016 election. I can't remember what I was doing. And I got the chance to see President Bush and he was like, "How are you doing? And I told him, "Well, I had the worst professional summer of my life being attacked. And I was really kind of in the fetal position under my desk. And even my husband would say, "How can I help you? I'm like, "There's nothing you can do." And it gave me a big appreciation for what parents are going through when their children are consumed with their phone, because you don't know what's being said. And it's so demoralizing. I was a grown woman. I had been the White House Press Secretary... How could this affect me so much? And I remember President Bush saying, "Why didn't you call me?"

06:40 DP: Well, really, imagine if I had called President Bush and said, "Sir, people are being really mean to me on Twitter."

[chuckle]

06:47 DP: He would have said, "Get off Twitter." He's not even on it. Right? And that sounds easy, and, actually, it is easy, so once you step away from it, or somebody gave me a tip to only have mentions from people that you follow. And Eric Schmidt of Google actually pulled me aside at one point in 2017, as I was explaining what it was like to be one of the people that was targeted by these Russian bots, but I didn't know they were Russian at the time. I just said, "It's overwhelming," and he pulled me aside, he said, "Dana, these are not real people," and he explained to me how the whole system worked in St. Petersburg, and I don't know, it just gave me an ability to say it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. No, so it's weird to say that as much as politics is permeating everything, for me, it's probably less a part of my life than in the previous elections that I've covered for FOX.

07:42 HA: Was it similar to how you regrouped after you left the White House? Taking a breath, stepping away from it?

07:47 DP: No, not really. I mean, I remember the day that we left Andrews Air Force Base, and Peter and I left to go on the trip to Africa. I leaned my head back against the seat, and I said, "Nothing I do for the rest of my life will ever be that important or that hard," and it's really true. When I make a comment now, I'm not gonna start a war. I also have a great appreciation for what public servants go through, and I wanna support them no matter what party they're from. If you're willing to put yourself out there and run for office and try to do the right thing, I try to be supportive.

08:23 HA: Okay, talk to us about Mercy Ships.

08:25 DP: Mercy Ships.

08:26 HA: You talked talked about it a little bit when you left the White House.

08:28 DP: So, interesting about Mercy Ships, there's actually a Bush connection there, too. Okay, so obviously President Bush and Mrs. Bush were amazing leaders when it came to Africa. I got to go to Africa with them in February of 2008, and in typical 43 fashion, we did five countries in seven days. I got my first migraine, I couldn't even go to the Kigali event because I had to stay on the plane and get two liters of fluid pumped into my arm and so I didn't get to go to the event, and I've been sad about not making it to Rwanda ever since. But I'd given the statistics about PEPFAR so many times at the podium that I thought I understood Africa, and then I was just totally blown away when I went there, and I came back and I said, "Peter, we need to go for six months after the White House." [chuckle] And he said, "How about six weeks?" So we did six weeks.

09:23 S1: Compromise.

09:23 DP: And, yeah, so we did a PEPFAR site that's in Fish Hoek, South Africa, and Peter and I just had this amazing time, and that did help us reset our priorities and our hearts and to reconnect as a couple, as well, because we're so blessed here in America, and you can get caught up in, "What about me? What am I gonna do after the White House?" and just being able to have a bigger world view after I left, was great. Fast forward, Mercy Ships asked me through my speaker's bureau, if I would come to Dallas and moderate a conversation between the President and Mrs. Bush in front of their dinner group. So I said, "Well, sure, that sounds great," So Peter and I were coming down here. Now prior to that, I had joined the One Campaigns Women Advisory Board, and I had gone to several countries with them. I had also been on the Broadcasting Board of Governors under President Obama, and I'd gone to Africa on behalf of that organization, as well, trying to increase the amount of content for women in particular in Africa because we found that men will definitely listen to the radio for news and sports, but women will listen if it's about health and their kids.

10:34 DP: So anyway, it was just a little bit of an effort to do that. So, at the dinner right before the Q&A with the President and Mrs. Bush, I'm sitting there and somebody says, "Well, why did you get interested in Africa?" So I'm telling them this whole story, like I'm telling you, and then I said, "And just a few months ago, I got to go to Sierra Leone, and I went to this place called the Aberdeen clinic, and it was started by a Scottish heiress, and it's so amazing. They were doing fistula surgeries there, and the day I was there, they were teaching the women there how to count to 10." And the lady next to me said, "Oh, she's not a Scottish heiress, her name is Ann Gloag and she's sitting right behind you."

11:17 DP: This is a self-made business woman in Scotland, who was a burn unit nurse for 20 years, but then she and her brothers started a busing service in the UK when Margaret Thatcher deregulated the transportation sector, and they became very successful, and as the company expanded, she took Africa, and when she got there, she said, "Oh, this will never do." So she started doing all of this philanthropy there, and that's how I ended up talking to her and I said to Peter, "We have to go see Mercy Ships for ourselves." So that's how we got involved. And it's a surgical hospital ship, they do the west coast of Africa. That night, they were kicking off a capital campaign for a brand new ship 'cause they usually retrofit an old ship and everybody makes do, but now they have this beautiful new ship that should be available in the next 18 months and they'll be able to serve so many more people.

12:09 HA: That's so awesome. I remember your pictures from that trip, and they're just incredible.

12:13 DP: Well, and I have to say FOX News has been incredibly supportive. Now, Peter, my husband, he's not a professional photographer or videographer by any means, but he's very enthusiastic, and FOX would send us with the latest equipment, and then Peter would get his cargo pants on, everything...

[chuckle]

12:31 DP: So all that video that you see, that was his.

12:33 HA: Wow.

12:34 DP: He did all of that, and then we would do some interviews, and I came back, and then the young producers would be so excited. They would edit the packages together and management, like Susan Scott, our CEO now, before that, she had a different job, but very enthusiastic about airing these pieces on FOX News multiple times. So I've gone twice, and I usually go after an election year. So I went in 2013... March of 2013 and March of 2017. So it looks like I have to go again March of 2021.

13:05 S1: Another thing that was important to you is the minute mentoring project that you worked on. Is that another...

13:10 HA: Well, that you started.

13:11 S1: Yeah, that you started.

13:12 DP: Yeah, so I just... I learned something when I left the White House that every call you get to do something you think that's gonna be the last call you ever get because you think everyone's gonna forget about you, and that's not true, but what you end up doing is taking on everything, so I was spread extremely thin. But I felt a responsibility to accept any invitation from women, especially, working in Washington who wanted to get some advice for how they could advance their careers. So I went to this Bipartisan Women's Congressional Staff Association. That's the name of the group, terrible name. But, anyway, 80 people showed up, Republicans and Democrats, they were all there, and I tried to give them my best pieces of advice, all in one speech.

13:57 DP: And then I did a photo line. About 80 people, let's say, I would say 62 of them asked me if I could get together for a coffee or lunch, and I was absolutely overwhelmed, I'm like, "I can't go to... I don't even have time to go to the bathroom. I don't have time to coffee with everyone." But I felt this obligation. So my girlfriend, [14:14] ____, who also worked in the Bush administration and at the Homeland Security Department and Justice Department, we were walking back and I said, "Wouldn't it be great if we could figure out a way to do mentoring, but like speed dating?" Because what I've found is that young women in particular, they all have the same questions. It's the same type of question over and over again, and I don't have all the answers.

14:37 DP: And in fact, when we do a Minute Mentoring event now, I feel like I learn just as much as anybody else about time management or asking for a raise, negotiating, dealing with sexual harassment at the workplace and all of those things. So, yeah, we have Minute Mentoring, and we recently did a joint event with WeWork. And that was in Washington DC. And Lauren Fritts is a good friend of mine, she actually grew up here in Dallas, but she has a top position at WeWork in communications, and so she helped organize that. It's a good natural fit, because they have really ambitious clients, I guess they call them, that have rent office space from them. And so we do this event. And we're hoping to figure out a way to expand it, because I have limited time.

15:27 S1: Sure.

15:27 DP: But it's a really good program. And if you go to minutementoring.org, there's a guide as to how you can host your own event.

15:37 S1: When you work on those projects, does it re-energize you?

15:40 DP: Yes. Oh, my gosh. And in fact, we did one at Fox 18 months ago, and I still have people telling me it was the most important day of their careers there, or when could they have it again. One thing I did when I did the Fox one is I expanded it to not be just for women, but for men too. Young men need it as well. And I have thought about how do you expand it, because they need help as well, and they always wanna come and they could use some advice, and I thought, "Well, no one's stopping anybody else from starting a Minute Mentoring for men. I don't have to do that as well." [chuckle] I mean, I'm happy to have them come to my events too, but it is different. And both genders will ask different questions if they're in a mixed group, they just will. So I'm going to continue Minute Mentoring to the extent that I can. I just feel like I wish I had an extra four hours in the day.

16:28 S1: Maybe six? [chuckle]

16:29 DP: I'll take it. If you have it to give.

16:32 S1: I really love the title of your first book, "And the Good News Is... " because everyone thinks of the news, they think of anchors or reporters just on TVs, just talking about what's wrong in the world. And so you came out with just this optimistic message, and that really resonates with us, because the Bush, we think of the Bush Institute as a really optimistic place. Where do you draw that optimism from?

16:54 S22: I think probably from my upbringing, my grandfather in particular, a rancher from Wyoming, always woke up on the sunny side of the bed. But it's funny that the title has a couple of different meanings. So "And the Good News Is... " in one way was about my life. I talk about in the book how I've always been a planner. My first-born daughters, look out, [chuckle] this has been a disaster, worry about everything. I tried to plan everything out, and when I finally wrote the book, I looked back, 'cause people would say, "How do I get to become White House Press Secretary?" I'm like, "Well, first you have to start as a country music DJ... "

[laughter]

17:32 DP: "Then it all works out." But the reason I think that the title really spoke to me about my life is that, looking back, none of my plans actually worked out. And that was the good news, that you don't have to worry about it, that you can turn it over to God and you can work hard and be prepared and open to risk, and the good news is that things will work out the way that they're supposed to. But the other reason is because when I started as a Press Secretary on Capitol Hill, way back when Holly Propst was my chief of staff for Congressman Dan Schaefer, and I was learning how to be a Press Secretary. And Press Secretary is never going to the boss and say, "I have the best news. You just won't believe how great your coverage is gonna be on the front page of the New York Times tomorrow. You are gonna love it." No one ever... Why would you go see the boss about something good? So she says when you see the Congressman, and you have either difficult or bad news to deliver, always leave on a high note. So you always have to find a reason to say, "And the good news is."

18:31 DP: So I got into that habit, so you might say, "Well, the good news is, we were able to get Andy Carr on the phone with the reporter, and his quote will be in the story," or, "And the good news is there's a big press conference happening tomorrow, so this won't even be an issue tomorrow." Whatever it might be, even if you have to really stretch, you know, "And the good news is, it's Chicken Taco Day at the White House." Whatever it might be, you just have to have something. And then, from a mentoring standpoint, people don't wanna work with complainers or negativity. There's too much competition out there, and if you wanna hold yourself back, your negativity is the way to do it.

19:12 HA: It really is. I have wondered so many times, I can't believe I've never actually asked you this, what it is like going from the White House podium to being on the other side of the equation.

19:23 DP: Well, it didn't even really start out that way. So when I first left, I had a PR firm, and I was doing all of those things, I spread too thin. But then, the thing I'd like to most to do during the day was the hits I did on Fox News. I remember Marlin Fitzwater who was Press Secretary to Reagan and 41, he said to me, "Look, just figure out what you like to do, and the money will work itself out." Because I was spread so thin. And Charles Krauthammer also gave me similar advice, he said, "I don't see how somebody can do both things, like have clients and be an analyst." And he said, "You'll have a lot more fun being an analyst, you'll probably make more money if you do PR, but I don't see how you can do both." Now some people do both, and it works for them, but it was pretty clear to me early on it was not gonna work for me. When I started doing hits on FOX, I had never once said my personal opinion in public. Who cared what I thought? I could tell you what President Bush thought, and why he thought that, or how we got to that decision, and I was very comfortable in that role.

20:25 DP: And for the first, frankly, two years after the White House, when the next administration was quite critical of President Bush, I was always the one who was this, still the spokesperson on air. And I loved that role, that was comfortable for me. I knew what I was doing. Then I started doing the five and I remember Craig got fed up at one point and was like, "No, what do you think?" And I think it was about legalization of marijuana, and I said, I remember I had a moment I was like, "I don't know." And I really credit him, Suzanne Scott, even Roger Ailes, others, like being patient enough with me to let me figure out a way to then be comfortable expressing my opinion on my own. It took a while. It was quite a transition actually to go from speaking on someone else's behalf for so long, then to speaking for yourself.

21:22 HA: And [21:23] ____ also make you just feel kind of vulnerable.

21:24 DP: Well, I'm super cautious 'cause I was I'm a cautious speaker. I don't wanna offend anybody. Even last night, I said something on Tucker Carlson's show that I wish I hadn't, even though it's true, but it was about Bill de Blasio and in New York state right now, Donald Trump is more popular than Bill De Blasio.

21:41 HA: Really?

21:42 DP: Oh yeah, and I said something like, "Well, look, dislike of Donald Trump in a liberal state is a given, so think of how much the liberals must actually hate de Blasio for him to be less popular than Donald Trump." And then I kinda felt bad 'cause I was like, "Oh gosh." But anyway, I do live in the city, and it's crap, but I don't like to say that stuff out loud. And then you don't wanna be boring on air, but I notice if I'm just not myself, I can't do it. So the Five has been incredible to allow me this room to run. And I remember almost like to the day when I finally realized I'm never going back to being a spokesperson at the White House. I'm never going back to having PR clients that are going to be offended if I said something bad about Bill de Blasio. So it was so freeing. And I think that also comes down to what I was saying earlier about not worrying about politics all the time. I don't care.

22:40 HA: And then what about when you added the second show?

22:42 DP: So that was pretty exciting because after the 2016 election, I really did... [chuckle] Well, I feel like I'm in therapy, but... After the 2016 election, I was thinking, "Do I wanna do this again? What should I do? Is this my highest and best use? Should I do more in Africa? Should I do more with mentoring? Should I?" Whatever. I was exhausted after the 2016 election. Emotionally, physically for sure, 'cause we work so hard. And my husband, as you know, Peter, he's 18 years older than me, and I thought... Oh gosh, maybe this is the time. Nice transition... Finish out this contract and then maybe we'll go live in South Carolina, and it'll be great. And the way the holiday worked that year, I had nine or 10 days off in a row because of where the holidays were in my time off. And so, I get down there and I played tennis once a day. I went on five mile walks, I got naps, I read books, I went to dinner with friends, I had coffee, I got my nails done. And on the fifth day, I came downstairs to go to dinner and I said, "I can't do this. I just needed a break." "I didn't need to change careers." So I'm sorry, your question was?

23:54 HA: What was it like getting the second show?

23:55 DP: Oh, getting the second show. So I decide to stay, but then I realized I'm not quite busy enough because during an election year, I'm working nights and weekends, and everything, but then when there's not that, and I only had The Five and then podcast, I was like, "Well, maybe I need something else to do." And then they asked me, "Would you be interested in taking over the 2 o'clock show?" which is a News Hour. And what's so interesting is that when I decided not to stay in local news and leave graduate school and go back to Colorado and then I decided to take the job in Washington, working for a congressman, I said... I had narrow horizons, I thought, "Now, I'll never get to work in television. Now, I'll never get to be in news."

24:36 S1: And here you are.

24:37 DP: And the good news is, it all worked out. Yeah, so I really love it. My days are full though. I don't have much time to breathe. I get up at 5:30, I start reading. I take a break from 8:00 to 9:00 for some exercise, and then as soon as 2 o'clock ends, I have a quick meeting with my show... At 3:00 PM Eastern, quick meeting with my team, and then I gotta prepare for The Five.

25:01 S1: Is it hard to transition from a show where you were the host and the centerpiece to an ensemble cast?

25:06 DP: No, I love the ensemble. The Five is the number one in its time slot every day since it started. It's in the top five shows of all cable, is kind of inexplicable in some ways. We're about to have our eighth anniversary.

25:23 S1: Did you see that coming?

25:24 DP: No. We were told that show was gonna be six weeks temporary and Greg Gutfeld and I are the only two people that were there from the beginning, but I really love it, so I kind of have the best of both worlds. I have to pinch myself a little bit. Sometimes I feel like on the 2 o'clock show, I worry that it's too newsy and we'll be boring, until on the 5 o'clock show, but what if I say something on 5 o'clock show that will make somebody think that they don't wanna come on the 2 o'clock show and... I overthink that a little bit, but...

25:55 HA: That's that first-born daughter kind of thing.

25:57 DP: Oh, it's constant. Or maybe I need to have my parents adopt an older sister.

[laughter]

26:04 S1: We've come this far, we've hardly talked about America's dog, Jasper.

26:07 DP: Yeah.

26:08 S1: You look around, you don't see a whole lot of Hungarian Vizslas walking around on walks with their owners.

26:14 HA: I don't know. Do you in New York?

26:15 DP: Yeah, they're very popular right now. They're popular now. Although, Instagram is probably distorting my view, but in New York, there's a lot of Vizslas.

26:24 S1: Down here, we're big in the doodle craze, I think, in Texas.

26:28 DP: Yes doodles are probably... People love their dogs. The reason he's called America's dog is not because I'm arrogant and say that... "Oh, he's the best dog in America." It's because one night on this show called Red Eye, which I'm sure you never watch.

26:37 HA: No I have.

26:38 DP: Did you watch? Red Eye, oh RIP Red Eye. That was a great show. That show actually probably, more than anything else, helped me come out of my shell 'cause it was on at 3:00 AM. I thought no one's watching. I remember one night on that show, I said something... Oh, my God, it's on YouTube. And Bill Schultz, who was on at the time, he said, "What if 43 were watching you right now?" And I started laughing so hard, but then I started crying on the show 'cause I thought, "What if he is? I'd be so mortified and embarrassed, if he was watching this."

27:07 DP: So, on that show, they were like... It was about this woman who was mad because a paparazzi was following her around and taking pictures of her little dog and she was like, "Don't take any more pictures of my dog." And I said, "I'm not like that. I think people can take pictures of my dog all they want. In fact, I'll take the pictures for them. If they can't have a dog, I will share Jasper with everyone. He can be America's dog." So that's how that happened. So he's 7, and he has certainly grown up with Fox and it's pretty funny but the only possession that I care about in my life is President Bush painted a portrait of Jasper when he was a puppy. And truly, it's the most treasured thing in my life. Peter says, "I know, I know, grab the painting."

27:55 S1: Where is it hung in your home?

27:57 DP: In the living room is like when you walk in to... Well, home apartment city living, when you walk in and then it's just, there it is.

28:03 S1: Bottom honor.

28:04 DP: Yeah.

28:05 HA: So I think one of my favorite pictures that you've ever posted, or I don't know, maybe Peter told me about this, but 'cause I do wanna ask. I do want you to tell us your love story and meeting on...

28:14 DP: Okay, okay.

28:14 HA: The airplane. It's my favorite meet cute of all time. Is the picture of Peter on his motorcycle with Jasper in the sidecar, with both of them with their goggles on, and it just makes me laugh. It's the cutest thing.

28:28 DP: People love it. So, my husband loves motorcycles and I'm fine with it, but I don't have a lot of time to be motorcycling around. And he bought a 1986 cream-colored Harley that was a police car and it came with a side-car. And so yeah, Jasper knows he loves... Jasper loves to ride. He knows he can't ride if he doesn't wear his Doggles. That's not a word I came up with, that's the brand. He knows he has to wear them. And it's so interesting, he knows that people are looking and laughing, pointing, the kids love it. And one time, Peter, for a costume contest on the Fourth of July, Peter dressed up as Batman, and Jasper as Robin, in Palmetto Bluff actually, and we won first prize, of course. We won first prize three years in a row, and I was like, "Okay, we gotta stop." Obviously, it's like the women's soccer team against Thailand. It's like, "Enough. Let 'em up, let them up, mercy."

29:26 S1: I'm still laughing about Doggles. That's awesome.

29:28 DP: Yeah, that's the name so yeah, the Harley, it's great. And actually, it's pretty funny. With Peter's traveling, let's say, I'm walking Jasper on the street, and if he hears a Harley 'cause of that, obviously, that very distinctive patented sound, he'll look like, "Is that my dad? Is that my dad?"

29:44 HA: That's really cute. Okay, tell us how you met him.

29:47 DP: One of my pieces of advice that, my favorite piece of advice in the book and that I use it when I'm mentoring all the time is, "Choosing to be loved is not a career-limiting decision." A lot of young people who are waiting till they get this job or this promotion, or this thing and then they'll find somebody. It's so interesting I'm reading a book called "The Defining Decade." I highly recommend it. It's by a woman named Dr. Meg Jay, and it's about how your 20s are so important and how these young people think that they're gonna... All of these things that they're like blowing things off in their 20s, but they think in their head that between the ages of 31 and 34, everything's gonna happen. It's not true. It never works out that way. So I was having a quarter-life crisis as people do at 25, I was working on Capitol Hill. I could do my job with my eyes closed.

30:32 DP: I wasn't thrilled with the Republican leadership at the time, that was in the middle of the Lewinsky scandal, and impeachment. Anyway, fast forward, I had to go on a business trip where I took the Congressmen around to the editorial boards in Colorado. And then I had to fly back and I almost missed the flight and Peter almost took an earlier one, but it just so happened we were both on that flight, assigned seats next to each other. Seat 13 A and C on American, actually. He always tells me there's no B because it's American, whatever. So we just... And we just hit it off. We ended up talking, and I remember looking out the window and saying, "Okay Lord, I know I asked you to help me find someone. But he lives in England, he's 18 years older than me, he could be an ax murderer. Did I mention he lives in England?" And I really do think it was... Well, it was love at first sight. I don't think it was. It was. And then I moved there nine months later, and we've been together 22 years.

31:31 HA: It's amazing.

31:32 DP: Yeah. I don't think I could have done any of this without him. After 9/11, well, we were living in San Diego when 9/11 happened, and Mindy Tucker, who was amazing communications person for President Bush on his re-election campaign for governor, then was working for Ashcroft at the Justice Department, she called me and asked me if I'd be willing to move back to DC because they needed another spokesperson and that's how I returned to Washington. But we were living in San Diego. And who doesn't wanna live in San Diego? It's fabulous, but Peter said, "Leave it with me." And I left, I think a week later, and he packed up the house and moved to DC. And then when we were living in DC and I got the request to come up to New York, I was like, "Living in New York, and it's hard 'cause it's so much more expensive and it's a real mental shift." And he said, "I got it all, just focus on that. And he did all the moving and all of that stuff." So there's also a pretty funny story about his support for me.

32:31 DP: I don't even know if President Bush will remember this, I think he probably would. I know Dan Bartlett will remember. I was brand new Deputy Press Secretary and I don't even think that President Bush knew my name, really. And Bartlett asked me, could I sit in on this interview that was set up with David Ignatius? And I said, "Sure. What do I have to do?" He said, "Well, I'm gonna come to the pre-brief in the oval office. I'll do all the setup and you just have to sit there, call it time when it's over, and then, tell me everything that happened." "Okay, I've done that before, I can do that." So I get to the Oval Office at the time. And then as Bartlett's explaining to the President what's gonna happen, the President says, "Wait, I'm not doing an interview with him." And Bartlett says, "No. Yes, we are. Remember, we're just gonna do interview." And he's like, "No. I said I'd talk to him. I'm not doing an interview with him." He's like, Bartlett is like, "Yeah, but he just got back from Iran." He's like, "Yes, but I don't wanna do an interview because then he'll write about it and it will look like I'm trying to negotiate with the Iranians through David Ignatius, and I'm not gonna do that so I'm not doing it. And therefore, she doesn't need to be here." And he looked at me and tilted his head like, "Get out of the Oval Office."

33:36 DP: So I just sort of slinked out of the Oval Office, and I went back to the slope down to the press secretary's office, and they had those pocket doors at the time. So I closed the pocket door and I called Peter and I was kind of tearful. And he's like, "What happened?" I said, "I just got kicked out of the Oval Office." And he said, "Why?" And I told him the story. He said, "Well, just think, for the rest of your life, you can say, I've been kicked out of better places than this."

[laughter]

34:02 S1: So one last question, we like to put people on the spot a little bit. You're on a microphone all the time. It probably feel like 24/7. But what's the one question that you never get asked that you wish you would?

34:15 DP: So I listen to the Strategerist... So I kinda had an idea this was coming. I've been really upset with myself 'cause I can't think of a good answer. [laughter] The Five has been on eight years. We do all these shows on Fan Mail Friday. I feel like there's nothing. I think people know everything about me. They know I go to bed early, they know... My life's kind of an open book, and I just really love our fans. They're wonderful and everywhere, and hilarious and they think they're our friends, which is really good.

34:47 HA: Let me pose it slightly differently. What is something that people are not talking about that you think they should be?

34:55 DP: Well, a year ago, when I was asked a similar question, I had just come from an event about human sex trafficking. It is shocking, the numbers. I know that the Bush Center is well aware of it, but, I don't know if people are aware just how pervasive it is. And there's a young woman who worked in the Bush Administration who is affiliated with a group who is doing work with the NFL.

35:24 HA: Oh, Michelle Parazo.

35:25 DP: Michelle Parazo. So she helped organize something with us, so that on the 2 o'clock show I was able to interview some NFL football stars. We did an event with Major League Baseball. I think that is an issue. I feel like... Here's the thing I would ask everybody just to remember, this goes back to the Bible so it's not like it's any unique thing, but it is something you have to remind yourself over and over again, is that, especially in the age of social media where everybody's life looks perfect. Everyone's got something going on, everyone suffers, everyone's... And most... For most people, 99% of people, they're trying their best, and life is pretty hard. We have it so good here in America. We have the power to fix a lot of things, I don't know if we have the will to, but we can fix a lot of the problems that we have right now in our country, whether it be homelessness or mental illness, we... I call it... We did the surge. We can fix a lot of these things and being optimistic about solving them, I think, is probably what I wish people would focus on a little bit more.

36:36 S1: Well, that's the perfect last word. Dana, thank you so much for the time you spent here with us today.

36:39 DP: Thank you.

36:39 S1: And also tonight, moderating the Highland Capital lecture in for Niall Ferguson and Ian Bremmer. Dana, again, thank you so much. Be sure to listen to her on her podcast, Perino and Stirewalt. I'll tell you what, catch on the Five, which is at 5:00 Eastern, 4:00 Central on FOX News, the Daily Briefing at 2:00 Eastern, 1:00 Central, read her books. Am I missing anything?