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Josh Earnest

From Deep Politics Wiki
 Josh Earnest  link
(Propagandist)
BornJoshua Ryan Henry Earnest
January 22, 1975
Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Alma materThe Barstow School,Rice University
Children2
SpouseNatalie Wyeth
PartyDemocratic
US Democratic Party worker, Press Secretary under Barack Obama.

Josh Earnest is a former White House Press Secretary.[1] under President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017. He succeeded Jay Carney as Obama's press secretary, in 2014, and was succeeded by President Donald Trump's first presidential press secretary, Sean Spicer. He then started working as Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for United Airlines.

Career

Immediately following college, he worked for Lee P. Brown during the 1997 Houston mayoral election.[2] Earnest was a congressional aide to U.S. congressman Robert Marion Berry, from 2002 to 2003 after working on Michael Bloomberg's first campaign for mayor of New York City.[3]

After working on Capitol Hill, Earnest worked for the Democratic National Committee, from 2003 to 2006, under both Terry McAuliffe and Howard Dean.[4] Earnest was communications director on Jim Davis' campaign for governor of Florida, in 2006. He moved to Iowa, in December 2006, to work as national communications director for then-Iowa governor Tom Vilsack's presidential campaign.[5]

He then joined Barack Obama's presidential campaign in March 2007 as Obama's Iowa communications director. After Obama's Iowa caucus victory, Earnest worked as a top communications aide in several primary contests including South Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvania. During the 2008 general election, Earnest was the campaign's deputy communication director.[6] After Obama was elected president, Earnest moved to Washington, D.C. and was the communications director for the presidential inaugural committee.[7]

Earnest started at the White House on Obama's first full day in office, January 21, 2009, as deputy press secretary[8] under Robert Gibbs. Later, Earnest was promoted and was principal deputy White House press secretary and chief of staff to Jay Carney, occasionally filling in during press briefings.[9]

On May 30, 2014, Obama announced that Josh Earnest would succeed Carney as the White House press secretary.[10] In July 2014, Earnest expressed support for Israel's "right to defend itself" during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict.[11] In an annual survey conducted by the Politico Magazine in April 2015, he was voted the most helpful press official in the Obama administration and the best White House press secretary by nearly 70 journalists,[12] a sign of the cozy relationship between the press and White House.

Earnest has worked as a political analyst and commentator for NBC News and MSNBC since March 2017.[13]

In May 2018, Earnest began working as Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer for United Airlines, based at their headquarters in Chicago.[14] He also sits on the Board of Advisors of Let America Vote, an organization founded by former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander that aims to end voter suppression.[15]


References