White House Correspondents Insider

On Wednesday, September 7, the White House Historical Association presented the official portraits of former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, painted by Robert McCurdy and Sharon Sprung, respectively. 

The portraits, commissioned by the White House Historical Association, and the artists who painted them were introduced during a White House ceremony hosted by President Joseph Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden and attended by President and Mrs. Obama.

Since 1965, the White House Historical Association has acquired and commissioned official portraits of the president and first lady. 

According to the Association:  “As is the custom, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama selected the artists before leaving office. Now that the portraits have been presented to the public, they will hang in the White House and be inducted into the White House Collection.”

“The White House Historical Association is honored to continue the tradition of funding these portraits,” said Stewart D. McLaurin, President of the White House Historical Association. “It’s a career achievement for the artists selected for these important commissions, and they are now forever a part of White House history.”

Simultaneous to the presentation of the portraits, McLaurin, who hosts The White House 1600 Sessions podcast, released a new episode featuring an exclusive conversation with artists Robert McCurdy and Sharon Sprung, discussing the challenges of this unique historical assignment and their approach to creating the portraits.

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski today announced Jon Banner as the company’s new Executive Vice President and Global Chief Impact Officer.

In the announcement, Kempczinski states, “Jon is the perfect leader to oversee our Sustainability & ESG, Government Relations and Public Policy, Communications and International Corporate Relations functions, as well as Ronald McDonald House Charities—building on the momentum of the Impact function as we strengthen and protect our reputation around the world.”

Banner previously spent 10 years at PepsiCo, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, where he was responsible for the communications function and the PepsiCo Foundation, and worked closely with the company’s Sustainability and Government Affairs teams.

Prior to PepsiCo, Banner spent the majority of his career at Disney/ABC as the Emmy Award-winning Executive Producer of “World News Tonight” and “This Week.” 

In this new role, which is based in Chicago, Kempczinski adds, “As McDonald’s continues to focus on driving admiration and trust with all of our stakeholders, I will look to Jon to provide the leadership required to bring our purpose to life in the nearly 40,000 communities where we live, work and serve.”

In an exclusive report from Vanity Fair, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery today released the list of presenters for the seven public figures who will be honored at the Gallery’s 2022 Portrait of a Nation Gala on November 12 in Washington, DC.

VF reports: “The biennial tradition began in 2015 and spotlights individuals doing transformative work across industries. During November’s celebratory gala, each recipient’s featured portrait will be revealed to them. ‘It is important to honor and celebrate the people who are making a difference and inspiring others,’ said Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery.”

Sajet continued, “The presenters, each of whom have a special relationship with the honorees, help us to offer meaningful thanks to this year’s awardees for their significant contributions to our nation.”

Here is the full list from VF: 

Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president of Emerson Collective, will present a portrait to New York Times best-selling author and founder of World Central Kitchen José Andrés.

Fifteen-time Grammy Award–winning artist and entrepreneur Alicia Keys will present to fellow Grammy winner and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Clive Davis.

Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson will present a portrait to Emmy, BAFTA, and Peabody–winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay. 

Former First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton will present to Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president emerita of the Children’s Defense Fund. 

David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co-chairman of the Carlyle Group, will unveil the portrait of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president.

Co-CEO and president of Ariel Investments Mellody Hobson will present to 23-time Grand Slam champion and entrepreneur Serena Williams. 

And together, Sonya Haffey, principal of V Starr, and Isha Price, CEO of Price Consulting Group LLC, will present to Venus Williams, entrepreneur and winner of seven Grand Slam titles.

The White House Historical Association released a new episode of The White House 1600 Sessions podcast with “American Storyteller Bartlett Sher” hosted by Stewart McLaurin. Together they explore how one of our nation’s greatest storytellers uses theater to explain and illuminate stories of American history.

In this episode, Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, and Tony Award-winning director Bartlett Sher discuss the portrayal of the White House and iconic moments in history on the main stage. 

“Here in Washington, on any given night, you have White House staff, members of Congress, policymakers, leaders in every sector, in a theater audience,” said McLaurin. “What they’re seeing has to have an impact on their thinking, and they apply these things to what they’re going through in their own lives.”

Sher details the process of putting together a story to share with others, and what audiences can take away from his productions.

“Looking for those stories which tell us something about who we are, especially American stories, and bringing them to audiences so they can read, reconsider them, look at them freshly, is one of the tasks of my work,” said Sher. “It’s one of the great accomplishments of my work when I can pull it off.”

Next spring, Sher will direct a revival of the musical Camelot on Broadway, in another collaboration with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy said Camelot was JFK’s favorite musical, and after his death, the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable came to symbolize the Kennedy administration.  

Sher says the new version of Camelot allows Sorkin “to intersect his ideas and interest in the roundtable and democracy, and the struggles of Arthur to make it a special new place” against the ideas of how to make a musical and how to ramp into songs. 

When asked by McLaurin what it is like to have a president of the United States in the audience of a play, Sher recalled then-President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama seeing his 2009 revival of playwright August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone on Broadway, and called the moment “extraordinary.”

“When presidents have this close relationship to the arts, it allows there to be better, deeper discourse,” continued Sher. “I think it’s more powerful, and I think it’s really extraordinary.”

The White House 1600 Sessions is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

On Tuesday evening, Stephanie Cutter, Tammy Haddad, Alex Slater, Chris Meagher, Jen Psaki, Adrienne Elrod, Steve Neuman, David Axelrod, Susanna Quinn, and Mo Elleithee joined forces to co-host a party at the Hotel Hive rooftop to celebrate Lis Smith and her New York Times bestseller, Any Given Tuesday.

Lis told the crowd of politicos, Pete campaign alumni and media she wrote this book “to help 18-year-old women like her who want to get into politics, especially since there was no guidebook available when I made my foray into campaigns.”

Smith, who helped put then-South Bend Mayor Pete on the map, also shared people’s comments that her book is a short read with short sentences – something she learned from Stephanie Cutter on the Obama campaign. In the trenches, Cutter’s only comments or directions were always, “Two words: More. Direct.”

Guests included Chris Wallace, Chris Licht, Ben Smith, Robert Costa, Josh Dawsey, Daniel Koh, Jonathan Martin, Betsy Fischer Martin, Robert Draper, Kurt Bardella, Kristen Powers, Kris Coratti, Jeff Zeleny, Michael LaRosa, Jessica Dean, Eric Schultz, Matthew Hiltzik, Juleanna Glover, Bob Barnett, Steve Clemons, Adam Verdugo, David Chalian, Jesse Rodriguez, Ali Rubin, Ann Klenk, Ben Halle, Stacy Kerr, Lisa Allen, Nayeema Raza, Lucas Acosta, and Adam Green. 

Guests enjoyed &pizza and frozen margaritas.

Today, The White House announced the nomination of Dr. Colleen Shogan, the White House Historical Association’s Director of the David M. Rubenstein National Center for White House History, as the next Archivist of the United States.

In a White House Historical Association Press Release, President of the Association, Stewart McLaurin said “Dr. Shogan is an extraordinary leader who has helped achieve our mission, begun more than 60 years ago, to promote the understanding, enjoyment, and appreciation of the White House in a non-partisan and education-based manner. She is a terrific colleague with vision, integrity, and principal. She will be an incredible archivist of the United States.”

Click here to read more about Colleen.

Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova, NYU Langone Department of Surgery Chair and Transplant Institute Director Dr. Robert Montgomery, who traveled to Lviv, Ukraine to perform life-saving surgeries, and CNN senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, who has just returned from Ukraine reporting from the frontlines of the Russian offensive, headlined a fundraiser along with State Department Spokesperson Ned Price for journalists covering the war in Ukraine on Thursday evening, July 28 in Washington, D.C to benefit the international non-profit organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

“We have brave men and women who put their lives on the line to tell the story of our fight to the world at a very high cost. We already lost 37 journalists in Ukraine just during this time. We have people like Alex [Marquardt] who are coming back to the city of Kharkiv, which is a frontline,” said Markarova told the crowd. “Thank you so much to you and all your colleagues and all the journalists who are here. Really, you are as brave and as heroic as all the Ukrainians who are fighting.”

Co-hosts included Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb, Shane Harris, and editor Damian Paletta; NBC News Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor; News Media Alliance president and CEO David Chavern; Haddad Media CEO Tammy Haddad; ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl; New York Times correspondent Jonathan Martin, CBS News White House correspondent Steven Portnoy; MSNBC Host Stephanie Ruhle; and Axios Managing Editor Margaret Talev.

CNN’s award-winning senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, who was reporting from Mariupol, Ukraine on the day the Russian invasion began, has fearlessly led his network’s coverage of the war. “The resilience really was just stunning. And so, of course, was the journalism that has come out of Ukraine. I mean, we could not understand how historic and destructive this conflict is if we didn’t have people in Mykolaiv and in Mariupol and Luhansk and Donetsk provinces doing dangerous and difficult and expensive work,” said Marquardt. “There are countless freelancers, both international and Ukrainian, who need body armor. They need medical training, they need an Internet connection, they need financial support and eventually, they may also need psychological support.”

Famed transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery, chair of the Department of Surgery at NYU Langone Health and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, who risked his own life by traveling to Ukraine in May to perform lifesaving surgeries at the Lviv Transplant Center, and has since raised $280,000 for essential operating room equipment for the center. “To walk through those ICUs and see the mangled bodies and minds that have occurred as a result of this. I think if we could take cameras, into hospitals, I think people would feel really differently about a lot of the tremendous human tragedies that have occurred,” said Dr. Montgomery.

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A portion of the funds went to equipping and staffing the RSF Press Freedom Centers in Lviv and Kiev, where reporters covering the war receive protective gear such as bullet-proof vests and helmets, safety training and psychological support.

Speakers at the event included:

“When Russia invaded Ukraine, we immediately knew that we had to be on the ground providing solutions to people. And so within days, we were ready to launch the Press Freedom Center in Lviv,” said Weimers. “So the Press Freedom Center is a hub through which we can channel all of our support directly to journalists covering the story on the ground.”

“So what does that support mean? … It’s meant 577 bulletproof vests, 489 helmets, 252 solar, solar battery packs, 101 first aid kits, 219 direct loans to media workers, fixers, journalists, reporters, as well as 200 loans to our partner on the ground, the Institute for Mass Information. We’re also providing safety courses for both digital security and physical security while you’re on the ground and we’re starting to provide mental health support services as well.”

Notable attendees: Rep. Debbie Dingell, Rep. Joaquin Castro, former Rep. Jane Harman, Jen Psaki, Daniel and Amy Koh, Jill Zuckman, Jessica Dean, Liz Johnson, Amanda McClements, Betsy Fischer Martin, Adrienne Elrod, Ali Rubin, Heather Podesta, Carol Melton, Mariel Saes, Rachel Levitan, Kevin Latek, Dan Myers, Brian Walsh, Jon Decker, Tyler Pager, Robin Goldman,  Dietrich von Klaeden, Matt Kaminski, Genna Gent and Michael Gonda, Jon Banner, Kenny Thompson, Lauren Pratapus and John Legittino, Kevin Baron, Francesca Chambers, Andrew Bates, Sean Savett, Mariel Saes, Michael Wilner, Michael Moroney, Ted Johnson, Nazanin Ash, Mario Parker, Racquel Krahenbuhl, Holly Page, Laurie McKay, Jane Oates, John O’Leary.

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PepsiCo, McDonald’s and the News Media Alliance sponsored this event.