White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of one of the most powerful clubs in America.

Connie Milstein Hosts Jeremy Bernard and Lea Berman, Former White House Social Secretaries, to Celebrate their New Book Treating People Well

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Jeremy Bernard, Judith Light, and Lea Berman at The Little Owl, photo courtesy Haddad Media

 

Jeremy Bernard and Lea Berman, two former White House Social Secretaries, celebrated the publication of their new how-to book on civility and etiquette, Treating People Well: The Extraordinary Power of Civility at Work and in Life, at a party hosted by Connie Milstein at Greenwich Village’s Little Owl townhouse on Wednesday, January 10th.

Jeremy Bernard served as President Obama’s Social Secretary from 2011–2015, and Lea Berman served as Social Secretary for the George W. Bush White House from 2004–2007.

Actress Judith Light, a friend of Bernard’s, wowed the crowd with her welcome remarks and a glowing review of the book saying, “This may be the manuscript that changes the world.”

Jeremy Bernard and Lea Berman Book Party Treating People Well 1/10/18

Lea Berman said of writing the book with Jeremy Bernard, “I expanded my horizons by writing this book. I came with him to Morning Joe, and he came with me on Fox News.”

Legendary gay activist David Mixner toasted the authors, noting the importance of civility and inclusion.

Helping them celebrate were notables from Washington, New York, and LA including Wayne Berman, Alice Berman, Deesha Dyer, Robert Colacello, Thomas Roberts, Jonathan Capehart and Nick Schmit, Robert Zimmerman, David Adler, Ryan Williams, Tammy Haddad, Nan Graham, Kate Lloyd, Hudson Young, Hildy Kuryk.

You can purchase the book on Amazon here.

Connie Milstein, Kristi Rogers, and Rachel Pearson’s Inaugural Salute to the Senate on the Eve of Inauguration

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Connie Milstein toasts the Senators, Haddad Media

The spirit of bipartisanship was in the air at The Jefferson hotel on the eve of the inauguration. Many of the city’s top media stars, politicos, and diplomats, came together Thursday, January 19 to toast the Senate. Hosted by Connie Milstein, Rachel Pearson, and Kristi Rogers, this event was a rare evening as multiple Senators including Tim Kaine, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Coons, Bob Corker, Deb Fischer, James Lankford, Gary Peters, Mark Warner, and Hawaii’s newest Senator Brian Schatz. House members included Maryland’s Dutch Ruppersberger and Michigan’s Debbie Dingell.

Rachel Pearson and Kristi Rogers lead the toast which celebrated the efforts of everyone in the room to end gridlock in Congress.

The diplomatic corps were well represented at the event. British Ambassador Kim Darroch and Claire Darroch, UAE Ambassador Yousef al Otaiba, German Ambassador Peter Wetting and Huberta von Voss-Wittig, and Australian Ambassador Joe Hockey.

Former House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers, now CNN contributor and radio host, Time Warner’s Carol Melton, Uber’s Niki Christoff, and Lafayette 148’s King Chong joined Steve Clemons, Jeremy and Robyn Bash, Raoul Fernandez, and Heather Podesta.

Washington favorites Kelley McCormick, Polson Kanneth, Melissa Moss, Holly Page, Daniel Lippman and his sister Nadia Szold, Greta Van Susteren and John Coale mixed with out-of-towners MD Anderson’s Dr. Ron DePinho, his wife Dr. Lynda Chin, and media writer Michael Wolff.

Connie Milstein is the proprietor of the Jefferson Hotel and the founder of Dog Tag Bakery.

Blue Star Families Awards Their "Angel" Constance Milstein

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On Monday, Blue Star Families awarded their long-time board member Connie Milstein with their prestigious “Angel Award.”

As a Who’s Who of philanthropists, veterans and civil-minded Washington leaders gathered at The Army Navy Club Ballroom, Milstein was surrounded by longtime friends and colleagues like Heather Podesta, Greta Van Susteren and John P. Coale, Doug Wilson, Kathy Roth-Douquet, other members of the Blue Star Families and Michelle Obama’s Joining Forces team of Tina Tchen, Col. Rich Morales and Tanya Bradshear were there. The “Angel” program also featured a special video tribute, featuring Father Richard J. Curry thanking her for all the work and effort she put into his program at Dog Tag Bakery, scheduled to open next spring.

Photos of the event are below:

[PHOTOS] The 2013 Preview of the Kennedy Center Opera Ball

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Washington National Opera Board Chairman Connie Milstein gathered opera for the kickoff of the 2013 Opera Ball held Sunday night at The Jefferson Hotel. The “Music of the Night” Party, which was providing a preview for the Kennedy Center and Washington National Opera’s 2013 Opera Ball, focused on the food and entertainment for this season’s performances.

Woven throughout the program were selections of “Phantom Of the Opera” from barritone Norm Lewis,star of “Scandal” and Broadway star of Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” performed three selections from “Phantom of the Opera” to a packed room of diners and Washington cultural society. Other performances included selections by Soprano Shantelle Przybylo from “La Bohéme,” “Rigoletto” from Yuri Gorodetski, “Edgar” from Javier Arrey and ending on “Music of the Night” with Norm Lewis reprising “The Phantom.” The guests for the affair ranged from ambassador to Washingtonian essentials like Jeremy Bernard, Kathleen Seibelius, Chairman of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees David Rubenstein, Ellen Tauscher, Grace Bender, Melissa Moss, Jonathan Silver and Bob and Ellen Bennett.

This year’s ball is a partnership between the Italian consulate, thanks to Ambassador Claudio Bisogniero and Mrs. Bisogniero, featuring a black-tie and commemorate the 200th birthday of opera composer Giuseppe Verdi and “The Year of Italian Culture.” The Opera Ball will end with a special performance from the Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program when it occurs on April 6th.

Photos: The Daily Beast Bipartisan Brunch

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Over the Inaugural, The Newsweek Daily Beast Company did the impossible in D.C.: they got both the left and the right to compromise. Not at the Capitol, however, but at Café Milano in Georgetown thanks to brunch. The “Bipartisan Brunch” went toe-to-toe against a luncheon hosted Google, Elle and Center for American Progress‘”Leading Women in Washington,” featuring leading women including the top elected representatives and ABC‘s own soiree at the Top-Of-The-Hay.

Hosted by Daily Beast Editor-in-Chief Tina Brown, Presidential Inaugural Committee Co-Chair Eva Longoria, The Weinstein Company’s own Harvey Weinstein, Mark McKinnon and Pamela Thomas-Graham. Why do it?

‘It was just absolutely time that the sharks and the jet had a party,” Brown told Yeas & Nays, making her way through the packed restaurant.’

Other notables include actress Rosario Dawson, Piers Morgan,Andrea Mitchell,Kerry Washington,Gayle King and more are just behind our slideshow.

More Photos from CURE Epilepsy's Key for the Cure 2012

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We’re looking at more photos from Friday’s Slash the ‘Stache announcement at CURE Epilepsy’s Key to the Cure 2012 event on Friday. Purple Strategies’ Alex Castilianos has put up his own mustache if CURE can get 500 more donors between now and January 1st. From the Ann Hand CURE pins to the red, white and blue jelly beans, the Key to the Cure was a great success.

How big? The Reliable Source got this from Connie Milstein?:

“Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. He looks 10 years younger.”

HuffPost’s DC Impact has a full set of photos from Friday’s reception ranging from Vice President Biden, Susan Axelrod, co-host Heather Podesta and more of the DC insiders.

Inside Ron Reagan Book Party

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Fred Ryan, President of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library; close friend and adviser to Nancy Reagan and the Executive Director of The Prince of Wales Foundation, Robert Higdon, a close friend of Nancy Reagan; former Reagan staffers and Washington notables gathered at the Jefferson Hotel in Washington, D.C. to celebrate the new memoir from Ron Reagan, MY FATHER AT 100. Connie Milstein, Tammy Haddad and Jon Meacham hosted the party. Here’s an excerpt from Jon Meacham’s interview with Ron Reagan.

Check out ronreagan1oo.com for more information about the book.

Gordon Brown’s D.C. Book Bash

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Gordon Brown, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and wife Sarah, were in Washington this weekend to launch his U.S. book tour. The Browns were greeted by top politicos, global financial leaders and media types at a stately affair held at the Jefferson Hotel. The party was co-hosted by long-time friends Connie Milstein, owner of the Jefferson Hotel and her husband, J.C. de La Haye St. Hilaire, and Tammy Haddad.

Brown charmed the A-plus crowd, including the Obama Administration’s David and Susan Axelrod, Austan and Robin Goolsbee, Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, Bill Burton and Laura Burton Capps, Stephanie Cutter, Bruce Reed, Eric Lesser and Katie McCormick Lelyveld, as he had a little fun describing his post PM life as well as giving his assessment of the global economy.

Here are Brown’s comments as reported by Politics Daily on AOL —

“In brief remarks, Brown — among the first world leaders to rescue troubled banks at home in 2008 — warned that “for the time in 200 years, America and Europe are being out-produced, out-invested, out-traded and out-exported” by other nations, and that the solution to the global crisis was to tap into a billion middle class consumers in Asia who in 10 years will have twice the buying power as Americans.”

Brown repeated that same message on ABC News “This Week with Christiane Amanpour” saying that while Asia and China had to consume more, “Europe’s got to reform its markets. America is prepared to invest in the future, while doing its fiscal consolidation. And that would mean, in my view, that you would have this exit strategy from a crisis based on high growth and high employment and not low growth and what I fear is high unemployment for a decade.”

The former prime minister — who earlier in his career spent a decade as finance minister — warned that the immediate danger “is that people cut back in education, which is vital for the future, that people cut back on their international contacts, because they think the solutions lie in national answers to their problems, when they lie in global cooperation. And I think the danger is, you have a ’30s-style protectionism where people relapse into currency wars, as we’re seeing, or trade wars or banning takeovers that have got cross-border ramifications, or simply a protectionism in of the mind, where anti-immigrant sentiment gets to the point that we’re not really talking to each other in a way that means that we have a coordinated world.”

A crowd formed around media celebrities including new CNN host Piers Morgan and his wife Celia Walden, Arianna Huffington and Glee’s Matthew Morrison.

Notables in the crowd: Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director of World Bank; Ambassador Capricia Marshall; Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell; Terry McAuliffe; Rima al Sabah, Bob Barnett and Rita Braver; Bruce and Bonnie Reed; Robert and Ellen Bennett; Hilary Rosen and Kate Harold; Sam and Danielle Feist; Dan and Rhoda Glickman; Shelby Coffey; Anita McBride; Sally Quinn; NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, and the BBC’s Rome and Amy Hartman.

“Beyond the Crash” is published by Free Press/Simon & Schuster.

Gordon Brown US Book Premiere

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Watch the Gordon Brown US Book Premiere Party hosted at historic Jefferson Hotel

Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, is celebrating the publication of his new book, “Beyond the Crash: Overcoming the First Crisis of Globalization” at an exclusive party this evening in D.C., with remarks expected by Gordon Brown, as well as co-hosts Tammy Haddad and Connie Milstein & J.C. de La Haye St. Hilaire.

WHC Insiders can watch the event starting at 5:30pm and see Gordon Brown’s remarks here on WHC Insider at approximately 6:00pm.

Update: If you missed the LIVE feed check out the video below:

Axelrod-Milstein Team Up for Epilepsy Research

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Hundreds gathered at the Newseum Wednesday evening to recognize the scientific work of CURE Epilepsy, raise awareness, and to honor 2010 Friend of CURE Awardee, longtime television producer and WHCInsider’s own Tammy Haddad.

Susan Axelrod, Chair and founding member of Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy, was on hand to mark the special occasion. Axelrod and Connie Milstein, CURE supporter and noted philanthropist, co-hosted the event.

Connie Milstein, a CURE board member, announced the Axelrod Milstein Challenge Grant. It is a $500,000 two-year program. CURE Challenge Grants are CURE’s most prestigious, and fuel the much needed research to find the key to the cure of this dreaded disease.

“Susan works tirelessly to find a cure for epilepsy and seizure disorders. Like many families across the world, the Axelrods live with this disease every day, but their work, their strength, and their optimism give hope to so many, as they fight and live for a cure,” said Milstein.

Susan Axelrod described the lack of progress and the difficult research road ahead:  “With so many troops returning from war with traumatic brain injuries and epilepsy, the need is more urgent now.”

Axelrod, along with her husband David, was desperate to find answers when their own daughter Lauren was diagnosed with uncontrollable epilepsy at 7 months old. Twelve years ago, CURE was founded by Axelrod and two other mothers around a kitchen table. Many members of the CURE family were on hand last night and gathered on stage for a group photo and greeted with a round of applause.

The room was a living tribute to CURE and Ms. Haddad, as devoted friends from both sides of the aisle raised a glass to what many have called a “force.” Haddad used her annual White House Correspondents Weekend Brunch to raise awareness for CURE after seeing Susan and Lauren Axelrod on the cover of PARADE magazine, and later on NBC’s The Today Show.

“I chased her down for weeks to get her to host the Correspondents Brunch because I wanted to help. Here was a chance to use a HUGE platform for an important message,” said Haddad. “What did she tell us? No parent, no child, no family — no person should have to suffer and experience the pain of epilepsy.  That is her goal…and since she is unstoppable we know she will reach that goal.”

Cabinet appearances by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, Dr. Howard Koh, NIH’s Story Landis and Dr. Tony Fauci.

The audience roared as a video roast of Haddad began with David Gregory anchoring a “Meet The Press” open lamenting the lack of agreement on anything in Washington except in friendship and respect for Haddad.  Also in the video: ABC’s Jake Tapper from the White House, Greta Van Susteren and John Coale.  Jon Meacham roasted the longtime network and cable news producer by reminding the audience that Christopher Buckley put her in his novel “Thank You for Smoking.”  Haddad’s former MSNBC’s colleagues, the “Morning Joe” team – Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Willie Geist, Mark Halperin and Harold Ford taking turns trying to figure out what award Haddad hadn’t won yet while praising her work for CURE.

The surprise ending was a song written and performed for Haddad by Glee superstars Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch.

Among those there to help celebrate: Rima al Sabah, the Kuwaiti Ambassador’s wife; British Ambassador to the US Nigel and Julia Sheinwald; AFT President Randi Weingarten; Tom Oliphant, Mary Louise Oates and Robert Shrum.

Politicos aplenty including Bloomberg’s Kevin Sheekey, Joel and Lisa Benenson, Jim Margolis, Susan Sher, Stephanie Cutter, Julianna Smoot, Dan Pfieffer, Eric Lesser and Jen Psaki.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard fresh from a Supreme Court appearance, along with crowd favorite Terry McAuliffe; Tony and Heather Podesta; Podesta Group CEO Kimberly Fritts and hubby, Marion Turner; Holly Page; Bruce Reed and Bonnie LePard.

Media biggies included Wolf Blitzer, Howard Fineman and Amy Nathan, Lynn Sweet, Betsy Fischer (producer of the surprise video), Andrea Mitchell, Gloria Borger, Roger Simon, Annie Groer and Hilary Rosen.

Both republican and democratic political operatives included Bob Stevenson, Jane Oates, Dan Meyers, Erica Elliot, Rich Galen and Tom Synhorst.

Designed by Jacquie Bloom, the Newseum’s Knight Center was aglow in CURE red. Guests enjoyed the pomegranate martini ice luge and the ice cream sundae bar.

CURE is in the middle of their Every Dollar Counts Every seizure Matters campaign.  To donate CLICK on CUREEpilepsy.org.