Leadership Notes #66
Interview with Jessica Tarlov
Jessica Tarlov is a liberal co-host of The Five on FOX News, the most watched show in cable news. In addition to co-hosting The Five, Jessica plays an integral role in special coverage for the network and is a fixture on election nights and for breaking news. She also co-hosts the podcast Raging Moderates with NYU Professor Scott Galloway and previously worked as a Democratic pollster and researcher specializing in GenZ and Millennial trends. She holds a PhD in political science from the London School of Economics. Dr. Tarlov is the author of I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends.
A condensed transcript of PGLF Virtual Leadership Series at CIED, Georgetown
Potolicchio: Why did you get into the disagreement business in the first place? And do you think we can actually change minds?
Tarlov: If my mom were here, she would say that I've been in the disagreement business since I was born, that there was this desire to push and pull and enjoy the back-and-forth, even on the most contentious levels, since I was a kid.
I set myself on a journey to build the right skills to get where I wanted to go. It turns out that where I wanted to go was to sit at a table with four conservatives with very different political points of view than mine, and have tough conversations with them in front of 3.7 to 4 million people on a daily basis. There was a combination of nature and nurture that came from important people in my life and from the types of teachers, colleagues, friends, and relationships that I could build to make sure that I had the right skills to go into battle and come out, most of the time unscathed, but most importantly, with my relationships intact.
Potolicchio: The most powerful person on the planet, President Donald Trump, tweeted about you (this was not the first time doing so): “Why does Fox News allow failed TV personality Jessica Tarlov to “soil” The Five? Her voice, her manner, and above all else, what she says, are a disgrace to television broadcasting [...] Nobody can stand Tarlov!”
In March 2026, he followed that up by calling into the show saying that you should be fired. A month later, in April of 2026, he said that you were “one of the least attractive and least talented people on all of television.”
I apologize for quoting the President here, but the question is, how can your experience (and resilience) help us become more effective at dealing with the slings and arrows of criticism?
Tarlov: I write about this in the first chapter of the book called “Taking Shit from the Most Powerful Man in the World.” Donald Trump's criticisms can actually be understood on a very normal, schoolyard bully level, putting aside the idea of actually losing your job. He also de facto made me into a protected class when he did that, which I don't think was his intention when saying, “Fox executives, take note: you should fire her”. Obviously, that was not going to be the case.
Letting myself fully feel the impact of his words and criticism, the online onslaught that comes from it, has been really important to me since he started criticizing me, 5+ years ago.
A lot of people don't like to give in to that and publicly talk about the pain that's associated with it, the feelings of lack of worthiness, the connections between the criticism and things that you are concerned about yourself.
One of Donald Trump's superpowers is that he knows where to hit you. In another post, he writes about my “jittery presentation” and that my voice is “unendurable.” I think about my voice a lot. I have a millennial vocal fry; my dad used to say that I croaked. I went to a voice coach for a while before the Founding President of Fox News told me that I had to stop seeing a voice coach, because in TV, and I think you can extrapolate this to any job where you are giving public remarks or commanding a room during a presentation, you want people to know that it's you and you need to be distinctive more than anything else. I think that became even more true as we moved into this creator economy where everyone is working on their personal brand, whether it's on TV or social media.
I write in the book about how I actually just started sobbing when I took in that first criticism (you read from Trump). My husband didn't really know what to do, because on the one hand, it's laughable or funny at this point that the President, who is in the middle of a Middle East war, is wasting his time tweeting about you or posting on Truth Social. But he quickly realized that I actually needed a supportive and loving relationship, not the guy telling me: “Don't you get that this is a good thing? You have all these very powerful people texting you ‘badge of honor’, ‘a hero of the resistance,’ etc.” I really needed to be held.
That vulnerability is really important to lead with. I've cried multiple times on air, in talking about the passing of my father, which was very emotionally tough, and also in discussing news stories that really hit home, especially if it has to do with kids. Leaning into the vulnerability and taking stock of the validity of the criticism as a core tenet of it, and then trying to take a step back and actually putting various types of criticism into the relevant boxes is something that I have been working on and have gotten pretty good at.
Donald Trump has his own box, for sure. You have people in positions of power in your life, a boss, a colleague; then you have an online onslaught, but that sometimes doesn't matter. The internet can come for you at any time if you are wading into topics, especially contentious ones. Probably the toughest category of criticism to deal with is from friends and family, from well-intentioned people, who say something that strikes a nerve or is particularly painful.
I write about all of this in the book, about the different ways to ingest it and how much you can get out of it. I actually interviewed Hillary Clinton about this specifically, as she is someone who fields criticism for a living as well, though she has obviously had a very different job than I do. She had this great line about how “criticism shouldn't matter that much unless it comes from somebody whose phone number you have.” It only matters if it's someone that you could actually reach out to and have a conversation about it. It is also about how conscious we have to be about the fact that criticism can be misinterpreted, especially when it's made in a public forum and how you have to get to the root understanding of what the person meant. Those are big words to live by, no matter the type of criticism that you're getting.
Potolicchio: This is Dr. Tarlov writing: “Zeroing in on people's vulnerabilities is Trump's superpower. Staying true to myself and refusing to be intimidated is mine.” You're in front of between 3 and 5 million people daily, you're getting attacked by the President of the United States. Recently, you were just one meter away, and you could touch the Vice President while you were delivering a completely opposing view to the one he has. Do you have any takeaways from your career for how we can master spontaneous speaking or how we can have the confidence to make that difficult presentation?
Tarlov: It's been a thread throughout my career and I write in my book about how having a data-based worldview is the strongest set of tools that you can have in your arsenal when you're having any kind of conversation. That also includes admitting when you don't know something, which is sometimes the most important thing that you can do. It also includes taking a step back from an argument or a disagreement and really processing what the other person is saying, then going away, researching it and maybe coming back with a better point of view there.
Being a data-based person is core to who I am. You mentioned I have a PhD from the London School of Economics; I worked as a pollster, then I was the chief researcher for a huge women's lifestyle digital media company focusing on Gen Z and millennial trends. I live and breathe a statistical framing of a story. I think data-based storytelling is the most piercing way that you can tell a story, especially as a woman who is going to get interrupted more on average. We are going to feel more criticism than men on average. It was Ben Shapiro, the conservative commentator, who said that “facts don't care about your feelings.” I totally agree with that and that's why I use my facts as much as I can.
The pairing of facts and data with humanity is really core to what I do. It was very core to that day when I sat next to J.D. Vance for an hour and talked about everything from the war in Iran to dating trends, because the show that I'm on, The Five, really spans the gamut that way.
I have found that leaning into humanity and personal connection before you wallop someone with a data-based rationale for your point of view has elicited some of the best conversations and, frankly, disagreements that I've had in my career. Especially if you're doing this in a public forum, if you are going on TV, for instance, when you think about how the viewer is going to take in what you're saying, that humanity part is perhaps the most crucial element. Social sciences refer to it as “cognitive scaffolding.” The way that you frame your argument is core to its ability to succeed. If it begins with an olive branch or some piece of personal connection, you are going to be wildly successful in whatever you're talking about.
Potolicchio: There's a professor at Harvard, Julia Minson, who talks about “influence” as being somebody who other people want to listen to their ideas. I think this is something that you've done incredibly successfully. I got a lot of grief for teaching in the Russian Federation. Why are you there? Aren't you in some ways whitewashing or laundering the reputation of the Russian Federation? You're getting this too from both sides. You have Republicans who disagree with your political positions, but then you have Democrats who are saying that just by appearing on the most famous cable show in the United States that has a conservative bent, you are legitimizing the MAGA or Fox News. Why do you do that? Why are you on this television show? What's your argument for being there?
Tarlov: This idea that we are the deciders of what's legitimate or not is ludicrous at this point. You can either get in the arena or you can sit on the sidelines. I'm not interested in sitting on the sidelines. I want to win elections. I want to represent the Democratic Party in a way that doesn't make us seem out of touch, elitist, or disconnected. It has been a process for me to come to grips with the fact that we are more likely to be a center-right country than a center-left one. That's how I felt until a few years ago.
You could break down where you should be on fiscal policy versus social issues, but I think that it is just such a wasted opportunity, not only for me, from a career perspective but in terms of the opportunity to persuade millions of people to at least open their minds. I don't say that my goal is to change minds, though that would be nice. If you get some more votes for people that are going to do good things in office, that's fantastic. But I really just want to open minds to the fact that there is someone with a political viewpoint and a set of values who believes in policies that might run up against your beliefs, but who is rational, who is fact-based, and who, most of all, is kind.
It's a very cool and humbling position to be in, to be “their liberal.” That's what I hear from Fox viewers all over the country. This is a fun anecdote that I write about. I was in the bathroom, in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, and a woman called out to me from another stall, “Jessica, is that you?” It helps that my voice is so distinctive that she definitely knew that it was me. When you meet people who are watchers of The Five or conservatives who have seen clips of me flying around, it's never hostile. I wouldn't know how obsessed liberals are with politics versus conservatives if I didn't work in a conservative environment. It has totally changed the way that I see the political landscape. It hasn't made me less of a fighter, of an advocate for my worldview. I think that's a big draw and continued rationale for why I want to work at Fox, and people are following suit now. It used to be only a few liberals who wanted to come on Fox. They mostly wanted to come to be able to package a takedown that they could explode on social media, like the Pete Buttigieg Fox Slayer persona. Democratic electeds and influencers are all desperate to get on. They want a clip because everyone wants to build their brand, but they also want to be modeling a type of discourse that feels familiar to people from your real life. There is no one that lives in an ideological silo anymore. The 2024 election was the big lesson where young voters, Latino voters, and increased numbers of black men voted for Donald Trump. You might have thought you were living in some kind of bubble, but it was not what you thought it was.
I love being on the front lines of that discourse and also the transformation in American politics and media.
Potolicchio: To quote what someone wrote about you, “You're sharp, but not cruel. You're analytical, but accessible. You're principled without finger-wagging.” In terms of your efficacy, which I think is in large part about your relationships and being part of the fabric of a community of people who disagree with you, you have these great tactical pieces of advice for us. I really like the idea of regulating before you respond, a strategic pause when someone says something that gets your blood pressure up, or acknowledgement without acceptance allows you to maintain your principles while understanding where other people are coming from. I think your book is a survival manual in a hyperpolarized world. Can you give us some other tactical advice? How are you able to accomplish that? Why do you think you've had such success? I know you've written about how people that are on the front lines of MAGA are writing you love notes and sewing mittens for your kids. What's the advice that we can take away in our day-to-day lives?
Tarlov: You would look at this book and the title of it, “I Disagree! Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends,” and if you know me, that probably came from social media, where you've seen clips of me flying around, pushing back against my colleagues.That all has to do with my voice and the way that I talk and how I articulate my arguments. But of equal importance is also how I listen, and how I communicate in some unspoken ways with the conservatives that I'm in a relationship with. These cues that you are sending out into the world, they can certainly feel when they're in the room with you and the viewer can as well. The unspoken connection that you have fostered and continue to work on is something that we can all employ in our lives, well-timed, in moments of affection where, for instance, you put your hand on somebody's arm. I even did it with JD Vance, I don't know if I was supposed to touch the Vice President, but I was preparing to call him out for being pretty duplicitous in his beliefs, shape-shifting into who we see now, since he used to think that Trump was America's Hitler, and now he thinks he's the second coming. It really transformed the moment into something that was light and also so cutting. It was just fascinating to see the online reaction to it, since even the right liked it, because it didn't feel cruel.
I think about the “you don't have to be cruel to be compelling” line. We all miss that a lot, even in our personal relationships. I've gotten outreach from some folks who have read early copies, that the way that I think about these tough conversations has made them reevaluate times when they have gone too far in their personal relationships, because we're all so desperate to win. Winning comes in very different forms. One example that has been particularly resonant with folks who have looked at early drafts of the book surrounds what happened on air after Charlie Kirk was murdered last September.
We all knew Charlie Kirk, my colleagues were much closer with Charlie than I was, but I had a decent relationship with him and had seen him just a month before, when he was so generous and warm with me. It was the day I was interviewing Hillary Clinton, she was going to join me on my podcast, Raging Moderates, and he was so thrilled for me that I had gotten this insanely cool booking and was reminiscing about how obsessed I was with her in the 2016 election.
Fast forward to Charlie's murder, this was obviously a global story, Donald Trump was saying we're at war. My colleagues were saying we're at war. I made sure that I scaffolded my comments and talked about what an enormous loss it was, how political violence had no place in our society and needed to be rooted out, and also that the data does not back up what the right is saying about who commits the majority of political violence. It is unequivocally the right. The left has been doing it more than they used to and they should stop. But there's no both-sidesing of this, this is a right-wing problem. One of my colleagues, Greg Gutfeld, absolutely exploded at me for four minutes straight. It was venomous and it was personal. Usually, we try not to say things like Jessica or Greg. You want to get a general criticism or point. But this was all Jessica. He realized and apologized on air and we spoke off air about it.
But at that moment, I really thought about what I was supposed to do and what I was witnessing. Because this isn't someone making a personal argument. This was watching someone live grieving for their friend. Would you sit in a funeral home and say, “But you know that most of the violence is coming from the right?” Or would you be quiet and kind? I chose quiet and kind, which helped me a lot with my colleague and the audience in understanding this enormous moment in American politics and the future of how political violence, which is on the rise, is treated. That's really core to what I argue in the book and what I live by: what you don't say is as important as what you do say.
Potolicchio: What's the question you hope to get on this book tour and what's the answer to that question?
Tarlov: At the end of each chapter, I have a “tips box.” If you wanted to skim the book like a business book, you could do that too. You've mentioned some of them like regulating before responding, the cognitive scaffolding, the law of large numbers to think about things in averages, not in anecdotes. The questions that I'm hoping to get are actually the ones about your life. I want to know what's tough for you because I have a very particular set of disagreements that I have with folks about politics. I have them in this hugely public forum, but the lessons, the tools and the practicality of these skill sets are so applicable to a fight that you might be having with your spouse, an issue with a parent, something that's going on at school with your kids. I had to use these skills to deal with my child’s pre-K teachers. I want people to understand that what I do, they're doing it too. We are living aligned lives, essentially, at this point. These tough table conversations that we're having at the table on The Five are the same as your dinner table.
That feeling of community is so important and certainly part of the American project, but now the global project as well, where the politics are basically the same everywhere: The rise of the far left and the rise of the far right and how do we find ways to come together.
Potolicchio: Who will be the 2028 Democratic nominee?
Tarlov: If I was picking today, I'd be in a very Jon Ossoff mood. He might just be a Vice President candidate. I think what is most exciting is that we don't know at this moment and we haven't had an open primary. We should have one on the right as well; it will be fascinating. It’s very good for the country to get to see a bunch of people and actually pick who they like.
Potolicchio: I'm pairing your book with another book. What book is that?
Tarlov: Mika Brzezinski's book, “Know Your Value.” It's the book that I was thinking about when I thought I should write this book. She co-hosts Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough, who's now her husband. The book starts with this massive debacle, frankly, when she figures out that she's being paid a ton less than Joe, even though it's a co-hosted show. It's Morning Joe, not Morning Joe and Mika, but Mika is a big part of it. She writes about how you build the strength and the tools to get out there and to ask for what you're worth. That's particularly hard for women to do. If there's a job listing on LinkedIn, if a man sees 10% of the qualities that he's got, he's like, “I'm applying for it.” If a woman sees it and she's got 90% of the things that they're asking for, she's like, “I don't know. What if they ask me about the other 10%?”
Potolicchio: What gives you hope? What are you optimistic about?
Tarlov: I'm optimistic about all of you that signed on from all over the world to chat about how to disagree better in your lives. I have loved seeing how international the problems and the challenges that we're facing in our lives are.
Then, also, my kids. Watching little people grow up and what incredible sponges they are and how good and kind they are born. The nature part of it that we're seeing is fantastic, and then, all the ways that we mess it up with the nurture part when we make bad decisions as parents. The next generation gives me hope and optimism. Those are my two.
Potolicchio: Quentin Tarantino on Jessica Tarlov: “She has the hardest job on television and they all kind of like her. She's kind of amazing. I think that's one of the hardest jobs that there is out there.”
When you were at Bryn Mawr as an undergraduate, the age of many of the people on this call, the icon was Katharine Hepburn, who you write in your book was “elegant, sharp, unapologetically original.” I think these words all apply to you, Dr. Tarlov.