Office of Public Engagement - Obama Presidency Oral History

Back

Office of Public Engagement

Index / Organizations

Transcripts

Bess Evans

...director of public engagement at the Office of Public Engagement [OPE]. We're speaking today via Zoo...
...at the Office of Public Engagement [ OPE ]. We're speaking today via Zoom [vide...
...to talk about both your work with the OPE in particular, and with the OSTP. I ha...
...but I came over and was dual hatted in OPE . So I was doing the public engagemen...
... So then, you go on to work at the Office of Public Engagement . At that point you come in, it's th...

...the second term—is that right?—to the OPE . Yes. I wanted to ask about ho...
...that we weren't doing that we, as the Office of Public Engagement , needed to use our position in th...
...that was the art, I think, of the Office of Public Engagement . And making sure that folks had thei...
...the building. I was dual hatted in OPE during my OSTP days, working on th...
...on healthcare. So, from my post within OPE /OSTP, I worked a lot with the highe...
...come on and do that work full time in OPE ; leave OSTP and do the healthcar...
...no one is doing mental health in OPE in a formal way—” we sort of pieced i...
...of collaborative environment within OPE that allowed us to have multipl...
...these issues. Did that start with the Office of Public Engagement , or were you encountering these issue...
...even if you weren't the person in the Office of Public Engagement or in the policy shop that worked o...
...made the transition from OSTP to the Office of Public Engagement to lead all of our health work broadly...
...be a part of. Part of that role in the Office of Public Engagement was being the White House contact an...
...Aniskoff, who was the director of the Office of Public Engagement at the time, to say there has been ...
...Affairs, which is a sister of OPE , the FBI [Federal Bureau o...

Valerie Jarrett

...did a lot of outreach as a part of my Office of Public Engagement to people who we called real people wh...
...and our job, central to the job of the Office of Public Engagement , was to make sure that it was trul...
...had a voice within the White House. My Office of Public Engagement was set up to make sure that we wer...
...were there ways that heading both the Office of Public Engagement and the Office of Intergovernmenta...
...advisors or folks who had headed the Office of Public Engagement or the Office of Intergovernmenta...

...of Marriage Act in Smelt v. US. Did the Office of Public Engagement reach out to the LGBTQ communit...
...of the White House, the organization of OPE , the organization of the West Wing...
...of a Pyrrhic victory in my view. Did OPE have a role in engaging with th...
...Did you engage with them through OPE about cap and trade? Yes, absolutely...
...disrupting the status quo. How does OPE decide when to seek engagement wit...
...Part of what our offices did, both OPE and Intergovernmental Affairs, was t...
...additional constituencies that OPE , for example, wants to reach out t...
...leaders. How did that happen? Through OPE ? Or some other mechanism? Yeah. On...
...One of the responsibilities of the Office of Public Engagement , and mine in particular, was to reac...
...going afterwards. We, through the Office of Public Engagement , truly tried to listen to people, mak...
...many reasons why I loved overseeing the Office of Public Engagement is because it was the vehicle throug...
...to the president and director of the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, and wa...
...of Intergovernmental Affairs and the Office of Public Engagement and chairing the White House Council o...

Tina Tchen

...you about your directorship of OPE [Office of Public Engagement] and als...
...you about your directorship of OPE [ Office of Public Engagement ] and also about being Michelle Obama'...
...a lot of themes having to do with the OPE today, and just touch down on the chie...
...the front door of the White House, the OPE , establishes a dialogue that we reall...
...there was no outreach person, like an OPE -type person. There wasn't an “Obam...

...people figured I would be good for the OPE job later on. But that tension, ...
...he was reading the text, and he said, “ OPE ? Really? That's the initials?” I said...
...what we're going to go with.” And OPE now just trips off the tongue, becaus...
...used to it. They saw the value of it. OPE , after I left in those later years...
...staff. At the time, as director of the Office of Public Engagement , I was a deputy assistant. There'...
...meet with us. That was our job as the Office of Public Engagement . But this particular group we woul...
...my responsibility as the head of the Office of Public Engagement to fill the East Room with the righ...
...well. Brian Bond was my deputy in the Office of Public Engagement , and he also owned the LGBT portfolio...
...And it was [unclear] team, and us, my OPE team, the national security team—th...
...working on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, both OPE teams and domestic policy. Cecili...
...the line. It started when I was in OPE , and then it continued when I becam...
...when people would come to me as OPE director, wanting to light the Whit...
...staffers. So one junior staffer in OPE and one junior staffer in the Office o...
...had sort of a little celebration with OPE staff over on the old balcony of th...
...any other things you want to say about OPE while we're still on this subject tha...
...as we got more adept—and I think the OPE team together with the communication...
...Instagram, and Snapchat. But I think OPE really did that. And the team...
...was really tough. And you would have— OPE , again, they were responsible fo...
...to do that. And I had been doing OPE for two years already, which is kind o...
...the time to perhaps do something about OPE , but more importantly, her [Michell...
...and others was an ongoing role of OPE , so if somebody needed somebody t...
...who did both women's outreach in OPE and was the deputy for the White Hous...
...who was an additional staff person at OPE , put together the United State o...
...through that first year, both with my OPE hat and my Council on Women and Girl...
...in the White House. That started in OPE , and then as we started the Council o...
...Lierman, at the time, was working in OPE on these issues. We wanted to d...
...about the transition between the OPE and the East Wing. But first, who firs...
...me a little bit, because obviously in OPE , I was deeply engaged in everything. ...
...House, because that was our job at OPE , was to have our fingers in nationa...
...We had actually organized for her from OPE . There was an initial gathering o...
...we had put together for her as OPE , and ran. And I was in the Eisenhowe...
...president, as I had been as director of Office of Public Engagement . Bill elevated the job to assistant t...
...sorry. Yes, no, that changed. In the Office of Public Engagement , I only attended the eight thirty, an...
...some of it is a tension between OPE —and I experienced this on the OP...
...OPE—and I experienced this on the OPE side, too, which I think that it helpe...
...I think that it helped that I had that. OPE will come up with some great idea fo...
...plan an event—and I had started it in OPE , and we continued it over in the Eas...
...get everybody around the room. If OPE is building the crowd, you've got t...
...that I really had never done before. At OPE , I think I maybe did one trip tha...
...then making sure, like I did in the OPE , if there was a meeting happening o...
...Lierman, who at the time worked in the Office of Public Engagement , was there. He and I looked at eac...
...all the different agency folks. The Office of Public Engagement helped us reach grassroots folks. W...
...that––Kyle Lierman, who was in the Office of Public Engagement , Kyle did a lot of the celebrity wor...
...the first two years, when I was in the Office of Public Engagement . And then when I became chief of staf...
...a lot of time with Kathleen first in my OPE role, because we did a lot of work i...
...role, because we did a lot of work in OPE of gathering all of the variou...
...that I used to go to in my role at OPE , when we were trying to figure out—an...
...That was one of the things that my Office of Public Engagement , I'm very proud of. Everybody on tha...
...do you— Kareem Dale, who was in the Office of Public Engagement and worked there for a good period o...

Load more Transcripts

Office of Public Engagement - Obama Presidency Oral History

Transcripts

Related Topics