On Monday’s episode of Working, Slate’s Jacob Brogan talks to the Washington Post’s White House bureau chief. Juliet Eilperin has been covering the Obama administration since 2013, though she’s reported on a variety of other beats, including Congress and the environment. When Eilperin first began covering the White House, she was unsure about leaving the world of deep investigative reporting, but she soon began breaking stories about the troubled rollout of heathcare.gov. In this episode, Eilperin explains why her role now is so satisfying and how her understanding of the administration has shifted, especially as it enters its final months.

And in this episode’s Slate Plus bonus segment, Eilperin tells us about some of her early work and shares a few fascinating details from a book that she wrote about sharks.

Jacob Brogan: You’re listening to Working, the podcast about what people do all day. I’m Jacob Brogan. This season on Working, we’ve been visiting the White House, talking to some of the people employed there about the particulars of their jobs. This week we took a step back from the administration itself to chat with the Washington Post’s White House bureau chief, Juliet Eilperin. A former environmental reporter for the Post, Eilperin made the jump to her current beat back in 2013. And she’s been covering the Obama administration ever since.

She talked to us about everything from the challenges of covering a story in an environment where security is the rule, to the strangeness of having the president mispronounce your name when he calls on you during a press conference. We also chatted with her about what she tries to capture in her articles and about some of the stories she’s proudest of. And in a Slate Plus extra, Eilperin, who wrote an entire book about sharks, tells us some of her favorite details about those ancient predators of the deep. If you’re a member, enjoy bonus segments and interview transcripts from Working, plus other great podcast exclusives.

Start your two-week free trial at Slate.com/WorkingPlus.

What is your name and what do you do?

Juliet Eilperin: My name is Juliet Eilperin, and I’m the White House bureau chief for the Washington Post.

Brogan: So what are your responsibilities as White House bureau chief?

Eilperin: First and foremost, it’s to cover the president and to capture for the Post readers everything from the policy that he and his aides are making, to how he’s experiencing major world events. His personal life. How the institution of the White House itself has changed.

And then separately part of my job is to coordinate coverage among our team. I am our main liaison to the White House, which means that frankly whenever they’re generally upset about anything that a Washington Post journalist has done, I’m the first person they contact. And also if often when my colleagues need something from the White House, I kind of am that in between person.

In addition to that, things that no one on the outside sees, including helping to do our pool rotations along with another colleague from the New York Times where we make sure that whenever the president travels there are journalists going with him from the print media who are covering him. Just, you know, sort of odds and ends.

Brogan: What led you to writing and reporting in the first place? How did you end up at the Post?

Eilperin: Well, if you want the real origin story, it goes back to high quality ice cream that was being given out for free on my college campus when I started. It was the open house at the Daily Princetonian at Princeton University, and I care a lot about high-quality ice cream.

I wouldn’t have come frankly if it had been frozen yogurt or some inferior ice cream. It was Thomas Sweets to be more specific.

Brogan: So it was really high quality.

Eilperin: It was high quality. So, that was what lured me originally. But, obviously the more serious interpretation of what happened was that I really enjoyed covering decisions made by people in power and saw how they affected people’s lives.

And that in the microcosm of my college was the college administration. I actually covered the president and the vice president and decisions that they made. And saw what impact it had on students. And so that’s really what got me interested in pursuing it as a career.

Brogan: So you started with presidential administrations, administrations, and you’re back to one now, but before that you were an environmental reporter.

Eilperin: Yes. And I covered Congress. Really launched my political reporting career is I joined Roll Call newspaper in December of 1994, right after Republicans had won control of both chambers, and it was a fascinating time to cover politics in Washington.

And I focused on Congress, first for Roll Call, then for the Washington Post, which I joined in the spring of 1998. And did that for several years. Got really burned out covering political dysfunction, begged for a job change. Ended up covering the environment, which was very satisfying, and I did that for nine years.

Brogan: You wrote a whole book about sharks, right?

Eilperin: I wrote a book about sharks. My first book was about Congress and why it was messed up.

And my second book was the much more inspiring tale of sharks and their journeys around the world.

Brogan: How did you end up on the White House beat?

Eilperin: The managing editor asked me to switch to cover the White House, and I, with some trepidation, agreed to do that.

Brogan: Why trepidation?

Eilperin: Partially because I really had enjoyed covering a substantive beat like the environment, and I thought it was important and interesting and I still had more to explore and write on that beat. Also, because, of course, there are plenty of stereotypes about White House coverage and the idea that you’re sitting around—it’s difficult to break news. You know, all the things that people say.

And so for that reason it was tough to give up something that I felt was very satisfying and switched to the unknown. But I’ve actually really enjoyed it more than I would have thought.

Brogan: Can you say more about those stereotypes? Has that proved true?

Eilperin: I think there’s certain parts of it that do prove true, which is certainly by definition there are many things that take up a huge amount of time when you’re covering the White House that means that you’re not spending time doing as much independent reporting and digging.

And so, for example, when you have to attend the daily briefing, or monitor it, when you’re traveling and there’s so many logistics involved in that. All of those things, you’re around other reporters a lot of the time. And those things put constraints on your ability to do investigations. At the same time, I think that by doing as much reporting outside the White House, and developing as many outside sources as you can to tell you what’s happening on the inside, that’s really the way that you’re able to figure out what’s going on.

Brogan: Were you already credentialed with the White House?

You’re wearing your badge. A press badge right now.

Eilperin: I am wearing my badge because I came straight from the White House. But, you have to go through a Secret Service check, which takes several months. During that time you have to go through a fairly laborious process of submitting your name every night so that you can get in the next day for when you need to go. And they actually theoretically monitor how often you’re showing up to see if you deserve a White House press pass.

And then once you get it, you have it for a couple years.

Brogan: Do you dress differently on a day when you’re going to go to the White House than you would otherwise? Does even going through security affect whether or not you choose to wear a necklace like the one you’re wearing today?

Eilperin: I generally wear jewelry, so often I will set things off. We don’t go through—I should clarify—it’s not exactly the same thing that you go through in an airport.

Brogan: It’s still a metal detector.

Eilperin: It’s a metal detector. And I set it off regularly.

Although, oddly sometimes I don’t. But generally I try to dress up for the White House. So, I prioritize dressing up over whether or not I’m going to have to be waved once more to check to make sure that there’s nothing that I shouldn’t be bringing in there.

Brogan: Does everyone dress up when they go to the White House do you think?

Eilperin: Pretty much. I think that’s more the standard than the exception. I think it’s rare, for example, there might be an exception with the folks who operate TV cameras and things like that.

I think there’s very little expectation that they have to dress more formally on a daily basis. And they are there day and day out. And there’s probably a different standard for folks who are appearing on TV and folks who are not.

Brogan: How much time do you actually spend at the White House itself?

Eilperin: Less time than you would think. So, it really depends on what’s called your duty week. We have a rotation where at a week at a time one correspondent is responsible for really anything that comes out of the White House. So, during that week, you do need to be there at least during theoretically the daily briefing, which happens once a day in the middle of the day.

For that, you know, I’ll be showing up regularly, and then occasionally, again, I might have interviews with folks in the White House itself. We have a very small cubby-like desk at the White House. I mean, there’s constrained space for everyone, including the media. And so it’s really not an ideal workplace. We don’t have a hard line there. And I just really try to only be there if there’s some actual event at that moment that requires that.

Brogan: Do you have internet there? Can you work at all when you’re operating out of that space?

Eilperin: We often have to use a hotspot to work during the briefing itself. There is no Wi-Fi, so you use your hotspot if you’re actually sitting there and someone is at the podium.

Brogan: What are your hours like? Do you have a set schedule?

Eilperin: I have a fairly set schedule.

When I’m on duty, it can really change. But I tend to get into my office a little around 9, a bit after that. I’m working on stories. I might have already put something up online. I certainly start responding to emails that matter very early in the morning, as soon as I’m up. And then I’m kind of working throughout the day. On a usual day, I actually leave at 5:30. I have small children, and so I file in time to make that personal deadline, which matters a lot to me.

And then I’m essentially offline for a couple hours. And then I’m back online, and usually doing a great deal of work once my kids are asleep.

Brogan: Those weeks when you have the pool responsibilities, what is the sort of daily briefing like? What’s the kind of scheduling? What’s that experience like?

Eilperin: That is one of the great challenges of covering the White House, which is that the daily briefing, first of all, is always late. Sometimes it’s 15 minutes late. Sometimes it’s half an hour late. Sometimes it’s close to an hour late.

Brogan: Do you know why it’s so erratic?

Eilperin: It really has to do with internal White House processes. The press secretary is being briefed on various things that might come up at the briefing. There are certainly many meetings that are happening that we don’t know about. But for whatever reason, this is not something that happens on time. Despite the fact that it does not happen on time, you need to be there at the appointed time, which they tell you late the evening before.

So you always have a sense the night before what time theoretically the briefing is going to start. And, again, it usually is anytime between 12 or 12:30 and 1:30 is when it starts. The Kansas City Royals came to the White House recently. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, is an unbelievable Royals fan, and he scheduled the briefing for 10:15 a.m. just so he would have exactly enough time to get to the official welcoming ceremony for his home team.

So, again, we don’t control that briefing schedule, and they certainly make it work for them. But that briefing often takes an hour and a half. And during that time you’re in your seat while the press secretary is answering questions from the press. And for the most part, the briefing is something that the networks need very much and the wires need. And there are always inevitably questions that they need to ask. It is less important for other media outlets. And, in fact, there are often journalists who go there regularly and don’t ask questions, but you still need to see what they’re talking about for the issue of the day.

And there’s periodically an effort to see if we could take a briefing one day a week, two days a week off-camera, because it would be shorter.

Brogan: Because there would be fewer questions from the networks and such?

Eilperin: Just people would not have to ask the same question over and over again so they get the press secretary answering their specific question, or what have you. And basically there would be a push to go back to the way it used to be done. It’s probably impossible and will never happen, but it essentially takes up a tremendous amount of time and generally does not deliver huge news value.

But it does also speak to the fact that people need to—you know, you never know what’s going to happen on a given day. And you certainly want the White House to be available for you.

Brogan: Yeah. I was in the briefing room once. I was surprised by how much it looked like the briefing room looks on television.

Eilperin: Exactly. They have those replicas—really, they do a spot-on job.

Brogan: What’s the atmosphere like when you’re waiting for it to start? Are people talking to each other? Does everyone have their heads down?

Eilperin: People are generally chit-chatting a little with each other.

We have assigned seats in the press briefing, which I think is kind of interesting. I sit in between the New York Times and NPR and like all those people on both sides of me, in addition to the folks in front and behind. And so often you tend to be talking most often to the people who are near you, but there can be back and forth with people who are sitting in different areas. Sometimes we’re emailing with each other, or again, trying to get other work done while we’re waiting for it to start.

We also get something that’s called a two-minute warning. So, while you will be sitting around and waiting for the briefing to start, generally you’re doing that at your desk. And then you get a two-minute warning. So then there’s this very small time that you’re sitting there before the press secretary walks in.

Brogan: Has anything ever surprised you in those briefings?

Eilperin: That’s a good question. I think that there have certainly been times where there’s been a back and forth between the respective press secretary and a journalist that can be kind of entertaining generally. There are times when they make announcements that matter.

It’s rare that the press secretary would say something that would shock you. And the president almost never stops by the press briefing unannounced, but it does happen on occasion. So certainly that can be surprising.

Brogan: What are you listening for, if not for all of these boring questions that the TV people ask?

Eilperin: I’m always looking for statements that shed light on how the president is thinking about an issue. What is really interesting about, I would say, you know, the role of for example the press secretary is that person does spend a tremendous amount of time in the president’s presence.

And so as a result, they tend to be pretty good at channeling what in this case President Obama is thinking. And so sometimes you just look for on kind of a sleeper issue how do they talk about something. And then there are times where you go in with an agenda. You want to ask something about either the news of the day or something else that you particularly are working on, but that’s always a tricky issue.

Eilperin: Because if you ask a question about the story you’re working on, you better be turning it around pretty quickly, because everyone else hears the question that you’re asking.

Brogan: Once the press conference is done, what’s your process? Do you rush back to the Washington Post to start writing? Or do you go seek out other sources?

Eilperin: Well, it really kind of depends on the day. You almost always have someone who is backing you up in the office itself, and so when there’s a press conference, it can be one of a few different areas—it could be in the briefing room itself, it could be in the Rose Garden if the weather is nice.

It could be in the East Room of the residence. So, basically there’s usually some time where it takes you to get back to your desk. And then you might go— usually you need to do—even though someone has backed you up, you might want to do some initial writing to kind of reflect what happened. And then, generally, I would head back to my office and get a sense of outside perspectives, figure out whether we’re doing an analytical take of what’s happening, things like that.

Brogan: Do you ever interact directly with the president himself?

Eilperin: It is very rare to have direct interaction with the president.

And my understanding is that’s also become maybe in some ways less common later in the administration. Maybe he did it a little more in the very beginning. But that is definitely one of the challenges. There are occasional times, for example, where on Air Force One when you’re traveling on a trip, particularly if it’s an overseas trip, on the return flight there are times when he’ll come to the back of the cabin and he’ll speak off the record to the group of journalists who happen to be on that leg of the flight.

And because we rotate who is on Air Force One, there’s no guarantee even if you’ve traveled all the way to Asia or Latin America or wherever it is that you don’t get to talk to him. But there are times when that’s happened. So, in terms of the most frequent interaction I’ve had personally with the president, it’s in the context of him coming to the back of the plane.

Brogan: Does he know the names of people in the press corps?

Eilperin: That is an excellent question.

He knows the names of the reporters who covered him during his first presidential campaign and are still around, or have covered the administration from the very beginning. I would say, for example, he does not know my name. He might at this point. It would be interesting. And I’ve asked, for example, he calls on reporters at press conferences. And he has your name and he has a pronouncer for your name. I have a difficult last name. And there is one time that he has gotten my name right, which made my father particularly happy.

There are other times when he’s mispronounced it, and it’s been painful.

Brogan: We’re going to find that footage and edit it in.

Barack Obama: All right. I think this is going to be our last question. Juliet … Allsprin, here you go.

Eilperin: Thanks so much …

Brogan: Can you say your name for us again?

Eilperin: Eilperin.

Obama: Allsprin.

Eilperin: It’s spelled differently, and that is the true challenge.

Brogan: You’ve been listening to Juliet Eilperin, the Washington Post’s White House bureau chief. In a minute, Juliet tells us about the challenges of pursuing stories in a security-conscious environment. Is there a community of other reporters on this beat?

Do you interact with people from other publications and such?

Eilperin: Yeah. You definitely spend a lot of time with your counterparts from other institutions. Where it happens the most is usually on the road. That essentially you’re doing trips with the president and there’s a group of you that’s traveling and certainly there is that. And that is nice. I mean, again, there are kind of benefits and downsides to that, because you don’t often get scoops when you’re surrounded by your peers from other publications. But the flip side is I have a great deal of affection for a number of the other White House reporters, and they’re a good crew to spend time with.

Brogan: When there’s a breaking news event, and the president is going to—say the Pulse shooting in Orlando, how do you figure out what the White House is going to say, when they’re going to say it, what way you need to cover it?

Eilperin: That, of course, it totally depends on the situation itself.

But one thing that we’re highly dependent on is what I mentioned was the pool, which is essentially a system which is really maintained by journalists so that someone every day is physically near the president when something is going to happen on duty, whether he is in town or whether he’s out of town. And, for example, that person is a point person who then can communicate things like that, who can send out an email saying the president has been briefed on this.

This is what we’ve just learned from the White House. Or, head’s up, off-the-record, it looks like there will be some statement at some point. Things like that. I mean, sometimes those communications come directly from the press office, and they might give us some warning about something like that. But that is one way that we can have a fairly quick communication system of what’s going to happen. And so then you at least have a sense of how he’s responding to it.

Brogan: How often do you have more direct interactions with someone in their office?

Eilperin: You know, it really depends.

For example, I’m working on a couple of long-term stories now where I’ve had a number of face-to-face interviews with senior staffers just in the last week. I’ve had at least four. But that, I would say, is sort of unusual, particularly to have them in their office. I mean, also things are pretty hectic, you know, in our day-to-day operations. And there’s a lot of times when you would just do that on the phone. It just depends on what you’re working on.

Brogan: How do you set conversations up? Do you reach out to the people directly, or does everything pass through the press office?

Eilperin: For the most part, things pass through the press office. There are occasional times that you certainly can reach out to someone via email and you might talk to them on the phone or have an email exchange. But if you’re going to see someone in person, that is almost inevitably done through the press office.

Brogan: Does that obligation to pass through the press office change the kind of relationship that you can develop with a source?

Eilperin: Certainly.

I mean, there is a level of control that’s exerted by the press office in the White House that’s different from most institutions. Certainly, one of the best comparisons would be Congress, which I covered for ages. And there it’s not that you wouldn’t often go through the press office, but you could also have a direct relationship with members. Some of them, and again, it’s kind of changed over time with technology, but there are members who are fine with you texting them, you know, emailing them directly and not going through their press person.

And certainly there are other people who work in their office where you would never think you could just email the chief of staff. You wouldn’t go to the press secretary and say, “By the way, can I email your chief of staff to ask a question?” Whereas it would be highly unusual to email Obama’s chief of staff and ask a direct question. You know, one of the great things I always thought about Congress is it’s just so much more fluid, and you can bump into people. You’re not going to happen to bump into the president as he’s walking down the colonnade. That’s just not a scenario that would unfold.

Brogan: How do you negotiate the kind of off-the-record/on-the-record background stuff? Is that ever an issue?

Eilperin: It’s a constant challenge to negotiate the terms of our discussions. And, you know, it really kind of depends. Of course, the default of the White House is they often really don’t want officials quoted if it’s not the president. And they will talk about, you know, we’ll do this interview and it’s on background, meaning you can refer to it as a senior administration official, but you have to come back to us with quotes that you want approved.

Certainly, that’s not a great position to be in. There are times when one decides that it’s worth doing that in order to have someone speak frankly. The Post has a policy, for example, we always have to explain why someone wants to be anonymous. There are times when as a group we try to push back, where they might do a briefing and say that it’s going to be on background. I think this happened recently with a briefing that I think involved a policy measure having to do with cancer. And essentially it was going to be on background.

And a group of us started emailing about why wouldn’t this be on-the-record. They’re just explaining a policy that they’re pursuing. They’re going to get on the phone with a lot of reporters. And so we pushed—

Brogan: When you say you group, you mean you and other reporters from other publications?

Eilperin: Other reporters from other publications. And so, again, that’s why—it’s interesting, when it comes to transparency there is this collaboration that goes on between outlets. And so essentially a few of us emailed, communicated with the White House, and by the time that briefing actually took place, it was on the record.

Brogan: So how do you get away from all that then?

You talked about developing sources outside of the White House. What is that—you don’t have to give up your secrets, but what does that involve?

Eilperin: Exactly. Without divulging my top secret sources. Well, I would say that first of all, so, part of that entails, again, working directly in my office or outside the White House where you have time to meet with people in person, you’re talking to them, you’re emailing with them. One thing that is challenging I would say about covering the White House is on a certain level you’re a generalist. On any given day you could be covering domestic policy issues, foreign policy, a military question.

I mean, there’s just a huge range of issues that you have to cover because the president’s portfolio is so vast. And the White House is dealing with so many issues, depending on the day. At the same time, you clearly develop expertise. I covered the environment for years. I’m extremely well-plugged-in to whether it’s the environmental community, the folks who are regulated by agencies, whether they’re oil producers or coal folks or what have you.

And so those are certainly resources that I tap into when I want to figure out what’s going on. One really interesting example I would say that happened recently is that the president held this highly unusual four-hour listening session with a group of folks to talk about policing reform in the wake of obviously the deadly shootings that we’ve had both of motorists and civilians and police officers. So that was this four-hour closed-door conversation that he had in a room with a huge slew of people.

I believe it was something like 33 people from around the country who came in for that session. And it ended late enough that it was very difficult to do a meaningful story that would make the paper, but a colleague of mine, Wes Lowry, and I divvied up the list of people and reached out to a number of them. And we managed to connect with a third of the folks who had been in the room. And we had fascinating discussion with them about what it was like to be in this room, which was highly emotional, highly charged, but also an incredibly frank discussion of the problems of race and policing in this country. And what was interesting is we wrote a story of what it was like to be in that room.

And that’s the kind of journalism that I like to produce. That I feel like is not something that somebody else has done. That really sheds light on the president in this moment on a social issue that we’re grappling with. And one of the things I thought about after it was over is that so much of the time when you’re talking to folks, almost everyone in the room directly works for the president of the United States. And it’s much more liberating to report when there are people who don’t actually work for the president. And so that’s kind of part of what I think one always has to work to do.

Brogan: How else do you reach out to people who don’t work directly with the president?

You would talk to former administration people? Policy experts?

Eilperin: Absolutely. It’s a whole range. Certainly, and that’s one thing—I’ve only covered this administration in its second term, but I think there’s certainly something that’s easier about covering a second term, because you have people who have been on in the inside who are now outside but are still in touch with their colleagues. And that can always be a resource. You certainly have policy folks who are working on some of these issues and they are often interacting. So you’re always just kind of trying to do a map of who are the people who are talking directly to folks making decisions. What are the documents that are being exchanged?

Are there ways to get a hold of those? You know, what are other ways you can kind of capture what’s happening without directly going to the White House and asking for them?

Brogan: How much freedom do you have to push back against their narrative?

Eilperin: I think it really depends on the issue. And that’s why you always need independent sources of information. An example I would give of the time that I felt that I had the best negotiating position with the White House was with the failed rollout of healthcare.gov. And that was a time where, you know, things were a total mess. This was a huge priority for the White House.

Brogan: That was early in your time there, too, right?

Eilperin: Yeah. Exactly, it was fall of 2013.

And I teamed up with a fabulous colleague of mine, Amy Goldstein, and we broke a number of stories of what was wrong about the website and how it had been kind of improperly launched. And we had just a number of sources outside that gave us great information. At certain points it was documents. Other times it was things that we were briefed on. And while it was a very difficult time in my relation with the White House, they also had to recognize at some point that if our facts were right, they had to answer our concerns and address it.

So, it really depends. And that is always your best option. You know, there are certainly, I should say, there are absolutely times when they do give you information that you need. And so it’s not like that never happens, but certainly when you can say I already have the information of what’s going on, so it’s your choice whether you cooperate, but I’m going to tell you that this is what we’re proceeding to write. That often is an area where you can kind of push back against whatever the official narrative is.

Brogan: Does that help you get a faster response when you have some leverage?

Eilperin: You know, I have to say, they are really fairly responsive in terms of time.

I mean, there are incredibly grueling hours that people put in there, and I’m sure that their rate of responsiveness when it’s a major news outlet is quite fast compared to some of my colleagues who don’t work for as big of a media organization. But they don’t just blow you off. That really almost never happens. And, frankly, I’m just stunned that they have almost no down time because they are constantly having to respond to a larger and larger media landscape.

At the same time, when there are really serious constraints about how many people actually work in the press operation for the White House.

Brogan: You’ve been covering this beat since 2013. Has your sense of the administration, of its tone, of its style, of what matters to it changed over that time?

Eilperin: Yeah. Well, first of all, I would say that you just simply get to know a place better and the people who work there. And so ideally you have a richer understanding of what motivates them and how they think about them.

Also, while it’s extremely frustrating that you don’t get quality face time with the president, and you’re not really having frank conversations with him on a regular basis by any stretch, because he speaks publicly so often, and because he expresses himself quite well, you just can pick up things about how he views the world and how he views the issues on his desk. And, again, you also get to talk to the people who work for him.

So, I think that that has helped inform and maybe change my understanding of it. And I would also say that the administration has gone through different phases. When I started covering them, it was an incredible rough patch for them. Kind of everything was going wrong and people were quite demoralized. And so that was one face of the administration and I really felt like I got a handle on that. And then after the midterm elections when he decided to really change his strategy and do more things unilaterally, it ended up in a different, you know, in a different mindset.

And so that’s also—there are rhythms and moods to administration. And that changes over time.

Brogan: So, do you think their tone is changing as they approach the kind of last six months or so of the presidency?

Eilperin: I think a little bit. I mean, certainly, you get more of a sense of a couple of different things. That time is running out and they’re really rushing to get stuff done that they want to. They obviously are more relevant than other presidents and administrations at this stage, but there is a lame duck feeling that certainly pops up from time to time.

Whether the briefing doesn’t have that many reporters in it, or not as many people are traveling. Things like that. So, there are all these ways in which you feel like it has entered a different phase I’d say.

Brogan: What was the hardest part of the last few years?

Eilperin: I mean, I feel like there have been different points. I feel like there was certainly a period, for example, when I was covering the botched rollout of the health care website where it was fascinating from a reporting perspective, and I felt like I was doing really important and meaningful work.

And I was getting yelled at on a regular basis, and that’s really tough.

Brogan: Who was doing the yelling?

Eilperin: The White House officials. I mean, you know, particularly in the press office. So, I would say the press operation has gone through different phases. And there was a period, particularly again toward the beginning of my time, even before we reached that stage of health care, where they were more combative and there was no question that there were moments where you would either get incredibly harsh emails or people would communicate in a way that was just really difficult.

At the same time, you know, I would say that there are times where it’s just pretty exhausting. There are moments where, you know, either there are kind of tragic events you’re covering, including mass shootings, or there’s just a barrage of news that you have to keep up with. And that is obviously challenging in its own way.

Brogan: You said earlier that sometimes you will have to deal with a story upsetting them. Do you have a sense of what upsets the White House? Of which kind of stories set them off?

Eilperin: I think there are a range of things. And I think one of the interesting things that is always really difficult to know is when the president is angry about a story. It’s very rare that you can pinpoint that. But I think there’s certainly nothing that is more of a trigger than the president being dissatisfied with a story.

I think that there are things that they tend to be—it kind of depends on, first of all, who is the person in the press office that you’re dealing with. I mean, just broadly speaking, they don’t like being accused of not being transparent. That is something that comes up that certainly you can get real pushback when you do something that talks about transparency, because they would argue that they’ve done a lot, and most journalists would say this is not the most transparent White House.

Brogan: What’s it like to realize that the president himself is disappointed with something that you wrote?

Eilperin: I don’t know of a good example of that from this administration.

When I was covering the environment, and I wrote about the extent to which the George W. Bush administration was not listing species on the endangered species list. I eventually ended up doing stories that showed that there was an interior administration official who was changing the scientific findings in some of these cases, who ultimately had to step down. But earlier, I think before those stories came out, I had done a story comparing George W. Bush to not just Clinton, but his father, and this wasn’t even a front-page story, but it ran.

And someone from interior called me up, a career official, but someone who is quite sympathetic to the current president, who said how I had gotten him in hot water. And we talked about it. And this was by the book. This was numbers. It’s kind of you couldn’t argue with it. And his response when I said why are you so upset, and I had consulted with them, and they had commented, and he said, “The big guy at Pennsylvania, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., is upset about it. And I’m getting yelled at.”

And that was a really interesting moment of feeling like that’s what happened. That is why you are freaking out right now. Because when the president is upset about a story, there are ramifications that certainly reverberate far beyond 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Brogan: Do you have a sense now of how the White House itself functions within?

Eilperin: Yeah. I think I have—I mean, it’s hard to say. Because there are parts of it that you have a lens into, and there’s a part that you don’t. But you definitely get a sense over time of what’s the management style of, for example, the current chief of staff, Denis McDonough, the fact that it’s certainly less chaotic and fractious at this point than it was in the first terms.

I think, you know, most people would say that that’s the case. And that’s interesting to kind of see how White Houses go through those stages.

Brogan: Do you think that’s because they’ve found their own footing? Or is it something about the changing political climate?

Eilperin: I think it’s a combination of that over time, of course, they are better at knowing what they want to do. I think the president has a better sense of what he needs and expects for the people who work for him. And I also think interestingly not only were we obviously in a crisis, an economic crisis, when he took office, and so there were all sorts of imperatives that came with that.

But, frankly, they engaged with Congress more in the first term. And so there was this outside element to it. Whereas because it’s so difficult to get anything passed at this point, almost every major policy initiative that the White House is focused on is something that they manage internally in the White House and in the agencies. And I think that that probably gives them a level of control that they didn’t have over their day-to-day existence, and over what they’re doing that probably has eased some of the tension that happened in the first term.

Brogan: Do you expect to stay in this role as you move ahead, as we look toward the next administration?

Eilperin: As we look toward the next administration—

Brogan: Whoever that might be.

Eilperin: Whoever that might be. I am planning to stick around for one or two years, and then I think I would switch.

But I think it would be very interesting. Some of the best White House reporters are ones who have covered more than one administration. And I think it would be really interesting to see what another administration is like.

Brogan: What do you think is gained from those shifts from one administration to the next?

Eilperin: I think that you get a better—you get some sort of benchmark that somehow you are able to understand how one person is operating because you can compare them.

My best example, and I’m biased because I’m a personal friend of Peter Baker from the New York Times who had been their chief White House correspondent and is just about to embark on going overseas, and he has covered multiple administrations. And I felt that it lent a depth to his coverage that he could—sometimes he was dealing with a similar issue, like fighting terror, or dealing with Iraq, but also even if he was dealing with a totally different crisis or policy issue, the fact that he could see in his mind’s eye how Bill Clinton or how George W. Bush dealt with it, it allowed him to think about Barack Obama in a different way that I think is hard to do if you’re not having that perspective.

Brogan: For now at least your career has in some ways come full circle. You started out covering administration issues at Princeton. And now you’re covering them in the United States. How does it feel to have taken that loop of a journey?

Eilperin: It’s fun. I think that there’s something, you know, they’re obviously extremely different. But there is something satisfying. It goes back to what I said before, which is that for all the downsides and the headaches that come with covering the White House, you’re covering someone who is making decisions that affect not just American lives, but people across the world.

And to be able to have a sense of that and how that works. And try to get a sense of what that person is like is pretty satisfying. And I always think back. I actually was very casually dressed at times when I interviewed the president and vice president in my college days. And I look back at that with some chagrin. So, at least I’ve upped my game on that front.

Brogan: You’ve got a few months left with this administration, whatever else is ahead. What do you want to learn?

What do you want to do in the time that you have left with them?

Eilperin: I want to look at a whole slew of things. I want to look at some of the unfinished business and what does that mean. I want to get a sense of how he’s thinking about his post-presidency. Try to capture—I try to capture from time to time the culture of the White House, and I’d like to still do that, because I think those are really interesting stories, kind of in the way that your podcast I think captures the culture of the White House.

Those are things that I like and I think that give people a way in to understanding what is a really important place, but not in the most predictable way.

Brogan: If our listeners were going to go read one of the stories that you’ve done in the last few years that you’re especially proud of, or you think was especially revealing, or meaningful, or important to you in whatever way, what would you want them to read?

Eilperin: I wrote a few stories. But I would say one of them was a story I wrote about being in the press pool on the day of Beau Biden’s funeral. And what that was like, covering that incredibly personal moment, but in the context of covering the White House.

And I don’t usually write in first person, and that was much more personal than what I usually do. I wrote a story about a wonderful man named John Ficklin who in the past year has stepped down from being a senior staffer on the National Security Council, who is part of a long line of Ficklins who have served in the White House, but he was the first person who is not a member of the residence staff, but was a policy person.

And it really showed the arc of history. I think those are the stories that are the most meaningful to me when I can kind of capture the arc of American history through this White House.

Brogan: Wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Eilperin: You’re very welcome.

Brogan: Thanks for listening to this episode of Working. I’m Jacob Brogan. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the podcast. Our email address is Working@Slate.com. We read those emails and we’d love to hear from you. You can listen to all seven seasons of Working at Slate.com/Working, including the other episodes of our time at the White House.

Special thanks this week to David Plotz, who helped us set up this interview, and thanks to Efim Shapiro. This series was produced by me and Mickey Capper, who also edits the show. Our executive producer is Steve Lickteig. And the chief content officer of the Panoply Network is Andy Bowers.

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This is a special Slate Plus extra.

Brogan: So you wrote an entire book about sharks.

Eilperin: Right.

Brogan: What is your favorite shark fact? Do you have a favorite thing about sharks?

Eilperin: There are many fabulous things about sharks. I’m always a fan of the cookie cutter shark, which is a relatively small shark, but it teams up with other cookie cutter sharks to chomp larger animals and does it in a circular cookie fashion.

Brogan: Like in a cartoon when sharks form themselves, a bunch of tiny sharks, into the shape of a larger fish?

Eilperin: Not exactly. But basically they can attack from below. So, those are some of my fun sharks. I also think there are sharks like spiny dogfish that have super long pregnancies.

And I think people don’t think of sharks having to suffer through long pregnancies, but the spiny dogfish, they’re pregnant for more than a year, and that’s tough for them. So those are a couple of mine.

Brogan: There’s a kind of metaphor, right or wrong, that would encourage us to treat or talk about politicians as sharks. Do you think that that holds? Do you learn anything from studying sharks that applies to your work in Washington?

Eilperin: Well, you know, it’s interesting. Well, I guess one thing is there’s this stereotype of sharks as loners. And some of the top sharks are that way, but actually many sharks we now understand kind of need to spend more time together than we would think, but I would say generally you don’t think of politicians as being by themselves.

You know, I generally think of—sharks, what’s amazing about them is that they’ve been around for so long and that they’re so incredibly adapted to a range of environments that they are the ultimate survivor. And I think that I guess while you can make that to some extent, that comparison, about politicians, I would say that often politicians are not quite as perfectly suited to their environment as most shark species are.