Daniel Pfeiffer


Howard Daniel Pfeiffer is an American podcaster and Obama White House staffer. He was the Senior Advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama for Strategy and Communications from 2013 to 2015.
Pfeiffer was a long-time aide to Obama, serving in various press and communications roles throughout his 2008 campaign for the Presidency, on his presidential transition team, and in the Obama White House. He co-hosts Pod Save America, a political podcast, with Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor. In 2015, Pfeiffer joined CNN as a political contributor.
Pfeiffer has written two books: Yes We Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump, and Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again.

Early life and career

Pfeiffer was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Vivian Lear, a learning specialist, and Gary Malick Pfeiffer, a financial officer for DuPont. He graduated from Wilmington Friends School and then magna cum laude from Georgetown University. He began his career in politics working as a spokesman for the Community Oriented Policing Services initiative of the Clinton Administration. In 2000, he joined the communications department of Al Gore's 2000 campaign for the Presidency.
Following the 2000 presidential election, he went to work for the Democratic Governors Association, and later worked for Senators Tim Johnson, Tom Daschle, and Evan Bayh. He served briefly as communications director for Evan Bayh's presidential exploratory committee.

Obama White House

After the 2008 presidential election, Pfeiffer ran the communications office for the Obama-Biden Transition team and was then appointed Deputy White House Communications Director after the inauguration of Barack Obama. Less than a year later, after the departure of Anita Dunn, Pfeiffer was named White House Communications Director. He remained in the role for the entire first term of the Obama presidency. At the start of President Obama's second term, Pfeiffer was promoted to Senior Advisor for Strategy and Communications, taking over most of the portfolio previously managed in the White House by David Axelrod and David Plouffe. He left the White House on March 6, 2015.

Other work

Pfeiffer was Vice President for Communications and Policy at GoFundMe from December 2015 to September 2017. Pfeiffer currently serves on the Board of Advisors of Let America Vote, a voting rights organization founded by fellow Crooked Media host Jason Kander.

Writing

Pfeiffer is the author of a #1 The New York Times Best Seller, '. In his first book, Pfeiffer tells the story of "how Barack Obama navigated the insane political forces that created Trump, explaining why everyone got 2016 wrong, and offering a path for where Democrats go from here."
In February 2020, Pfeiffer published his second book, ' In it, Pfeiffer outlines how Donald Trump became president because of the current state of American politics, not in spite of it. He also offers a plan for Democrats to win the 2020 election and how to prevent the likes of Trump from ever happening again by fixing our democracy.

Personal life

On July 16, 2006, Pfeiffer married Sarah Elizabeth Feinberg, a senior adviser and spokeswoman for Obama's former Chief of Staff, and current senior advisor and spokeswoman for Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel. In 2011, Pfeiffer and Feinberg separated, and later divorced.
In 2016, Pfeiffer married Howli Ledbetter, former director of message planning in the Obama White House. In May 2018, Ledbetter gave birth to a daughter, Kyla.