“No Detail Too Small to Flag”: Behind the Scenes of Succession’s Frenzied Election Night Episode - Vanity Fair

krotoson.blogspot.com

Vanity Fair caught up with former Obama White House aide Eric Schultz, who advised HBO writers on this season’s political storyline. (In real life, there was no election night bodega sushi: “Under Obama, on big nights, we all got chicken tenders,” Schultz says.)

By Charlotte Klein

May 15, 2023

There were crises big and small in “America Decides,” Succession’s election night episode that aired Sunday. Tom Wambsgans lost his shit over a touchscreen Magic Wall breakdown inside the ATN newsroom—and over bodega sushi. Meanwhile, Roman and Kendall Roy’s business interests overshadowed actual vote totals as the outlet they own made key projections and eventually called the election for the conservative nominee. Both felt, after election night 2020, like scenarios that could actually happen. “There’s certainly dramatic and even outrageous storylines, but they’re taking place in a context that feels credible and legitimate,” says Eric Schultz, a consultant on the episode.

It was around this time in 2011 when Schultz joined Barack Obama’s White House. Republicans had just taken control of the House of Representatives, and Schultz, a political adviser, was hired to lead the Obama administration’s response to their countless investigations. A couple years later, he became Obama’s deputy White House press secretary, a role that led Jen Psaki to once describe him as Obama’s Olivia Pope, the fictional political-crisis fixer on ABC’s Scandal.

This past fall, Schultz found himself advising the writers of Succession to ensure their fictional presidential election cycle was as realistic as it could be, from election night vote tallies to the security footprint a candidate would have. Schultz has yet to leave Obamaworld: He continues to advise the former president out of Obama’s personal office, but he’s also been dipping his toes into entertainment, consulting on Designated Survivor and now Succession. He says working in the entertainment industry is not a far cry from life on campaigns, Capitol Hill, or even in the White House. Though, “fortunately, I’ve not encountered anyone who resembles the Roys in real life,” he says. Below, he speaks about bringing his political chops to Hollywood—and what it was like to recreate an election after the Donald Trump presidency.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Vanity Fair: What was your role in this season of Succession?

Eric Schultz: They asked me to come up in the beginning of the season to help them sketch out the political storylines for the season, and then [I] stayed engaged for the episode scripts. But the bulk of my work was focused on this episode.

And so they asked me to be on set for the filming of election night. I think there’s just pieces and sort of texture that they wanted to make sure they got right. The writers are brilliant. I think what makes the show pop is this attention to detail about which they’re writing. That’s why they bring in subject matter experts. There’s certainly dramatic and even outrageous storylines, but they’re taking place in a context that feels credible and legitimate. And I think that’s why the show is so successful.

There was no detail too small to flag for them or that they didn’t wanna talk through. In episode four, when they talk of the presidential candidate [Jeryd] Mencken coming to Logan’s home, they asked what the security footprint would be for a stop like that—for Secret Service for a presidential candidate. I sort of walked them through what that would look like, and you would call this an OTR stop—one that’s not previously announced. And so we talked about it, and then they said, “Okay, fine, but what kind of vests would the dogs wear?” And I was like, “I will have to get back to you on that.”

What aspects of this election night episode did you specifically advise on?

If you watched the timeline of the evening, as states report and their Electoral College votes are counted, that was all very thoroughly researched to make sure it tracks a plausible election night. We spent a lot of time with the writers breaking down how states would likely vote and what the electoral count looks like under various scenarios and at various times of the night. It was important to them to make sure that everything was against a plausible backdrop. Obviously, the fire being located in Wisconsin was not an accident. We had looked at other states but wanted to find a place that fit into the timing of the evening, and that would also be a venue that had a sufficient number of votes to be determinative. We also worked with other consultants, [filmmaker] Justin Geldzahler and [GOP lawyer] Ben Ginsberg, to do due diligence on the contingency plannings for what would happen in these scenarios. The banter that Shiv talks about—in terms of proposing a revote and the Milwaukee County Board of Elections—all of that stuff is not shooting from the hip. It was material that we looked into.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz speaks during a briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House on July 29, 2015.

MANDEL NGAN/Getty Images

I loved the bodega-sushi moment. It made me wonder, what are people eating on such a night?

On campaigns, there’s often rituals. I mean, usually this is, like, day-old pizza, right? But I know in Obamaworld, they had a specific bar they went to on big primary nights. And then when we were in the White House under Obama, for big nights, we all got chicken tenders.

Shiv and Lukas Matsson FaceTiming made me wonder…do powerful people like to duke it out over FaceTime? Is Obama a big FaceTime person?

I think President Obama avails himself of modern-day tools to stay in touch, yes.

Are candidates’ teams speaking to media outlets in the way you see in this episode—I mean, if not asking them to help them shape the narrative, just in general communication on election night?

Absolutely. Yes. What I think the show does capture is this sort of symbiotic relationship between media and campaigns, right? On the political side, we’re constantly trying to shape coverage and to push out information and to plant information. On the press side, they’re pushing for access and data and information for their own purposes. And so I think that that’s a very live relationship that is a constant back-and-forth. For Fox and Democrats, it’s much more complicated. Over the past 8 to 10 years, [Fox] has become more of a nakedly right-wing platform, versus trying to at least have the façade of a legitimate news outlet. That’s taken to even more of an extreme with ATN. There is a firewall between the decision desks and the news coverage. There’s also a firewall in real life between the business side of a news outlet and the editorial side. But that doesn’t stop political people like myself from trying to exert any pressure we can to get positive coverage.

Much of this episode seemed reminiscent of the way the 2020 election played out, and specifically inside Fox News.

Sabotaging elections is, unfortunately, much talked about these days. I know that Democrats, from the Biden campaign to election lawyers to outside groups, all had vigilant plans in place for all sorts of Election Day scenarios—including tabletop exercises that simulated various disruptions and mischief. And so talking through these absolutely informed the contours of this episode. Now, specifically as you ask about Fox and 2020, Fox now famously called Arizona for Joe Biden. None of the other networks have done so, so they were out there by themselves, but you can imagine scenarios where they weren’t willing to do that, and then the whole outcome of the election becomes a lot more squishy.

The writers for this episode sort of entertained this question, but from the other way around. In real life, Fox had called Arizona but wasn’t willing to call other states because they would’ve been the ones designating Joe Biden president. At ATN, their call for Wisconsin ties their hands for the ultimate call. And so we thought it would be a window into how big of a role media outlets play—not only on projections of who’s winning the election, but also how much confidence we collectively have in the outcomes. ’Cause obviously, if the election doesn’t feel legitimate, then everything else is at risk.