Being the White House Press Secretary is the pinnacle of the career for someone in PR - it's akin to an attorney becoming a Supreme Court Justice. Here are my thoughts as to the bare minimum of what the next press secretary needs to have and understand (in no particular order): 1) You can't just talk to and be friends with friendly media. You need to go out of your way to build and maintain sincere relationships across the political spectrum. This is often unseen, under-appreciated, but wildly important. Similarly, you need friends throughout the government, politics, and media, when something pops up totally foreign to you, you need people that can get you up to speed quick. 2) Anticipating needs, news stories, issues, and crisis is a fundamental part of your job. You can't become a psychic, but try to get close. You must understand when to parry and riposte. You need to make this incredibly difficult and complex job look easy and effortless. 3) Your client (the President/US Govt/American People) is ALWAYS the priority. There is no I/me. 4) You can't control the news cycle. Porsche didn't expect Tesla to announce a flying car yesterday, and welp. Long nights and tough questions are to be expected. Try your best to influence it, take control of it, and then navigate it to where you want to go. If it doesn't help your client, pivot as quickly as possible to what does. Embrace the suck. 5) We are weeks away from the mid-term election. Ballots are out. Instilling confidence in a Republican government is a priority, selling why we deserve two more years is a fundamental expectation. 6) This job isn't just about talking points. It's being charismatic, witty, confident yet humble, convincing and compelling without be slimy, speak to non-Republicans from a place of credibility and understanding. What you don't have in skill can be made up for with relationships, skill can't cover for a lack of relationships. You really need to have a lot of both. You are going to be talking to the American people on their best days and their worst days, about their aspirations and deepest fears, empathy for both needs to be demonstrated. 7) You must understand how the newsrooms and news cycles operate. While you don't need to have been a journalist, you must have an appreciation of their job and life. 8) A deep understanding of American pop culture is important. It's a core competency expected and tested of foreign service officers as they represent it to the world. You represent it to the American people and the world. Also, you're going to be meme'd - you gotta be able to laugh at it. 9) You're going to have two dozen different jobs such as sociologist, psychologist, stylist, strategist, journalist, policy expert, diplomat, secret keeper, problem solver, crisis manager, arbitrator, etc. you're expected to be, and need to be, an expert at all of them. 10) You need to be prepared to be the stick in the mud -- often. Being able to tell people senior to you and your peers NO, is crucial. Otherwise bad things will happen and "told you so" is meaningless. 11. The next person needs to be a veteran practitioner of this craft with the above 10 as a bare minimum.