The Friday Reporter

Lisa Camooso Miller
  • 5.0 (36)
  • Politics
  • Updated Weekly

The Friday Reporter was created to better understand the news process from a journalist's point of view. After nearly three years, the guest list has expanded to include newsmakers, policymakers and image makers. It's a show about public affairs and the contours of how business is done. Lisa Camooso Miller is the host and a D.C.-based public affairs professional who is asking the questions. newsletter.fridayreporter.com

  1. Your Vote Isn’t The Problem. The System Is.

    2d ago

    Your Vote Isn’t The Problem. The System Is.

    There’s a conversation I come back to every so often in this work — the kind where you walk away thinking differently about something you assumed you understood. This week’s episode was one of those. I sat down with Chad Peace, the voter advocate and attorney behind the More Choice initiative and the Independent Voter Project. If you’ve heard of California’s top-two primary — the system where the two highest vote-getters in a primary advance to the general, regardless of party — Chad was one of the architects. He’s spent years in courtrooms and state legislatures arguing for something that sounds deceptively simple: that the right to vote should belong to you, the individual, not to the party you join. The conversation that stuck with me was about incentives. Right now, our election system rewards division. You don’t have to win by being good — you can win by making your opponent look terrible. That’s not a bug in the system. It’s the design. And it’s why we keep electing people who are better at tearing things down than building consensus. More Choice — Chad’s proposed next step beyond the top-two — would advance four or more candidates to November and give voters the ability to rank their preferences. The idea is simple: if second- and third-place votes matter, you can’t win just by going negative. You have to actually persuade people who don’t already agree with you. That changes the calculus completely. I also appreciated how clear-eyed Chad is about the opposition. Both parties — left and right — want to get rid of the top-two. They call it a “jungle primary” (a term he correctly identifies as deliberately pejorative). Their solution? Go back to closed primaries, where party members pick the candidates and everyone else chooses from whatever’s left in November. His response: that’s not reform. That’s consolidating power. Chad grew up between a Republican family on his mom’s side and a Kentucky Democrat on his father’s. They never fought at the dinner table. They respected each other. He believes most voters are actually like that — closer to the middle than our political system reflects. The system just isn’t built to show it. This one is worth your time, whether you follow election reform closely or you just found yourself standing in a voting booth last November thinking: really? These are my only options? Full episode is on YouTube now. — Lisa Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    22 min
  2. Your Leadership Has an Invisible OS

    May 22

    Your Leadership Has an Invisible OS

    When I sat down with Kasia Hatcher for the latest episode of The Friday Reporter, she described every adult as having an invisible operating system — not just what we think, but how we make sense of the world. Most leadership development, she said, works on the apps. The skills, the tools, the behaviors. What she does is go deeper: to the patterns that have been running your leadership without your awareness. I’ve worked with Kasia personally. She is the real thing. And bringing her onto The Friday Reporter felt long overdue, because what she does for founders and executives is genuinely hard to describe until you experience it — and I wanted to try. We talked about a lot in this episode. Why most systems fail solo entrepreneurs (hint: they built it for someone else’s business). How to actually integrate AI without generating what Kasia very accurately calls “slop.” And the thing I’ve gotten the most value from in our work together: how to have the hard conversations you’ve been avoiding. Her framework for that is deceptively simple. Make the decision before you go in. Strip to one fact. Then stop talking. She said something I think about every time I’m about to have a difficult conversation: your job is not to manage the other person’s emotions. Your job is to stay grounded enough to have the conversation at all. There’s a story near the end about a client who had been avoiding a phone call for two weeks — a conflict of interest situation with real money on the line. Kasia helped her prepare, and she made the call that night. Three minutes. No blowup. No fallout. And the outcome was better than if she’d taken the new client in the first place. That’s not magic. That’s just what happens when you stop rehearsing and start doing the actual work. This one is for every founder who is running — really running — and can’t quite figure out why the battery never feels full. Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    23 min
  3. Washington's Hidden Work

    May 15

    Washington's Hidden Work

    In this episode of The Friday Reporter, Lisa Camooso Miller sits down with Matthew Cutts of Dentons for a fast-moving conversation on what’s actually happening inside Washington right now—and what corporate leaders, policymakers, and the media may be missing. While the headlines suggest gridlock and dysfunction, Cutts offers a more nuanced—and surprisingly hopeful—view: much of the real work is happening out of sight, where relationships, preparation, and bipartisan problem-solving still shape outcomes. The conversation explores how CEOs are recalibrating their approach to government, why the next political shift is already influencing boardroom strategy, and how emerging policy battles—from AI to crypto—are moving faster than the institutions built to regulate them. Key Takeaways * The real action in Washington is off-cameraCommittee work, relationship-building, and early positioning are driving outcomes long before issues reach the headlines. * Government is now a core business riskCEOs are paying closer attention to Washington than ever before, as policy decisions increasingly impact bottom lines in real time. * 2026 is already shaping strategy todayCompanies are preparing now for a potential shift in House control—and the policy and oversight changes that could follow. * New policy battles are outpacing the systemAI and crypto are forcing bipartisan alignment in unexpected ways, even as Congress struggles to keep up with the speed of innovation. Why This Conversation Matters This episode pulls back the curtain on how influence really works in Washington today. It’s not just about ideology—it’s about timing, preparation, and understanding where decisions are made before they become public. For anyone working at the intersection of business, policy, or communications, this conversation is a reminder: if you’re only following the headlines, you’re already behind. Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    25 min
  4. She Built the CHIPS Program

    May 8

    She Built the CHIPS Program

    I’ve been wanting to have Kathryn Mitchell on The Friday Reporter for a while. She’s one of those people in Washington who has earned the right to have a real opinion about one of the most consequential policy debates of our time — and she’s generous enough to explain it in terms the rest of us can understand. Kathryn spent nearly a decade in government, moving from Capitol Hill to the Pentagon to the Department of Commerce, where she served as chief of staff for the CHIPS R&D office at NIST. She helped stand up the $50 billion CHIPS for America program — essentially from scratch. Earlier this year she moved to DLA Piper, where she now helps tech companies navigate the government landscape she used to sit inside. This conversation covers a lot of ground. We talked about the origin story of the Chips and Science Act — passed bipartisan under Biden, now being implemented differently under Trump — and what Kathryn is watching to gauge whether the U.S. is actually getting this right. (She says we won’t know for a decade or two. But she knows exactly what signals to track right now.) We also got into something I find genuinely fascinating: the role of relationship-building in Washington. Before you can change a policy, before you can land a government contract, before your innovation can make it out of the garage and into a lab — you build the relationships. That’s what Kathryn does every day for her clients, and she explains why it’s the foundation of everything else. A few things I’m still thinking about from this conversation: Her point that AI and semiconductors are “inexplicably tied” — but that AI won’t solve the physical-world challenges of building fabs, navigating permitting, or standing up domestic production. That nuance matters a lot right now. Her career advice: “Wear your honors lightly.” Don’t aim to be the smartest person in the room. Aim to be the one who keeps learning. I’m going to borrow that one. And her lightning round answer on Washington: “It is both a marathon and a sprint every day.” That about sums it up. This episode drops today — wherever you listen to podcasts. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did recording it. — Lisa Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    28 min
  5. The Race Already Under Way

    May 1

    The Race Already Under Way

    The Axios Takeover of The Friday Reporter wraps with one of the sharpest eyes on Democratic politics in the business. Holly Otterbein covers the 2028 presidential race for Axios — and she’s here to tell us why the race is already underway, even if most people aren’t watching yet. In this conversation, Holly breaks down the fault lines fracturing the Democratic Party right now: it’s not just progressive versus moderate anymore. It’s generational, regional, ideological, and increasingly shaped by the Israel-Gaza divide. She explains why Kamala Harris is more of a 2028 factor than Washington insiders want to admit, why Gavin Newsom may be the only Democrat who truly understands the attention economy, and why the Maine Senate primary is a perfect case study in everything the party is wrestling with at once. Holly also goes deep on a story she wants to keep digging into: AI in campaigns. Democrats, she says, are behind — and the race to shape what chatbots say about candidates may be the new search engine optimization. Plus, the quiet pivot among 2028 hopefuls on AI data centers: yesterday’s economic win is becoming today’s political liability. And on the craft of political journalism itself — how do you stay independent when you’re embedded in the vortex of a campaign? Holly shares the advice that’s stuck with her since she started covering presidential races. Subscribe to Axios 2028 — Holly’s Sunday newsletter — by searching “Axios 2028,” and follow her on X at @HollyOtterbein. Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    27 min

  6. Apr 24

    Everyone is Covering AI

    Madison Mills covers AI for Axios — but she came to the beat from Wall Street, and that changes everything about what she’s looking for. She spent years covering markets, interviewing Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio, and building one of the most-read financial newsletters in the country. She knows how investors think, how they hedge, and how wide the gap is between what they say publicly and what they actually believe. That’s the lens she’s bringing to the AI story. And the picture it reveals is one most of the tech coverage is missing entirely. We talked about the hidden financial exposure in the AI buildout — the small-town bank loans to truckers and construction companies that don’t look like AI bets on paper, but absolutely are. We got into what Wall Street sources are telling her off the record right now about fraud risk, and why she describes those conversations as “a very scary picture.” And we dug into the trillion-dollar question she keeps putting to the AI labs themselves: when are you actually going to be profitable? We also ended up in a really honest conversation about the jobs debate — why she’s skeptical when public companies attribute layoffs to AI, what’s actually happening with entry-level hiring, and why some of the most enthusiastic AI adopters she’s encountering are the most senior people in the room. Madison is one of the smartest reporters working this beat. I think you’ll want to listen twice. Find Madison at Axios — she co-authors the AI Plus newsletter Monday through Thursday — and on Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn. Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    22 min
  7. What the Iran War Reveals

    Apr 17

    What the Iran War Reveals

    For years, the Pentagon promised drone dominance would change everything. Then Iran shot down an American fighter jet. Colin Demarest has been covering the future of defense at Axios long enough to know the gap between Pentagon strategy and battlefield reality. As the author of the Future of Defense newsletter, he’s been inside the Iran conflict coverage since the first strike — tracking new weapons systems in their first real-world test, watching war costs climb past $16 billion and rising. We get into whether drone dominance is actually delivering, what the U.S. dismissal of Ukraine’s anti-drone technology offer tells us about how Washington processes advice from allies who’ve been in the fight, and whether the defense industrial base can sustain a long war. The future of defense isn’t theoretical anymore. Part Three of the April Axios takeover of The Friday Reporter. Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    24 min
  8. Inside Pentagon's AI Blacklist War

    Apr 10

    Inside Pentagon's AI Blacklist War

    The Pentagon just tried to blacklist an AI company from all government work. Not because its technology failed — because the company refused to let its AI run autonomous weapons or surveil Americans at scale. That’s not a contract dispute, it’s a new kind of power struggle. And it’s reshaping the entire AI industry. Maria Curi is the AI+Government reporter at Axios and the author of the newsletter that drives tech policy conversations across Washington. She breaks down how the Defense Department is using procurement as policy — and why the stakes extend far beyond one company’s government contract. We get into who actually controls AI governance in this administration, what the Pentagon-Anthropic standoff means for every AI lab now doing business with the federal government, and the question Maria says nobody is asking yet — but should be. It’s Week Two of the April Axios takeover of The Friday Reporter. Get full access to Authentically Speaking at newsletter.fridayreporter.com/subscribe

    27 min
See All (233)

5
out of 5
36 Ratings

About

The Friday Reporter was created to better understand the news process from a journalist's point of view. After nearly three years, the guest list has expanded to include newsmakers, policymakers and image makers. It's a show about public affairs and the contours of how business is done. Lisa Camooso Miller is the host and a D.C.-based public affairs professional who is asking the questions. newsletter.fridayreporter.com

Information

  • Creator
    Lisa Camooso Miller
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    233
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Lisa Camooso Miller
  • Show Website
    The Friday Reporter

You Might Also Like