Photo Credit: Lacy Nelson

Last week, On the Record sat down with this semester’s set of GU Politics fellows. We asked them about some of their current views and what gives them faith in their profession. All six of these fellows will be holding weekly discussion groups beginning on February 6th.

Photo Credit: American Enterprise Institute

Chris Stirewalt

Chris Stirewalt comes to GU Politics from the American Enterprise Institute, where he is a senior fellow studying American politics, voting trends, public opinion, and the media. He is also an editor and columnist for the Dispatch and is the political editor at NewsNation. Previously, he was a political editor at Fox News. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College with a bachelor’s degree in history.

He praised the work that Mo Elleithee, Executive Director of the Institute, has done to build one of the only places in America where serious discussions about the intersection of journalism and politics take place.

Stirewalt described courage as an “indispensable part of politics” and said that his faith in politics had been reinvigorated by the courage that judges appointed by Trump showed when they refused to go along with his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. He says he is encouraged by their courage.

Stirewalt added that the profession of political journalism is great, but it is not an easy one. Only those who truly want it will find it to be a rewarding experience. But for those who do find that calling, the practice of politics can be a “wonderful thing.”

In the little time Stirewalt has spent on campus he’s already been “refreshed and encouraged” by the “very impressive young men and women of Georgetown,” and he is greatly looking forward to what the next few months might bring.

Stirewalt’s discussion group is titled “Broken News, Broken Politics” and will meet from 2-3:30 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Michael Ricci

Michael Ricci will be joining this semester’s crop of GU Politics Fellows after serving as Communications Director for Maryland Republican Governor Larry Hogan. Before that, Ricci served as Speaker Paul Ryan’s Communications Director and Speaker John Boehner’s top speechwriter. He graduated from Columbia University with a bachelor’s degree in history.

Ricci says that his visit to Georgetown in 2016 for Speaker Paul Ryan’s speech left him deeply impressed by the University and the Institute. He says that the level of student leadership in the Institute and the thoughtfulness with which Elleithee approached the event was what made him want to come back as a fellow.

When asked what gives him faith in politics, Ricci pointed to many instances when he has seen the good that his work has done up close. The moment that stands out most for him is when he went to Ocean City, Maryland with Governor Hogan after the coronavirus lockdowns had begun to end and a flood of business owners came to thank the Governor for the assistance he had provided them. Ricci says that after the chaos of the pandemic, this kind of affirmation was deeply valued by him.

Ricci said he hopes students at Georgetown can refresh his perspective and expose him to new ideas. He is looking forward to having his perspective challenged, in part because he believes that the world of politics and government is dominated by groupthink.

Ricci’s discussion group is titled “Comms in Crisis: Navigating Disasters, Disillusionment and Disinformation” and will meet from 2-3:30 p.m. on Thursdays.

Elaine Luria

Former Representative Elaine Luria is one of the GU Politics fellows this semester. In Congress, she served as Vice Chair of the House Armed Services Committee and a member of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the Capital. Before she was elected to Congress, she served in the navy for twenty years, achieving the rank of naval commander. She attended the Naval Academy and later received a Master’s degree in engineering management from Old Dominion University.

Rep. Luria has come to Georgetown in hopes of learning from the students she encounters in her discussion groups, office hours, and her SST. She believes that these conversations will provide valuable insights and ideas for her work in politics. She believes that the students at Georgetown have as much or more to offer her than she does to her students.

When she thinks about the meaningful moments from her time in politics, casework comes to mind first. She deeply values the impact she was able to have on people’s lives by “helping them with serious but life changing issues.” She also points to her many legislative accomplishments in the last two congresses, including adding $62 billion to the Department of Defense budget, passing a bill to help veterans exposed to burn pits, and her work on the Jan. 6 Committee.

The Congresswoman pointed to her ability to build relationships with people in congress who she largely disagreed with when asked what gives her faith in politics. She said she could use small similarities with congress members she almost entirely disagreed with to find common ground. For example, one member of Congress she served with went to summer camp with her for nearly all of her childhood. She also learned to work with congress members only because they both had a port in their district. She pointed to Rep. Liz Cheney as someone she was glad she could form a close friendship with.

She says she’s looking forward to getting a “fresh, non-jaded look at politics” from students at Georgetown and hopes that she might be able to share what it’s really like in “unvarnished discussions.”

Rep. Luria’s discussion group is called “Bipartisanship in a Post-January 6 World” and will meet on Mondays from 4-5:30 p.m.

Jonae Wartel

Jonae Wartel is an organizer, Democratic operative, and political consultant. She is currently a partner at Arc Initiatives, a political communications consulting firm. Before that, she served as a senior advisor for the 2024 Georgia runoff election and as the Runoff Director for the 2020-2021 Georgia runoff elections, which resulted in the election of Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff. She has worked on many different Democratic campaigns, most of the time helping with organizing and field operations. She graduated from UNC Greensboro with a degree in political science and Spanish.

She was brought to the fellowship program by friends who had also been GU Politics fellows. Wartel wants to get more young people involved in politics and public service and sees her time here as an opportunity to do that. She’s been impressed with the central role that students play in the management of the Institute and, specifically, the fellows’ program.

Her proudest moment in politics was the election of Senators Ossoff and Warnock. She was proud of the grassroots movement that she helped build to get them elected and was glad that she could validate the decades-long work of organizers and activists. She says seeing what they’ve gone on to do and the crucial votes they’ve cast has made her work feel very rewarding.

She wants more young people to get involved in politics because of how much it has meant to her. She’s seen that organizing and simply showing up in communities that often aren’t reached makes the work very gratifying and very important for our democracy.

Wartel is looking forward to learning from and being challenged by her students. She has recognized that too many practitioners of politics live in a bubble and do not hear fresh perspectives enough. She’s looking forward to a non-jaded take on politics from casual observers and learning from the other fellows.

Wartel’s discussion group will be called “Ground Game: An In-depth Analysis of the Power of Organizing and How it will Impact the 2024 Elections” and will meet on Thursdays from 4-5:30 p.m.

Photo Credit: CNN

MJ Lee

MJ Lee is a Senior White House Correspondent for CNN. In that role, she has covered the first couple of years of the Biden administration. Before covering the White House, Lee was a CNN political correspondent covering the #MeToo movement and the 2020 presidential election. Lee is a fellow Hoya and graduated from the College in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in government and Chinese.

Lee says she “couldn’t turn down the opportunity to come back to campus.” She is especially looking forward to getting to know students interested in journalism and hopes that she might be able to win over some students to the profession.

The increasing engagement of people in politics gives her hope for the future of our country. Regardless of the causes of the increased attention, Lee believes that when more people know about the details of politics and when more people attend rallies and marches, the better off our political system will be.

For her, journalism is still a vitally important profession. She pointed to the accountability journalism and coverage of social movements that has led to positive social change in recent years. But she recognizes that far too often today journalism takes forms that shouldn’t be regarded as noble.

Lee says that she is looking forward to meeting students at Georgetown who are lost or uncertain about what they want to do with their career. When she was an undergraduate at Georgetown, she felt lost and unsure, and so she especially wants to use her time at Georgetown to help current students to find their place in Washington.

Lee’s discussion group is called “Political Reporting in a Time of Chaos” and will meet on Mondays from 2-3:30 p.m.

Mike Shields

Mike Shields is the founder of Convergence Media, a political consulting firm. He is also a CNN political commentator. From 2013-2015, Shields served as Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee, and before that, he was communications director for House Speaker Newt Gingrich. He has played all sorts of other roles in Republican party politics and graduated from George Mason University.

Shields described the construction of the Institute of Politics and Public Service as a “monumental achievement” that “created a lot of buzz around town.” This reputation is what brought him to Georgetown, along with an expectation that the kind of students he would meet here would be especially interesting and insightful.

He says that the most rewarding experiences in politics for him have been his work in Congress implementing policy and helping constituents. He pointed to his work with Congressman Reichert to secure funding for medical assistance and body armor that would protect troops fighting in the Iraq war. Knowing he played just a small part in securing that funding is enough to make all of the partisan politics worthwhile for him.

His policy achievements in part inform his view that politics remains a noble profession. In his view, all professions have bad actors that give a bad name to the profession, but the act of believing in something larger than yourself makes policy an “inherently noble thing to do.”

Shields is looking forward to getting to know his Student Strategy Team well and working in an environment where they can learn from each other. He sees this as an “educational endeavor” for himself more than anything else, and he is looking forward to getting valuable insights from students.

Shields’ discussion group is called “The Role of Political Parties in the Era of Polarization” and will meet on Tuesdays from 4-5:30 p.m.

Asher Maxwell is one of the Executive Editors of On the Record. He is currently a freshman in the College studying government from Nashville, Tennessee. Asher is particularly interested in elections, economics, and environmental policy.

Meet the Spring 2023 GU Politics Fellows