Symone D. Sanders-Townsend has never waited for permission to speak. Not when she introduced President Bill Clinton at 16. Not when she pitched herself to be Bernie Sanders’s press secretary at 25. And definitely not when she told MSNBC, “I want a show.” In a nutshell, Sanders-Townsend’s career path is a testament to speaking up, doing the work, and knowing your worth.
“In almost all the rooms I’ve ever been in, I was always the youngest person. Oftentimes the only woman or one of few women, and the most melanated person in the room,” Sanders-Townsend says in an exclusive interview with Her Campus. “[Because of my age] people believed that I did not know as much because I hadn’t had as much experience. But there are very few people that are going to outwork me.”
Sanders-Townsend’s career path took root in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, where she landed her first political internship through a connection at her local church. From there, she started saying yes to every opportunity — organizing, volunteering, and learning through experience. But breaking into national politics wasn’t easy. “Before I even interviewed with Senator Sanders, I went on 27 different job interviews, and everybody told me no,” she says. “One place put me through eight rounds.”
But she stayed focused, and her breakthrough came at 25, when she became national press secretary for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. From there, she became a political analyst and commentator for CNN, and then joined former President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. From there, she served as senior advisor and chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris. And while many people might’ve seen the White House as the peak of her career, she saw something different: a pivot.
“I want to go back into media, but not as a commentator. I really want a show,” she recalls telling execs at MSNBC. “The president at the time asked me, ‘Well, what kind of show would you like to have?’ And that opened the door.” She exited the White House at the end of 2021 and began a series of highly successful hosting roles — basically, she spoke up about what she wanted, and she got it.
Now, Sanders-Townsend co-hosts MSNBC’s The Weeknight with Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele. The show covers politics and current events with a conversational, roundtable format — one that reflects the very dinner-table debates she grew up having. “Our show is a conversation,” she says. “We’re setting the table while people are hopefully sitting down at their dinner tables to have the conversation that you are hopefully having at home.”
Her workday is anything but slow. She starts with a noon production call, meets with her co-hosts again at 3 p.m. to finalize the lineup, then heads to the studio to prep for filming. “I try to always anchor myself as, ‘What are the people watching — what would they want to know?’” she says. “Because I remember as a person who used to work campaigns and work in the White House, who would watch TV and say, ‘Why are they saying that?’” And no one can say Sanders-Townsend takes her role lightly. “I do the research. I write the memo. I will have the backstory three times over,” she says of her preparation process.
A big part of Sanders-Townsend’s focus comes from what she calls her “outline,” her working list of goals that she’s been writing since college (now saved in her phone so she can update and reference it at any time). One of those goals was to intern in China — something she made happen simply because she wrote it down. “I ended up doing that before I graduated,” she says. (Are you listening, aspiring study abroad students?!) Writing down her goals doesn’t only serve to hold herself accountable — it also helps her decide what’s actually worth saying yes to. “So many different [opportunities] can come and have come my way,” she says. “And it’s like, ‘Hmm, that seems fun… but what did I say my goals were?’”
Sanders-Townsend is also a huge proponent of not shrinking oneself to fit someone else’s mold. “Any room that I’m in, I’m in the room because I deserve to be there,” she says. “They want Symone. Not Symone in Keisha’s clothing. Not Symone that acts like Joe or Michael. They want Symone.”
That mindset is at the heart of her advice to Gen Z: “Do not wait for somebody to pick you,” she says. “Be willing to raise your hand. Select yourself.” And when the opportunity comes? “Be able to execute.”