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Donna Moss is the Chief of Staff to First Lady Helen Santos. She previously served as Senior Assistant to Deputy White House Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman and worked on both the Russell and Santos presidential campaigns in 2006, as well as Josiah Bartlet’s campaigns in 1998 and 2002. She is portrayed by Janel Moloney.

Early Life[]

Donnatella Moss was born in Warroad, Minnesota, to an Italian mother and an Irish father[1] who by 2004 had been married for thirty-nine years.[2] Her parents moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where they raised their daughter in a condo.[3] Warroad would be retroactively repositioned into Canada, stripping Donna of her United States citizenship until she was able to have it restored by a grandfather clause.[4] Her family is Protestant.[5] She has cousins who live in Oklahoma[6] in addition to her cousins, aunt Barbara, and uncle Ted in Wisconsin.[7]

In high school Donna played the flute and was the best in her row.[8] When she was sixteen she lost her virginity with Freddy Briggs.[9] She was one of the twelfth graders who came in two hours early to take an AP English class that Molly Morello taught and developed herself because the school didn’t offer one.[10]

She attended the University of Wisconsin for two years, during which she had five majors and two minors: Political Science and Government, Sociology and Psychology, and Biology with minors in French and Drama.[11] While a student she befriended Casey Reed, who would later offer her a job as issues director at Capitol Scoop,[12] and Stephanie Gault, with whom she shared an ex-boyfriend.[13]

Donna describes President Bartlet as the first winner she'd voted for, indicating she voted for the Democratic challenger in the 1994 Presidential Election rather than the Republican incumbent (and winner).[14]

She dated a medical student who convinced her to drop out of school and support him during his residency. After she broke up with him, she drove from Madison to Manchester, New Hampshire, to volunteer for the Bartlet for America campaign. In February she hired herself as Josh Lyman’s assistant, and after he caught her answering his phone, Josh gave her the job for real. She was still working for him by the Illinois Primary (held in March),[11] but afterwards Donna reconciled with her boyfriend and returned to Madison. She was in a car accident, injuring her ankle, and broke up with her boyfriend again after he stopped for a beer with his friends on his way to the hospital. She returned to the Bartlet campaign in April and told Josh the bandage on her ankle was from slipping on ice due to a late thaw in Madison.[15] During the campaign she stayed with the Flenders in Hartsfield's Landing.[16]

Bartlet Administration (1999-2005)[]

Following Bartlet's election as the President of the United States, Donna became the Senior Assistant to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Planning. Before Bartlet took office she was given a tour by her predecessor Jeff Johnson, who tricked her into believing there were radioactive warheads on the White House grounds and to repeat his lie in an interview with his girlfriend for 21 magazine. When Josh made fun of her for the interview, Donna teamed up with her friend Michael Gordon in the staff secretary's office to trick him into thinking the NSA was investigating her.[17]

Donna often asked Josh about governmental policy in order to better understand subjects like budget surpluses,[18] the designated survivor,[19] "Take Out the Trash" Day,[20] the F.E.C.,[21] terrorism,[22] foreign aid,[23] Puerto Rican statehood,[24] and senate procedure.[25] She occasionally gave Josh bursts of inspiration, such as using the Antiquities Act to save Big Sky Federal Reserve[26] and getting Evelyn Baker Lang as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by allowing the Republicans to name a justice too.[2] Casey Reed considered her job equivalent to a Master's Degree.[12]

She drove to the hospital after hearing there had been a shooting at Rosslyn out of concern for the president, and when she got there, Toby Ziegler told her that Josh was among the victims.[27] During Josh's recovery she instituted "the Rules" to prevent his colleagues from coming to him before he was better.[28] She noticed Josh's erratic behavior as he suffered from untreated PTSD and went to Leo McGarry about her concerns; after Josh's first appointment with Stanley Keyworth, Donna took him to the ER to get the cut on his hand stitched up.[29]

During Bartlet's first term she dated Donald[30] and Todd, an insurance lobbyist with Travis West;[8] however, her feelings for Josh had become obvious to Joey Lucas,[22] and Amy Gardner had heard rumors they were dating.[31]

Toby told her about the president's multiple sclerosis, making her the first assistant to be told. She put together a room where everyone who knew could meet to discuss going public.[32] She attended Mrs. Landingham's funeral with the other assistants and the press conference following the president's disclosure with Margaret Hooper.[33] She was assigned to sort through paperwork for the subsequent investigation.[34]

Ainsley Hayes set Donna up with Cliff Calley, a Republican lawyer recently transferred to House Government Oversight, which had taken over the investigation into the concealment of Bartlet's MS.[34] While in her apartment he saw her diary, and when she testified during her deposition that she didn't keep one, he knew she had perjured herself and confronted her outside her apartment. Josh arranged for Cliff to read the diary so he knew there was no entries pertinent to the investigation, sparing Donna a perjury trial.[35] Cliff approached Josh through Donna to suggest that Bartlet accept a congressional censure to end the government investigation.[36] Donna confronted Abigail Bartlet at her birthday party over her complicity in the scandal as a medical practitioner, leading to Dr. Bartlet's decision to suspend her license while her husband was in office to end the Medical Board investigation.[37]

She met Jack Reese on the day of the 2002 Election when she asked him to switch votes with her after she accidentally voted for Robert Ritchie,[38] and they dated for a time. When Jack was transferred to Aviano after he followed the president's orders, unwittingly upsetting the Secretary of Defense Miles Hutchinson, Donna took credit for the inflammatory quote Jack gave a researcher with The Washington Post about tensions between civilian and military staffers at the White House. This angered the senior staff until Josh realized Donna couldn’t have known the quoted information.[39][40]

In California Donna was photographed having a meeting with Ivan Perez, head of the California Agricultural Laborers Association and (unbeknownst to her) a communist, which negatively affected Sam Seaborn's campaign for congress.[41]

Donna participated in the federal budget negotiations,[42] saved Social Security,[43] and oversaw presidential pardons.[44] Her dissatisfaction with the limits of her job grew after she helped with trade talks for months, only to get left out of the Brussels summit.[45] Josh sent her on a congressional delegation to the Gaza Strip with Congresswoman Andrea Wyatt and retired Admiral Percy Fitzwallace. She sent frequent emails to Josh during the trip and had a flirtation with Colin Ayres, an Irish photojournalist. A roadside bomb hit the vehicles carrying the American delegation, killing Fitzwallace and several representatives, and critically wounding Donna, who was flown to Germany for emergency surgery on a collapsed lung, a broken leg, and other injuries. Josh flew there to be by her side.[46]

Upon her return to Washington DC, Donna resigned.

2006 Presidential Election[]

Donna was hired as senior aide to Will Bailey, Vice President Bob Russell’s campaign manager for the 2006 presidential election, placing her in direct conflict with Josh, who had resigned his own White House position to run Matt Santos’s campaign.

After Santos won the Democratic nomination, Donna applied to work for Josh at his campaign, but he rejected her due to her months of personal attacks on Santos while working for the Russell campaign. Communications Director Louise “Lou” Thornton hired her behind Josh's back as a campaign spokesperson and forced them to reconcile.

In the last days of the general election they gave in to years of unrequited mutual romantic feelings. When the stress of the transition overwhelmed Josh, Sam Seaborn gave him an ultimatum to take a vacation or he wouldn’t join the administration as the Deputy Chief of Staff, and Josh invited Donna to join him. They attended the inauguration together.

Santos Administration[]

Donna took an interest in Helen Santos’s initial troubles with her husband’s advancing campaign, offering her support and experience, and eventually became the First Lady’s Chief of Staff.

Personality[]

Donna, like Margaret Hooper, is often presented as naïve, but the efficiency with which they kept their respective bosses on schedule belies that image. She usually took the ‘common man’ position as opposed to Josh’s ‘Ivy League’ governmental perspective, paid attention to the vast flow of information around her and frequently changed her stance based on solid evidence and strong arguments presented. She was intuitive not just about Josh and his needs (as seen, for example, in Noël) but also many people she encountered, relating to the folks of Hartsfield's Landing in a way no one else in the White House had, and being the one to spot Senator Howard Stackhouse’s missing grandson and guess the underlying issue (The Stackhouse Filibuster). Donna’s composed demeanor and ability to retain information made her an invaluable asset to the Bartlet Administration, and later in the administration was courted to work in the private sector. When she argued to feel unqualified due to her never finishing undergraduate education, she was told that “working for Josh Lyman is better than a Master’s degree”.

Resume[]

Education

Political History

Trivia[]

  • In the original script for the Pilot, Donna’s age is given as 25 in the autumn of 1999. From "What Kind of Day Has It Been?" to “And It's Surely to Their Credit,” Josh has Donna’s birthday on his blackboard, placing it sometime between August and November and setting her birth in the late summer or autumn of 1974.
  • Donna has received multiple parking tickets for failing to obey "no parking" signs.[47]
  • Her handwriting is illegible to the point that Josh mistakes "panda bear" for "banana bar"[48] and "landing gear" as "landing geek."[49]
  • She is a fan of Yo-Yo Ma, comparing him favorably to Pablo Casals and Mstislav Rostropovich.[29]

Behind the scenes[]

  • Donna was often the PoV character for the audience, the one posing questions to, or listening to explanations from, Josh as regarded the issues of the episode.

Photos[]

Season-4-pictured-janel-maloney-as-donna-moss-news-photo-1568911974

See Also[]


PREDECESSOR
Jeff Johnson
Senior Assistant to the Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Strategic Planning
1999-2005
SUCCESSOR
Marla Whorisky (temp)
PREDECESSOR
Amy Gardner
Chief of Staff to the First Lady of the United States
2007-present
SUCCESSOR
Incumbent


Notes and References[]

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