Jay quotes from Madam Secretary

Elizabeth

Great work, Jay!

Jay

It's not like this will stop pregnant women from being locked up during the next crackdown.

Elizabeth

The legal system isn't fair when it comes to women. No legal system is.

Blake

How about a practice interview?

Jay

I don't think you need that.

Blake

Please, it'll push me over the top.

Jay

You're already over the top.

Blake

Please, Jay, I gotta kill this. When M. Sec sits down with me she's got to think I'm the second coming of... well, me.

Jay

Sorry to crash your party, but this is urgent.

I doubt it's a matter of life and death.

Jay

Actually it is life and death.

Russell

The crack... team leader. What the hell happened to you?

Jay

Oh, I was playing basket--

Russell

Oh, forget it. I don't care.

We have to end this, even if it means getting in the mud.

Russell

Then I say we go after the man. Directly, personally, take him in.

Jay

Investigate his taxes?

Russell

Don't tempt me.

Jay

Jay Whitman. Who's this?

Hello. You have a collect call from an inmate of the Arizona Penitentiary. [BEEP]

Elizabeth

Elizabeth McCord

To accept, say yes. To decline, say no.

Jay

Yes. Yes. God, yes. Ma'am?

Elizabeth

Hey. Took you a minute there. Promise I'll pay you back.

Jay

No, it's not that. I just got confused. You don't call me from jail every day. I mean, nobody does. I mean, not that it's... that jail's bad.

Kat

Hey Jay. What's up?

Jay

I'm on a kind of painkiller.

Kat

Congratulations.

Matt

Your assistant told me she was typing up the notes from your phone. Did you really want to pitch small farm animal pajamas to the Department of Agriculture?

Jay

Oh, I thought I dreamed that.

Jay

The United States is willing to take its share of climate migrants.

We're all eager to hear your version of taking your share.

Jay

Who put their bag there?

Matt

Mike B. Next time you got to pee on the chair.

Jay

That brings me to our next topic, defining everyone's role in the campaign. Most of us will have the same title we now have at State.

Mike

With a much higher level of intensity. This isn't going to be some cushy conference in Geneva people. This is the longest marathon of your lives, running uphill the whole way with this woman's campaign agenda carved into your foreheads. You got me?

Kat

Are we joining a cult?

Matt

It sounds like a cult.

Jay

It's a team, and we're all in it together, so for now rest up, get your annual checkups and dentist appointments out of the way and try and enjoy the calm before the storm.

Mike

The fight of our lives.

Daisy

Is it me, or did this coffee take a serious nosedive?

Jay

Blake abdicated coffee duties.

Jay

We're expecting a call from the Chronicle asking for comment on an article alleging the Secretary had a previous intimate relationship with the president.

Daisy

Say that again?

Jay

Before he was the president. Our answer is "no comment."

Daisy

You realize it's gonna sound like she did have an intimate relationship with the president.

Jay

I do. Talk to Mike B.

Daisy

Wait, so did she?

Jay

(shrugs and walks away)

Mike

What is there to think about?

Jay

For Starters, the fact that she's aligned with a president who won as an Independent.

Mike

For the first time in history. The chance of that happening a second time are about the same as my son's chances of getting into Harvard.

Elizabeth

Well, the governor makes one good point: if I join the GOP ticket now, we have a better chance of knocking Callister out early.

Jay

What if the governor represents a small faction of the party and you don't win broad support? And then we're dead in New Hampshire.

Mike

Have you forgotten who you're working for? Um, Elizabeth schooled America about nationalism, and her-- And her popularity went up five points. This country is totally ready to be spanked by Hot Mom.

Jay

What do you think?

Elizabeth

I think that I do line up with some GOP policy positions. I think privatization is sometimes more efficient than government bureaucracy, and I'm all for a strong military. And I think... we do all win when the government steps back and allows responsible businesses to thrive. But I don't think that that means that corporations should pay a lower tax rate than school teachers

Mike

Of course not. You can-- There's always a way to frame it.

Elizabeth

What happens when I make wealth disparity my key issue? Or declare that the days of undermining democracy by gerrymandering are over?

Mike

You will trade horses like every other politician.

Jay

She's not every other politician.

Mike

One bonus: I make this call tomorrow, I am pretty sure this whole affair story goes away a lot faster.

Elizabeth

Okay, that... is exactly the kind of political gamesmanship that I hate. I know that both parties do it. But the GOP has a much darker history of playing up wedge issues like same-sex marriage just to fire up voters. When I went to Camp David to think about the candidate I want to be, none of that was on the list.

Jay

Seems like you know your way forward on this, ma'am.

Mike

Let's not make any decisions tonight. (grabs a beer) Let me-- Let me just-- Let me just say this: no one gets to shape this country by being the noble candidate who lost.

Mike

If that's a masseuse, can you see if she'll do campaign stops?

Jay

What makes you think I'm booking a masseuse?

Mike

You said her name was Kayla.