Characters / Veep Main

Veep Main Characters Page
Main Characters | House of Representatives | The Senate | Other Politicians | Other Characters

---

Selina

Selina Catherine Meyer

President, Vice President, Senator

Portrayed By: Julia Louis-Dreyfus

"I'm the Vice President of the United States, you stupid little fuckers!"

At the start of the series, she is foul-mouthed Vice President of the United States who longs for more power. She becomes the 45th President of the United States at the end of season 3 when the incumbent president unexpectedly resigns. After the end of the Meyer administration, she starts a charitable foundation to end adult literacy... and AIDS... and to promote democracy.

---

• Abusive Parents: Selina's mother was cold and cruel to her, and Selina ended up treating her own daughter in much the same way.
• Age Insecurity: Selina has proved many times over the series that she is incredibly insecure about her age:
  • Out of many incredibly sexist and derogatory nicknames that the general public have called her, she takes offense at the one which denigrates her sexual attractiveness to men.
  • When Catherine announces her engagement to a lobbyist, Selina just indignantly replies that she is 48. Later when Catherine and Marjorie welcome little Richard, she hems and haws about being called a grandmother.
  • In Season 5, she has a secret blepharoplasty operation to remove the bags from under her eyes and refuses to appear in public until she has healed from the operation. When Minna Häkkinen immediately compliments her on the cosmetic change, Selina quickly denies that she had the operation.
  • Selina is absolutely overjoyed when she learns that the symptoms she's been experiencing in Season 6 was a minor heart attack and not the onset of menopause, even as her doctor advises her this is much more serious and she needs a cardiac stent immediately.
  • She deliberately obfuscates her true age, which becomes a line of attack from Jonah Ryan's campaign by demanding that she show her birth certificate.
    Mike: [announcing Selina's funeral] The former president passed away earlier this week at the age of 76 or possibly 77 or, according to some sources, 75.
• All for Nothing: In the end she becomes so obsessed with becoming President that she trades away her one positive legacy in freeing Tibet, and by the time she gets in the Oval she has thoroughly alienated everyone she was once close to, including Catherine who refuses to ever speak to her again and makes good on that promise. She’s defeated by Kemi after only a single term, and then has to watch her old nemesis completely eclipse her place in history as a truly beloved female President with two terms. By the time she dies at 74, she’s such a footnote to history that the death of Tom Hanks completely overshadows her funeral on the news.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Selina is especially attracted to sleazes and enemies. Catherine's father Andrew is a sleazy property developer always in trouble for fraud, and then there's her relationship with Tom.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Deconstructed. Though she occasionally does show concern for her people, it's ultimately hollow because she'll still screw them over and ruin their lives if it benefits her.
  • Exemplified in the Grand Finale, where she confesses to a hospitalized Ben that she needs him because she doesn't know what to do without him, which foreshadows the ending: that she'll regret alienating her team to win the presidency, but she'll be all alone.
  • Also in the Grand Finale, she reluctantly has Gary take the fall for Andrew's crimes and thanks him for everything he's done for her. Yet after she becomes president, she never pardons him or even visits him in prison and they only "meet" again when Gary attends her funeral two decades later.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: When she becomes President, the consequences for fuck-ups become much bigger.
• Being Evil Sucks: Her selfishness, lack of scruples and desire for power at all costs end up pushing away everyone who was close to her and tarnishing her legacy, leaving her completely alone and regarded as a mediocre president who achieved nothing important or positive and her funeral such a non-event the news cuts away from it after learning that Tom Hanks passed away.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She makes a point of being very polite and cheerful in front of cameras or voters while being much more caustic in private and viewing most voters with contempt.
• Broken Pedestal: Selina idolized her father up until the events of "Chicklet", where her uncle tells her that her father was an adulturer who died having sex with his secretary and that he was involved in numerous shady financial dealings, just like Selina's ex-husband Andrew.
• Can't Take Criticism: Fitting her her tendency to blame others for her mistakes, she doesn't handle criticism well.
• Convenient Miscarriage: In "Baseball", she discovers that she's pregnant, much to her horror, as she's unmarried. She has a miscarriage in the very next episode.
• Corrupt Politician: Finally happens in Season 5 when she stops at nothing to buy the House vote, which includes colluding with the Chinese government.
• Daddy's Girl: Selina only shows deep emotion when she remembers her beloved politician father, highlighted that she refers to her parents as "Daddy" and "Mother".
• Deadpan Snarker: But only behind closed doors. Publicly, she sticks to safe (and lame) jokes.
• Deceptive Legacy: Grew up thinking her father was a wonderful man who built the family fortune and her mother a cold woman who sold off Selina's beloved horse. In season 6, Selina discovers her dad was a scam artist who would have bankrupted the family if not for her mother's business smarts. Also, he was cheating on her mom with his secretary and Selina's mother kept the truth hidden, letting Selina hate her rather than ruin the image of her father.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: Has a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth, and then ingest said foot, whenever she's put on the spot without preparation. Given that she's a high-ranking politician, these situations are her day job.
• Easily Forgiven: By no-one but Gary. In the finale, he holds no grudge against her for sending him to prison.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: The idea of others engaging in politics or social activism because they actually want to help people and improve the country rather than simply for their own ego's or personal gain is something Selina seems legitimately unable to fathom, often being confused by Kemi Talbot's idealism or Catherine's activism.
• Female Misogynist:
  • Selina wants to be seen as a feminist hero for being the first woman president, but privately she often makes disparaging comments about women. Showrunner David Mandel called her a "giant misogynist".
  • Her refusal to offer Senator Talbot (the only other female candidate for the party nomination) the VP slot stems from her belief that America doesn't want two women on the ticket. This also leads her to offer plum positions to Governor Calhoun and Jonah Ryan in exchange for their support, their delagates, and concessions like ending same-sex marriage.
• Flanderization: Selina was always a semi-competent Manipulative Bitch with delusions of grandeur...but she at least had some morals, principles, and she could actually be a competent and confident schemer who was intelligent and savvy too. Around Season 6 and Season 7, she openly disdains every single person around her, has no moral compass at all, and openly only cares about what she can use to prop up her reputation. Justified, as she is casting off more and more of her already shaky morals in the pursuit of power.
• Fox News Liberal: Permanently overturns gay marriage in order to win the 2020 nomination.
• Freudian Excuse: Her mother, whom Selina once claimed was a "pathological narcissist" that routinely neglected and mocked her only daughter, was apparently a large source of grief for her growing up. The irony in her telling this information to Catherine is justifiably lost on Selina.^note Denial represents a crucial defense mechanism in the Real Life personality disorder, and it's not unlikely for those grandiose, self-defeating traits to be passed down from parent to child.
• Girlboss Feminist: Selina wants feminist credit for being the first female president, but she doesn't actually do anything to improve women's lives and she's willing to excuse female genital mutilation if her interests demand it.
• Hidden Depths: In spite of Selina being largely depicted as incompetent, she consistently has moments which show how she was able to become an accomplished Senator, mount a presidential campaign and become Vice President. 
  • In "Debate" she is shown to be an effective public speaker who can think on her feet.
  • A clip of a presidential debate shown in "Mommy Meyer" suggests that she is much better public speaker than her opponent, Bill O'Brien.
  • In "Congressional Ball", she ruthlessly and successfully browbeats fellow politicians to keep them in line.
  • In spite of Tom James' status as The Ace, in Season 5 she sees through and averts his schemes more than once.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: In Season 6, Selina's party wants nothing to do with her, she has to deal with President Montez becoming a Nobel Peace Laureate by stealing credit for Selina's accomplishments, and she's financially dependent on her daughter.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: In "Nicknames," when she learns about all the various nicknames given to her by bloggers, the one she takes the greatest issue with is "Viagra Prohibitor."
  They are saying that a prescription medication that is supposed to guarantee a strong and sustained erection in all men despite their age or their health is rendered ineffective by me? You know what? You no longer search on the nicknames!
• Important Haircut: She gets a short haircut when she's running for President in season 3.
• Informed Ability: Supposedly a politician of some repute, but with a habit of gaffes, yet on the show she appears to be clueless, surrounding herself with an even more clueless staff, and being unable to effectively engage in the kind of small talk with voters that real politicians do all the time.
• It's All About Me: She tries to deny it, but it's true and it eventually becomes her defining trait as she sells out everyone and everything for her own benefit. It gets to the point where Selina can barely even understand the needs of others, especially Gary and Catherine's. In "Catherine" she says, "I know not everything is about me," to her daughter — while hiding in a closet filled with pictures, posters, and cardboard cutouts of herself.
  • Selina becomes incredibly incensed when she learns that Mike and his wife Wendy are trying IVF:
    Selina: I can't have Mike getting what's-her-ass all knocked up and pregnant, becoming some sort of dad during my campaign.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Initially she had some Heart of Gold moments, especially with Catherine. But as the series progressed she became an increasingly terrible person and stopped showing humanity even to her daughter. And her few genuine accomplishments (like Tibet) were lucky byproducts of her terrible behavior.
• Karma Houdini: She gets re-elected president, selling Tibet back to the Chinese and permanently abolishes same-sex marriage, dies peacefully of old age, and is remembered somewhat fondly. However...
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Although she’s remembered a little fondly, she’s lost everybody who cared about her, was kicked out of the Oval Office after only one term as President by Kemi of all people, who then proceeded to blow her out of the water and earn herself a place in history as one of the best presidents who ever lived, and when she dies, is quickly forgotten about. As a final insult, her funeral is ignored and abandoned halfway through Mike's broadcast when news breaks of Tom Hanks dying. All in all, she worked her block off and sold out everything and everybody she had for four measly years of power, and was quickly booted out in short order, rendering all she had done an exercise in futility and is quickly swept under the rug after her death.
• Kick the Dog: Plenty.
  • In "Oslo", she promises to give back Tibet to China in exchange for China secretly helping her win the presidential election. Immediately afterwards, she meets a group of Tibetan monks who will certainly suffer horribly if Tibet is given back to China...
  • In the finale, she agrees to outlaw same-sex marriage to get Buddy Calhoun's delegates, annuling her daughter's marriage in the process.
  • It's also mentioned that she never pardoned Gary after forcing him to take the fall for Andrew's misdeeds or even contacted him afterwards, despite his years of devoted service.
• Kicked Upstairs: Truth in Television, the Vice Presidential position is notorious for being a graveyard for political influence,^note The very first VP John Adams even famously declared it to be the most useless job humanity has ever invented. with some exceptions - Al Gore, George H. W. Bush and Richard Nixon, for example. Selina is apparently not one of them.
  Selina: What am I missing these days?
  Senator Hallows: Power.
• Kissing Under the Influence: It's implied that she had drunken sex with another woman back in college.
• Lack of Empathy: As the series goes on, Selina becomes increasingly selfish and willing to do anything to gain or keep power and reaches a point where she seems genuinely unable to think of others' feelings.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: As a middle-aged, divorced politician, the last thing she wants is another child, so of course she gets pregnant after having unprotected sex one time.
• Lonely at the Top: Ultimately. She became President, but lost Gary, her whole staff, and Catherine and Catherine's family, with Catherine even celebrating once Selina dies.
• Lonely Funeral: A variant in the finale in that her funeral is decently attended by former employees and other politicians but it's clear most are there just out of obligation and almost none are genuinely upset about Selina's death and she made so little positive or lasting impact and it's seen as such a non-event by the public that coverage is interrupted when news breaks that Tom Hanks has passed away.
• Mistaken for Racist: In "Chung", Selina is mistakenly informed that Danny Chung, the Chinese American governor of Minnesota was not born in the U.S., so she says on Meet the Press that Chung can't run for President, because he's "technically not an American".
• Mrs. Robinson: Explicitly stated by Jonah, who wonders out loud how many drinks it would take for something to happen between them.
• Narcissist: And how. Especially clear in Season 6 and onwards, but it was always there - such a time when she told her neglected and emotional daughter that she "knew it wasn't all about her"...while surrounded by campaign posters showing her face.
• Never My Fault: She shifts blame for any mistake on to her staff.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: A female senator who ran a campaign to be President before being shunted into an administration job by the victorious nominee? Hillary Rodham Clinton. A Vice-President from a mid-Atlantic state with a habit of unfortunate gaffes? Joe Biden.
• No Party Given: Selina's party is never named, though the issues she stands for seem to be vaguely liberal, suggesting that she's a Democrat.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • In "Kissing Your Sister" after the House vote is undecided and Tom James is all but certain to take the presidency, she just walks out of the Oval Office forlornly. No screaming, no blaming staff, just straight quiet to the point that it's almost a Heroic BSoD.
  • Her very last scene in the show is her back in the Oval Office about to complain about the "level of incompetency" that she's... no longer surrounded by, because she alienated all her friends/allies in order to get to where she was. She trails off her remark as she realizes this.
• Pet the Dog:
  • She shows an odd concern for the well-being of the President when Kent informs her that he's resigning.
  • When she hears from Dan and Amy that Jonah literally shot himself in the foot, she tells Ben, who is struggling to hold in his laughter, that it isn't funny. Diminished in that she then asks Dan and Amy how this will affect her reputation.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: She shows a general disdain for the poor and working class, is fatphobic, and makes a number of fairly homophobic remarks during Catherine and Marjorie's relationship. That's in addition to passing a law banning gay marriage in the finale.
• Politicians Kiss Babies: In Season 7, she uses Catherine and Marjorie's baby, her grandson, while campaigning. It takes a toll on Catherine, who is suffering from postpartum depression to which Selina is unsurprisingly unsympathetic.
• Power Hair: She gets a short haircut when she's running for President in season 3. Louis-Dreyfus (who wears a wig for the role) said that her own hair "does not look like hair that‘s inside the Beltway".
  • It comes in for a good deal of mockery.
    Ben: (at Selina's second swearing-in ceremony) They're gonna have a field day with that haircut. "Thai Ladyboy Made Head of Sweatshop."
  • However, in season 4, after she becomes President, she lets her hair grow out again.
• Pyrrhic Victory: In the Grand Finale, Selina finally becomes President, but she ended up a one term president who's only remembered for freeing Tibet, which she later undid to get the aforementioned term, and abolishing gay marriage. Worst, her administration was overshadowed by both Kemi and Splett who became two term presidents and are revered as two of the finest ever to hold the office. She gave up her allies, daughter, and Gary, for the Oval Office, and had nothing to show for it in the end, being such a footnote in history that press coverage of her funeral is abandoned halfway through when news breaks that Tom Hanks has passed away. Naturally. Permanently overturning gay marriage just to further her own career was the final nail that pushed Catherine away from her forever.
• Rich Bitch: Selina likes to think she's a "woman of the people", but deep down she loathes the people and is extremely snobby and rude to literally everyone.
• The Scapegoat: Essentially her role for the President and the rest of the administration when a major scandal comes along. Even when Selina actually accomplishes something spectacular, like successfully negotiating the budget talks with the House majority leader in order to avoid a government shutdown, POTUS stalls on the deal and lets the shutdown happen in order to take attention away from the hostage crisis blowout where one of them was a CIA spy, thereby blaming Selina.
  Ben: Madam Vice President, greatest respect, but it has been the job of the VP over the ages to, you know, take it in the ass to save the President.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Her filthy mouth was noted by several reviewers.
• Skewed Priorities: When Selina learns that her exhaustion was a mild heart attack, she's overjoyed because it means that she's not experiencing menopause.
• Slave to PR: Selina's stance on any issue will be determined by what impression it will have in the media.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Despite having been President, she still qualifies. Since she was the first female President, even though she came into that role by pure chance, she acts like she was a trailblazer whose time in office had a revolutionary effect on the country and deserves to be mentioned alongside Lincoln and Washington even though she only served a year which was marked by various fuck ups and scandals and generally seen as an embarrassment and one of the worst US Presidents in history, enough that Ben bluntly tells her she has basically no chance of being elected again.
• The Un-Favourite: To the administration. In season 1, her main project is a "clean jobs" bill, which she eventually has to veto personally, when the President pulls his support. In season 2, the President gives her a more prominent role in foreign policy, only to throw her under the bus when a major scandal comes along.
• The Unfettered: As the series goes on, Selina has fewer and fewer scruples, to the point of being willing to do anything to gain and keep power, no matter who is hurt in the process.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Selina was never portrayed as likable, but she had some humanizing moments in the earlier seasons and at least some principles. By season 6, there are no such moments and her behavior is close to sociopathy.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Selina is selfish, shallow, amoral and incompetent. She does not seem to have any political convictions; all she cares about is how she appears before the voters. She's also a Mean Boss and as a parent, she's either neglectful or outright abusive.
• Upper-Class Equestrian: She's from a very privileged background. Growing up she had a beloved pony, and she still resents her mother for selling it.
• Upper-Class Twit: The media makes her out to be this due to her over-privileged background, especially after a quote in her book about how she learned about the tough life of American farmers through grooming her pony as a child. Saturday Night Live even does a sketch about this... and then Meyer turns up in a follow-up one (Dreyfus was in fact in SNL herself)
  Selina: So I had a horse as a kid, who didn't? Have a pet, is what I meant.
  • Selina also says that you shouldn't be a millionaire at a young age: "You shouldn't make your first million until you're in your thirties. That's what Andrew and I did and it kept us completely grounded."
• Was It Really Worth It?: She's forced to ask herself this in the finale as she is elected President but has pushed away everyone to do so. Her reaction indicates that she doesn't think so.
• What You Are in the Dark: At the end of the Grand Finale, after alienating herself from her allies, she only realizes what this means when finds herself alone in the Oval Office.
• Woman Scorned: In the middle of her divorce with Andrew, she torched his car and got away with it.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Repeatedly throughout the series, Selina had a penchant for firing or sacking a member of her staff the moment she feels she no longer needs them. The *only* member of her staff who Selina seems to truly value is Ben.

Amy

Amy Brookheimer

Portrayed By: Anna Chlumsky

"If you can't take the heat, buy asbestos panties".

The long-suffering Vice Presidential Chief of Staff. In the middle of season 3, she is promoted to Selina's campaign manager to replace Dan after his London trainwreck, only to later briefly resign over Selina's refusal to take her advice. After the end of the Meyer administration, Amy has a brief stint as her fiancé Buddy Calhoun's campaign manager, but she quickly rejoins Selina as her personal assistant.

---

• Beleaguered Assistant. Like everyone in Selina's staff, she's are completely overworked and constantly forced to put out fires. In season 4, she can't take it any longer, tells off Selina and quits.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Dan. The two of them dated for a week sometime before the series began and normally can't stomach one another, but they do occasionally seem to care about one another a bit more than most colleagues do. In Season 6, they have drunken sex offscreen, which results in Amy getting pregnant. Amy tries to nudge Dan into settling down with her and raising their child together, but when Dan remains oblivious to her advances, she decides to get an abortion.
• Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Basically what she becomes when she joins Jonah’s campaign.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Zigzagged. While Amy does have an abortion after getting pregnant, it was only because Dan ignored her attempts to suggest that they settle down together.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Consistently, she is the most competent and adept member of Selina's staff.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: She has drunken sex with Dan and ends up pregnant in Season 6 despite neither of them being interested in having children or having families, much less be committed to each other.
• Manipulative Bitch: Her manipulations in "Special Relationship" result in Dan having a nervous breakdown and losing his position as campaign manager, with Amy getting the job.
• Married to the Job:
  • Work seems to be much more important to Amy than her personal life. She didn't even know about her one-year anniversary with her boyfriend until he told her. Even then, she didn't care, because she had something urgent to do.
    Ed: Kind of seems more appropriate now that it's just the two of us.
    Amy: No, you have to go too.
    Ed: Amy! It's our anniversary!
    Amy: Please do not tell me you are one of those fucking weirdos that celebrates three-month-aversaries!
    Ed: It's actually a year.
    Amy: A year in which you neglected to tell me about Jeff Kane^note Jonah's uncle who controls the senior vote in New Hampshire.
  • In Season 6, she's shown to be completely uninterested in sex with her fiancé. She only gets excited when he encourages her to rant about how much she hates his opponent, and even then she's more interested in the politics than having sex with him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: In the final season, Amy plays a major role enabling the worst aspects of Jonah's presidential campaign all in the name of furthering her political career. It's not until Selina states her intentions to capitalize on Jonah's popularity by making him her running mate does Amy realize the monster she had created.
• Not Wanting Kids Is Weird: Amy is criticized by her family for not wanting children. That said, she was willing to settle down with Dan after she got pregnant with his kid, but when he remains oblivious to her advances and was already expecting her to get an abortion, she aborts. In the Distant Finale, she never had children and repeatedly states -unprompted- that it was a "good idea," making depressingly clear she’s in denial about her obvious regret.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: After having spent the middle of season 7 working for Jonah's campaign and trying to destroy Selina's career, Amy breaks down and begs Selina not to offer Jonah the Vice Presidency.
• Pair the Spares: The Distant Finale show that she eventually marries Bill Ericcson
• Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: In Season 4, when Selina brings on Karen, an useless Yes-Man to be her adviser, and values her opinions more than Amy's, Amy has a meltdown, delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech to both Karen and Selina and quits her job on the spot.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: After officially joining Jonah's campaign in Season 7, she appears on a talk show as a Kellyanne Conway Expy with curled hair, heavy makeup, and wearing a low-cut dress... a far cry from the simple and practical styles she had worn up until then.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Calling her "good" in the first place might be pushing it but once Amy has been pushed a bridge too far through the constant disrespect from Selina, her peers, and her having an abortion after finally giving up believing she could settle down with Dan she decides to fully back Jonah so that he can defeat Selina and potentially destroy the country.
  Amy: God fuck America.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Dan, though she'd deny it.
• Workaholic: Amy neglects her personal life for the sake of her job and it seems that she's simply unable to relax. Sue explicitly describes her as a workaholic in "Election Night":
  She's a workaholic. She works frantically to avoid dealing with her weird mix of lack of self-worth and narcissism.
• Working with the Ex: She and Dan dated for a week. She apparently has no fond memories of it.
  Amy: It was like getting over mild food poisoning.

Gary

Gary Walsh

Portrayed By: Tony Hale

"I'm next to the Veep more than any other human being. I'm her moon."

The fiercely loyal personal assistant to Selina.

---

• Berserk Button: Gary is normally a pushover, but he gets very angry when someone hurts Selina. He also flips out when Selina says that he's unimportant to her.
• Beware the Nice Ones: When it's discovered Andrew is cheating on Selina, Gary screams and tries to throttle the man right in a limo.
• Butt-Monkey: Treated as wimpy and an Extreme Doormat to Selina. Not as bad as Jonah, though, who he does show some annoyance at.
  Gary: [During a shooter lockdown] Get to the panic room!
  Sue: Every room you're in is a panic room, Gary.
• Establishing Character Moment: Burns his hands holding VP Meyer's hot coffee cup while she has an idle conversation. He'll go on to do similar things in later episodes.
• Extreme Doormat: He will never, ever go against Selina. He even forgives her for framing him for fraud and refuses to say one bad word about her.
• Fall Guy: Unwittingly takes the fall for Andrew Meyer's activities as Director of the Meyer Fund.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: As opposed to pretty much everyone else on the show, Gary almost never uses profanity. An example of the contrast in "Nicknames", when he and Amy tell Selina about the unflattering nicknames bloggers gave her, and he brings up VPILF:
  Gary: You know what that means? Vice President I Would Like to, you know, fool around with.
  Amy: Fuck.
  • Precision F-Strike: On the other hand, there were a few moments where Gary has been pushed to his limits that this happens, as Dana's cheese shop employee, the Statue of Liberty, and eventually Selina find out.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Gary is clearly in love with Selina and gets very passive aggressive with her boyfriends.
• Grew a Spine: In Season 4, after Gary makes some serious mistakes, Selina chews him out and tells him that he's unimportant to her. Gary reacts with uncharacteristic anger, reminding Selina that he's more than just her bagman.
  Gary: I've broken my body for you. I've let myself to be laughed at, I've let myself to be humiliated and I'm happy to do it! Most of the time, you don't even know that I exist, but I'm fucking everything to you!
• Heroic BSoD: After he walks in on Selina and Tom James having sex, he can barely walk down the hall, whimpering to himself.
• Hidden Depths: He went to Cornell... and majored in hotel management.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Seems to know everything about everyone in the Washington DC political scene, including his boss. This is very useful to Selina. Has pretty much no knowledge of policy, but that's not his job.
• Ignored Enamored Underling: He shows strong signs of being in love with Selina (a platonic variant, considering he was dating Dana at the time), who either doesn't notice it or doesn't care about it. Truth in Television for toxic co-dependency, with Gary obviously being the giver to Selina's taker. She frames him for Andrew's fraud shortly before being re-elected president, which gets Gary sent to jail, and she never sees him again. He still shows up to her funeral and cries at her coffin.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: While playing devil's advocate, Dan predicts that Selina's policy will destroy America, capping it off by saying that she'll become so infamous that no one will ever name their child Selina again. After a stunned moment of silence, Gary says, "My God... no more Selinas?" He's immediately shushed.
• Oh, Crap!: In "Intruder", when an intruder shoots up the White House.
  Gary: Shit just got real! Shit just got real!
• Precision F-Strike: Usually a case of O.O.C. Is Serious Business in either he's having an Oh, Crap! moment or he's pissed off.
  • When he gives Selina "The Reason You Suck" Speech in Season 4.
    "I'm fucking everything to you!"
  • When he gives "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the rest of Selina's staff and Tom James for screwing up the election at the end of Season 5. It certainly grabs their attention, but only because they wanted to see him go off for once.
    "You fuckers."
• Professional Butt-Kisser: The summary of his relationship with Selina. He adores her, is extremely protective of her, and will never contradict her, but also seems to hero-worship her and consider the most beautiful woman alive.
• Taking the Bullet: Well, it's actually a sneeze bullet.
• Undying Loyalty: To Selina. He even breaks up with her boyfriend for her!
  • It comes to a head in the Grand Finale, where Selina frames him for Andrew's crimes regarding the Meyer Fund. Though he's initially hurt by her betrayal, he still attends her funeral 24 years later and holds no grudge against her.
• The Un-Favorite: His parents have far more love for Bruce, Gary's stillborn twin, even keeping the crib meant for him, more than their living son who works for the President.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: His dad has little respect for him and his job.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: His girlfriend, Dana, is never brought up again as the show goes on. According to Word of Saint Paul, Selina probably did something bad to her.

Dan

Daniel Clifford Egan

Portrayed By: Reid Scott

"This is what happens if you tell the truth. Nothing good comes of it".

The former Director of Communications for Senator Hallows, until he sabotages her in an attempt to curry favor with Selina. This gets him a job under Mike as Deputy Director of Communications for Selina. In Season 3, he is chosen to be Selina's campaign manager, which completely blows up in his face and he is quickly replaced by Amy. After the end of the Meyer administration, Dan rebrands himself "Danny" and becomes a CBS news anchor.

---

• Beleaguered Assistant: Dan is frequently overwhelmed by Selina's demands.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Amy. The two of them dated for a week sometime before the series began and normally can't stomach one another, but they do occasionally seem to care about one another a bit more than most colleagues do. In Season 6, they have drunken sex offscreen, which results in Amy getting pregnant. Amy tries to nudge Dan into settling down with her and raising their child together, but when Dan remains oblivious to her advances, she decides to get an abortion.
• Blunt "Yes"
  Gary: Every single thing you say to me is emasculating. Do you realize that?
  Dan: Yes.
• The Charmer: Subverted. Whenever he turns on the charm, his colleagues find it anything but.
  Mike: You know, Dan, watching you try to be nice is like watching a baby smoke a cigarette. It's kind of cool, but also very disturbing.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He will sell out whoever he works for if he thinks it can further his career, but then this is par for the course in politics. He's just the one in Selina's staff who displays it the most.
• Deadpan Snarker: Like most of the cast, Dan is frequently sarcastic.
• Didn't Think This Through: No matter how skilled you are, sneaking in a bill opposed by the President and much of Congress will cause a shitstorm. And result in the Veep having to veto the bill she spent ages working on. He is still dealing with the fallout as of the Season 1 finale, and possibly into Season 2.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He's genuinely disgusted and outraged when he sees Jonah get grabbed in the balls by Teddy and tells him not to put up with it because it's sexual harassment.
• Future Loser: The Grand Finale shows that 24 years later he's remained as skeezy as ever, except instead of being a member of working in politics, he's selling SoCal real estate. Being who he is, though, he's more than satisfied with flaunting the money he's made off of it, and doesn't seem to really care that he never accomplished anything outside of being rich.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Offers to Catherine to have a threesome with her, himself, and Marjorie when the lesbian couple are trying for a baby.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Averted. Though clearly thinking himself as a cut above the rest, Dan's arrogance and inability to think things through causes his advice to not only be useless not once or twice, but every single time, frequently backfiring into his and/or Selina's face.
  • In Season 2, he is told several times directly to his face that he is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. Once by Kent, once by oil lobbyist Sidney Purcell, and once by Selina herself, as seen in "Hostages", where Dan's attempts to sidle up to her backfire, as the VP was in the middle of reacting to the news of a marine losing his leg. He's put in his place so severely that even Gary gloats to him about it.
  Gary: End of an era.
  • In Season 3, when Selina is running for President, she promotes Dan to campaign manager. However, he ends up being unable to deal with the pressure and has a nervous breakdown. As a result, Selina replaces him with Amy.
  • Also in Season 3, he leaks a (presumably false) story about Governor Chung being involved in the torture of Iraqi prisoners to Jonah in order to get his trashy news site discredited and shut down. This comes back to bite Dan in the ass when Kent threatens to fire him because the leak has been traced back to him. Of course, Dan resolves this quickly enough by getting Jonah to denounce the internet as his source for the story in exchange for a job with Selina.
  • In Season 4, he reveals that he's been setting up Jonah to take the fall for the Medileaks scandal by slowly increasing his role in the administration. This, again, bites him in the ass when Ben and Kent force him to resign in disgrace.
• Ignored Epiphany: After his attempt to seduce Felix Wade fails because, at age 39, he's too old for Felix's tastes, Dan tells Amy, who is pregnant with his child, that he's considering re-evaluating his life style of meaningless sex with women who are half his age. When Amy goes to talk to him later about possibly getting back together, she walks in on him about to have sex with another woman like he never had his epiphany.
• It's All About Me: It's pretty clear that Dan's sole concern is himself and his own career.
• Karma Houdini: Ultimately, he's this by the Grand Finale. Though he's been fired by Selina, he ends up becoming a successful real estate agent and gets married to a woman some thirty years younger than him. His jerkassery is never punished and he's the most happiest out of the entire cast (except for maybe Kent, who seems to have gotten a little eccentric in his old age but is otherwise happily retired, and obviously except for Richard). That said, it's made clear that his political career never went anywhere and that, contrary to his lofty ambitions throughout the series, he ended up remaining a posturing nobody, flaunting what little status being the most successful real estate agent in the middle of nowhere can get him.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Dan gets hit with this repeatedly.
  • In order to damage control the Medileaks scandal, Dan offers the idea of firing an employee as a scapegoat, first an intern and later aiming to target Jonah. The Meyers Administration decides to pin it on Dan instead and he gets fired.
  • While working for CBS, Dan gets his senior news anchor fired her out of revenge for her creating rumors of them having behind the scenes affairs. He ends up having poor on-air chemistry with his new partner and ends up getting sacked.
  • After getting fired by Selina for a second time, Dan's final bid to further his political career is to ride Richard Splett's coattails as his new Chief of Staff. Dan is clearly hoping that he can make Richard a Puppet King with him as the brains behind the operation. Unfortunately for Dan, Richard continues to move up the ladder without his influence and when Jonah convinces the now President Selina to add Richard to her cabinet, it's on the basis that Dan would get sacked again.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: He has drunken sex with Amy and ends up getting her pregnant in Season 6, despite having been told that his sperm had slow motility and neither of them are interested in having children or having families, much less commit themselves to each other.
• Likes Older Women: In a private conversation, he says that he prefers older women due to their life experience — of course, at the time, he's flirting with Selina. Almost leads to a Mrs. Robinson moment between him and Selina, until it's ruined when he tells her his darkest secret: he killed a stray dog on a dare. Subverted in Season 6, where he is outraged at the notion that he would hit on an older woman for any reason other than personal advancement.
• Manipulative Bastard: A highly skilled political jockey who can quickly defuse complex problems for Selina, while also making things better for himself. Or so he thinks.
• May–December Romance: In the Grand Finale, his wife is revealed to have been born in 2019.
• Metaphorgotten:
  Dan: [to Amy] The best way to get revenge on people is to make a shitload of money off of them! That's what Mark Twain said.
• Oh, Crap!:
  Amy: Remember a couple months ago after you got fired and we had drinks with Ben?
  Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we had a lot of drinks.
  Amy: Yeah, well, I'm pregnant. And it's yours. [walks away]
  Dan: (Beat) ...Fuck! I really thought things were starting to turn around.
• Older Than They Look: 24 years later in the Distant Finale, he hasn't aged a day. The only major difference is a beard and a tan.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: His willingness to sell out his team or spill secrets to pander to prospective employers makes him an undesirable hire.
• Slasher Smile: It comes out when he's particularly on edge, either in victory or defeat.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Dan thinks of himself as a House of Cards (US) style schemer. In reality, he's no more competent than the rest of the cast and simply mistakes backstabbing for political prowess.
• Smug Snake: The guy thinks of himself as a political badass and likes to rub it in people's faces.
• The Sociopath: The show is giving less-subtle hints that he seems to be of the high-functioning variety. The fact that he revealed that he killed a stray dog as a child to win a dare is leaving little room for doubt.
• Sleeping Their Way to the Top: He attempts it by sleeping with Amy's sister, because he thinks she can get a job for him at CBS (she actually works for CVS, a pharmacy chain).
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives a devastating one to Jonah.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: A rare inversion - Dan sells out his boss, Senator Hallows, to dig Selina out of a scandal. In the process he gets a job on the Veep's staff. It's clear from earlier dialogue he sees the Senator as merely a stepping stone on his career.}
• Workaholic: Dan doesn't seem to have a personal life at all. He mentions dating a woman in "Nicknames", but only to further his political career. When he finds out that she won't get an important job, he dumps her immediately. (He sleeps with numerous other women, but never has any meanignful relationships).
• Working with the Ex: Amy does not have a high opinion of him. Well, not his competence, but his personality.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: As shown above, he thinks he's far smarter than everyone and fantastic at his job, not grasping he's as much an incompetent nut as the rest of the staff, and thinking he's a key figure in a serious political drama rather than a comedy where humor comes from his idiocy.

Mike

Michael James McLintock

Portrayed By: Matt Walsh

"Hey, you can't read everything. I don't read everything I'm supposed to".

The rather incompetent Director of Communications for the Vice President. At the end of season 3, he becomes the White House Press Secretary. After the end of the Meyer administration, Mike briefly becomes a stay-at-home dad before joining Selina's charitable foundation.

---

• Beleaguered Assistant: He's constantly demeaned at by Selena.
• Big Eater: Mike is usually seen stuffing his face whenever there is food around.
  Jonah: Okay, Mike. One day, you're going to wake up and find that your lungs have turned into pastry.
  • In season 4, he tries to eat more healthy at the insistence of his wife.
    Dan: Mike trying to be healthy. It's like a potato trying to whistle.
• Brick Joke: His Bullshitzu.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has a sarcastic sense of humour for many of the situations the team lands themselves in.
• Flanderization: In early seasons, Mike shows some signs of incompetence, but is also generally capable of doing his job and defusing the frequent threats to it posed by the various political storms Selena gets into. By the latter seasons, he can barely function as an independent adult, never mind as a Washington speechwriter.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Mike isn't outright despised like Jonah, but his ever-escalating incompetence and boorish behavior means the rest of the cast disregard as a loser.
• Happily Married: To Wendy.
• Hidden Depths: Mike screws up at his job countless times, but seems to be genuinely good at schmoozing and making the administration more likable to the press.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He gets Selina to cry in an interview with the hope of making her look sympathetic. The Genre Savvy Journalist figures this out quickly.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When listing the bad things that could possibly happen and overshadow the plastic untensil incident, he hypothetically suggests that Tom Hanks might die. Everyone is horrified by this.
  • In another example, after Selina tears into him for incompetence, he only attempts to rebuff the last part:
    Selina: Remind me never to get trapped in a burning building with you, Mike.
    Mike: I'm very good in a fire.
• I'll Pretend I Didn't Hear That: Mike always tries to ignore it when the Veeple People learn about something scandalous.
  Mike: (cringing) Christ, I hate knowledge.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Mike accidentally emails everyone in the West Wing the contents of Kent's flash drive, which contained polling questions like "what if POTUS lied to the American people?" and thus alerts everyone about the spy cover-up.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Described by Anthony, one of the owners of frozen yoghurt shop as a "gay Irish fireman."
• Running Gag: In season 2, the boat he's trying to get rid of.
• Super Gullible: In "Mother," he can be seen falling for a blatantly obvious pyramid scheme set up by Selina's ex-husband Andrew.
• Ultimate Job Security:
  • Mike is in charge of Selina's PR, so his incompetence turns a great many of her mistakes into fullblown scandals. However, Selina keeps him on despite his incompetence. Subverted in Season 5, where Selina decides to find a new Press Secretary to replace Mike, but she loses her bid for re-election before anything comes of it.
  • Finally comes to an end in season 6, as Mike is not included in Selina's team during her new campaign for president.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: A variant. He gets Selina to cry on camera with the hope of playing up her sympathetic traits. Backfires: see Hoist by His Own Petard.

Jonah

Jonah Joy Ryan

Portrayed By: Timothy Simons

"I'm from the White House, and what the fuck are you doing?"

A freshman congressman from New Hampshire; formerly the White House Liaison to the Vice President's office, and a notorious(ly bad) womanizer. In Season 3 he is fired from the White House, but is taken back on as part of a deal. In Season 5, he's elected to Congress.

---

• Brick Joke: His obsession with getting laid by Eights.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Marries his former step-sister during his presidential campaign. Amazingly, the media learning of this relationship actually increases his poll numbers, even after their parents get back together. It later turns out that her father is Jonah's biological father, making them actual half-siblings.
• Butt-Monkey: He is hated by pretty much everyone in the Vice President's office. And the Administration. And the District. And possibly in the world.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: He's so inept at talking about anything that telling funny jokes is out of his league.
• Casanova Wannabe: Facially, he isn't as much of a manter as most examples but he hits on Amy, Sue, and pretty much every remotely attractive girl he comes into contact with. Always rebuffed due to his boorishness and rude personality.
• Comically Missing the Point: He can't read the room on a frequent basis.
  • He does this several times when dealing with the subject matter of Teddy grabbing his balls.
    • He makes the Wrong Assumption about what Kent and Eric (and Sue) were calling him about in regards to "what happened in the Vice President [Doyle]'s office" and reluctantly admits that Teddy molested him... which wasn't what they were asking about (and it's interesting news to them, but they don't do anything about it). Later, he tries to talk to Catherine about it (probably to tell her that he isn't a loser that got molested) since she had walked in on the call, but she has no idea what he's talking about since she came in after he confessed.
    • He walks out on a class action lawsuit against Teddy because he found out all of the other victims were women, which he thinks means he's a wimp.
  • In a deleted scene, he forgets that he and Dan agreed to unperson Ed earlier that episode, leading to Dan trying to refer back to it in a joke by asking "Who?" whenever Jonah brings him up. When Dan reminds him, Jonah laughs much more than what was needed.
  • He frequently makes unintentionally misogynistic remarks and still has no idea why women feel uncomfortable around him.
• Daddy Issues: His biological dad is not in the picture and he hates his stepdad, Lloyd, for being strict on him and giving him bad grades in math class. Even worse when it turns out that his stepdad is his biological dad.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: His presidential run in Season 7 is an unsubtle rip towards Donald Trump's controversial presidency (or is a reference to criticisms of his presidency) at the time. For example, Jonah makes Islamophobic remarks that gain him popularity amongst Islamophobes, white supremacists, and racists, as well as demanding Selina show her birth certificate to prove her real age (referencing accusations that Barack Obama is not American-born and that he should prove his heritage by showing his birth certificate).
• Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: Averted. In season 4, he gets a new boss, Teddy, who frequently fondles his balls as a power move in the office. It's never Played for Laughs, and when Dan witnesses it, he's genuinely outraged.
  • It gets even more averted when Jonah seems genuinely scarred by the experience for several episodes afterwards, and asked to testify in a class action lawsuit against Teddy in 4x06.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • In Season 5, Jonah gets sick of Selina bossing him around and decides to campaign on an anti-Meyer platform. It works wonders for his polling, which suits Selina just fine.
  • In Season 7, Jonah hires Teddy, who used to sexually harass him, just so he can make fun of Teddy for being chemically castrated as punishment for his sexual harassment.
• Drunk On Power: As Jonah moves up the political ladder, he becomes more and more unhinged and vile.
• Dumbass Has a Point:
  • Kent tells him to get his "cerise"-colored binder and gets mad at him when he brings three red-colored binders including the cerise-colored binder and a cherry-red binder. To anyone else, cerise and cherry-red look like the exact shade of red.
  • Both "Daylight Saving Time" and "Daylight Savings Time" are valid ways of calling the term.
  • He hates Daylight Savings Time for being inconveniencing, which is more of a popular and reasonable sentiment than the rest of the smarter cast may think.
• Establishing Character Moment: To set up just how much of a hapless loser Jonah is, the first person to really lay into him is Mike, of all people, the character in which numerous jabs had already been made at remarking his incompetence.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He runs for President on an anti-Immigrant platform but still finds the violent rhetoric of some followers, who want to outright murder illegals, to be extreme and later admits to going too far.
  • While campaigning for Congress by working the counter at a bowling alley he has a legitimately friendly and positive banter with the employee supervising him, who is a woman with Down's syndrome. When his opponent releases a video of him shouting at Teddy but framed so it looks like he was shouting at the woman his first response isn't how bad it would be for the campaign but hoping the woman personally wouldn't believe it.
  • He has some views that are decidedly non-PC and is not incredibly bright or competent, but when he finds that he has accidentally ended up at a neo-Nazi rave while on a Congressional junket to Georgia, he immediately realises he's in too deep and gets the hell out of dodge.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Jonah struggled in math class (he claims to have a learning disorder, although this is either true or him trying to excuse his stupidity), which comes up when his strained relationship with his former stepfather-now-father-in-law is revealed, in that his former stepdad was his math teacher and gave him bad grades. While running for President, Jonah gets back at his former stepdad by rousing his supporters about how he'll ban math because not only is it hard, but because algebra was invented by Muslims and their numbers are "Muslim numbers" (Arabic).
  Jonah: Algebra?! More like AL-JAZEEHRA!
• Flanderization: While Jonah Ryan has always been lecherous and self-aggrandizing, he began the series being fairly politically literate, and was able to exploit some of Selina's, Mike's and Ray's politically incorrect or unpopular statements to undermine Selina's campaign. By the end of the series, he is a Manchild Conspiracy Theorist who marries his own opioid-addicted sister and publicly decries Muslims because he was too stupid to pass his math classes as a child. Word of God is that this was done as a Take That! to Donald Trump. Could possibly be justified as Jonah suffering from Sanity Slippage due to politics.
• Fox News Liberal: By Season 7, Jonah has essentially become a far-right conspiracy theorist, yet is still running for an ostensibly Democratic nomination. He even becomes one of the frontrunners during the Grand Finale specifically because of Islamophobic statements he has made.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: He's frequently the most inept member of the group and the rest of the staff find him annoying to be around, even when he's trying to be nice. Although he's had a few moments where he does genuinely get along with Dan.
  Jonah: Good morning!
  Ben: Ugh, how do you make two perfectly good words sound so irritating?
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He goes from a three-month internship to a White House Liaison somehow drunk with power...and things get worse and worse from there until he gets elected to Congress, shuts down the government out of spite, and sets himself up for a presidential run at the end of Season 6. Fortunately, he only has scores about 3% in the polls... but then Selina makes him her VP. Though she eventually has him impeached.
• Fun with Acronyms: Does this incessantly. Not only does he call the President POTUS ("Poh-tuss"), but he also calls the Veep VPOTUS ("Vee-poh-tuss"), the First Dog of the United States FDOTUS ("F-doh-tus"), and makes them up pretty much on the fly, such as VPVP ("Vice Presidential Visual Presence"). This annoys everybody.
  Mike: You can't just make up acronyms, Jonah.
  Jonah: Somebody has to, Mike.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Because of how much of a petty, abrasive and moody manchild Jonah is, he tends to constantly act out in fits of rage when he feels offended
• Happily Married: He and Beth are still together in 2045 and quite happily so.
• Humiliation Conga: In "Some New Beginnings" he gets outed as being behind the "WestWingMan" blog, fired from his White House job, and nearly dragged out of the building by security guards.
• Ignored Epiphany:
  • After being repeatedly sexually harassed, Jonah finally realizes that sexual harassment is a terrible thing. Unfortunately, Jonah only cares about sexual harassment perpetrated against men and remains as misogynistic as ever.
  • After trying to get rid of Daylight Savings Time in Season 6, in Season 7, he promises to his supporters that he'll ban math because it was invented by the Algerians, who are Muslims, and everyone hates Muslims. And once again, it's also because of a grudge (he hates DST because it made him late for an appointment, he hates math because his math teacher, his stepdad, kept giving him bad grades).
• Insult Backfire: While accusing Montez of discriminating against him for being "almost Jewish".
  Montez: Why don't you go take it up with the Anti-Defamation League?
  Jonah: The fuck is that?
  Montez: Wow, okay. My offer is not gonna be on the table for long, good afternoon, gentlemen.
• Jerkass: Jonah is a selfish, arrogant and narcissistic asshole, who is also incredibly annoying, smug and immature during social interactions. Pretty much everyone who knows him holds him in contempt. It is his lack of self-awareness that really stops him from being The Scrappy.
  Mike: I'm appealing to your better nature.
  Jonah: Mike, I don't have one of those.
• Kicked Upstairs: In Season 5, he's recruited to run for an open seat in the House of Representatives by the Meyer administration and his uncle Jeff Kane, a prominent New Hampshire political figure who actually wants the seat to go to his son Ezra, who is deployed in Afghanistan. Jonah is described as being so ineffectual that he'll be easy to replace when Ezra comes home, but as Jonah himself points out, he's very, very good at hanging onto positions he's never really deserved. In the finale, Selina makes him veep to get his delegates, while making sure that he has no authority.
  Jonah: I went to the White House on a three-month placement and stayed for four years! I'm a MRSA infection! You don't get rid of Jonah Ryan!
• Large and in Charge: Inverted. He's easily the tallest character on the show (a fact others mock him about regularly) but he's generally always the least powerful and authoritative person, however much he'd like to think otherwise.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • His anti-vax crusade leads to the death of his own father.
  • He is made Vice President, a position that Selina guarantees he will have no power in. In the future it is revealed he was impeached and has lost his other testicle to cancer.
• Manchild: He often behaves like an impulsive and whiny Spoiled Brat when he's interacting with others and other people are forced to keep his behavior under control as he has No Social Skills.
• Memetic Molester: In-universe, he is described as having the face of a rapist. When Doyle hears that sexual harassment occurred in his office, he immediately thinks it was Jonah (actually he was the victim).
  Jonah: May I remind you this rapist face gets eights? Consensually, I might add.
• Meaningful Name: Whether or not this was intentional... his name is Jonah and he's supremely unlucky.
• Momma's Boy: He frequently calls his mom.
• Nepotism: Sort of. As we learn in Season 3, he only got a job in the White House because his uncle has important political connections in New Hampshire. Jonah, however, refuses to acknowledge this.
  Jonah: Mom, do you think that you could talk to Uncle Jeff for me? I want a job on my own merits and I think he's the guy to get it for me.
• Noodle Incident: He's been banned from Uber because he has a low rating. It's not hard to imagine why.
• Obfuscating Disability: In Season 6, he hides the fact that his cancer is in remission and shaves his head because being a cancer patient is good for his approval ratings.
• Once an Episode: He will point out he works at the White House. And hit on Amy. And Sue. And everyone. See the character quote.
• Patricide: His anti-vax crusade leads to his father's death.
• Pet the Dog: For all his flaws, he does seem to genuinely appreciate Richard and makes a point of getting him a position in Selina's cabinet, which sets the stage for Richard's own eventual ascension to the Presidency.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Dan tears into him when he finds out Jonah's position is so unimportant he cannot be used for information.
  • Jonah gives an epic denouncement against Teddy in Season 5, calling people like him (i.e. sexual harassers) soulless. Unfortunately for Jonah, Bill Ericsson's creative camera work makes it look like Jonah's rant was directed at a woman with Down Syndrome.
• Running Gag:
  • Hey, did you know he works at the White House? This ends in season 3, since he no longer works there.
  • Him doing something misogynistic and causing women around him to perform the Girl Code for each other.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Vastly overstates the importance of his position, and is severely lacking in self-awareness. This gets even worse in season 3 when he's fired, and insists that the pathetic trashy gossip blog he's set up is making him an Intrepid Reporter who's going to bring Washington to its knees.
• Smug Snake: On the rare occasions he gets one over on fellow Smug Snake Dan, he will make sure to rub it in, especially when Dan suffers an anxiety attack and is hospitalised as a result.
• Spanner in the Works: Jonah throws Furlong and Montez's plans into chaos when he has his "Jeffersons" caucus vote against the bipartisan budget bill, for no reason beyond spiting Furlong and the rest of Congress for not taking him seriously.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: While Montez's assistant introduces her to Jonah in a meeting, Jonah says that they don't need guards because because "it's not like [he's] gonna rape [Montez]". Montez takes it as this trope and Jonah says that it literally means that he wouldn't rape Montez.
• Undying Loyalty: To his Only Friend, Richard. Despite their Odd Friendship, Jonah does value him. He eventually ensures that Richard is given a cabinet position, which helps pave the way for Richard becoming President.
• Would Hurt a Child: While riding with Richard, Jonah gets mad at him for not driving faster (because he's holding a camera at the same time) and Richard ends up crashing into a stop sign. Richard is at least relieved that he didn't hit the schoolchildren about to cross the street, but Jonah doesn't give a damn about them.

Sue

Sue Wilson-Levinson

Played By: Sufe Bradshaw

"Hello, what do you want, you can't have it, goodbye."

The Personal Assistant to the Vice President. Probably the most competent member of her staff. She retains her position in the Montez administration.

---

• Adults Are Useless: She doesn't do anything when Jonah reveals that he's being sexually harassed by Teddy.
• Advertised Extra: Appears mostly in background scenes, either with her Running Gag or a snark, despite being listed on the credits. She gets more screen time and a more fully-rounded character starting Season 2.
• Back for the Finale: After being absent from Season 6 and most of Season 7, Sue returns for the finale where she is back as Selina's secretary in the White House preventing Jonah and Amy from meeting with Selina.
• Being Personal Isn't Professional: Moreso than any other member of Selina's staff, Sue keeps her personal and professional life completely seperated. Late in season 5 she even shocks Kent with the revelation that she had been married for the past year.
• Beleaguered Assistant: A possible aversion, although we never see.
• Blunt No: See Running Gag.
• Deadpan Snarker: A particularly icy flavor of snark.
• Flat Character: Sue doesn't get much characterization outside of being ruthlessly efficient. Then again, given how guarded she is about her personal life, it's probably justified.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Claims to have been married a year prior to the presidential election. She didn't invite anyone from work, naturally. Apparently Catherine knew, however, since her new last name is revealed in the documentary.
  • Apparently she knows enough Korean to say "I hate you" to Mike.
• Female Gaze: Mike jokingly accuses Sue of undressing him with her eyes.
  Sue: I'm adding more clothes, Mike.
• Not So Stoic: Usually Sue is the calm and collected member of Selina's staff, but she breaks under the pressure of a Congressional committee.
• Older Than They Look: Played for Laughs in that Ben's politcal mentor fondly remembers Sue from work they did together in the past, causing Kent to question exactly how old she is.
• Put on a Bus: She appears to have exited the series at the end of Season 5, when she remains in the Montez administration.
• Running Gag: In season 1:
  Selina: Sue, did the President call?
  Sue: No.
• The Stoic: Sue remains calm and professional in almost every situation. As seen in "Convention", her "elated face" is almost the same as her normal face, save from a slight hint of a smile. In "Mommy Meyer", when there's an intruder in the White House, Sue calmly keeps doing her work and even hushes a Secret Service man.
• Token Minority: She seems to be the only black person on Selina's staff which is odd for an ostensibly Democratic administration.

Ben

Benjamin Cafferty

Portrayed By: Kevin Dunn

The long-suffering White House Chief of Staff for President Hughes and his successor, Selina Meyer. He and the President were college buddies. Politics has taken its toll on him. After the end of the Meyer administration and a failed stint as a Silicon Valley consultant, Ben becomes one of Jonah's advisors.

---

• The Alcoholic: He isn't shy about it either.
  Amy: Anyone who talks about work tonight has to take a drink.
  Ben: Work. (Takes a drink)
• Bus Crash: He eventually passes away from natural causes sometime between the present day of the Grand Finale and the Distant Finale.
• Deadpan Snarker: With the added bonus of being completely immune to any insults directed back at him (see Stopped Caring).
• Digging Yourself Deeper: While working as a consultant for Uber, Ben makes the mistake of using the word "Chinaman" in front of Uber's board, which has at least two East Asian people on it. When they call him out on his use of a slur, he responds with "my wife is oriental." They promptly fire him.
• The Eeyore: Explicitly referred to as such by Selina.
• Has a Type: Two of his three wives were Asian nurses, and he has a Meet Cute with another in the finale.
• Jaded Washout: Selina refers to him as a "burned-out loser".
• Married to the Job: Goes with being the White House chief of staff. Subverted in that it appears he's still Happily Married.
• Morality Chain: Not quite, but he's part of Selina's conscience. To the point that in the Grand Finale, when he has a heart attack and gets hospitalized, she confesses to him that she doesn't know what to do without him. This leads to her finding her own way to become president, which composes of several decisions that result in her alienating her all of her allies.
• Must Have Caffeine: His coffee mug can hold nine-cups worth and he claims that if a fire were to happen in the West Wing, it would be the only thing he'd salvage.
• Oh, Crap!: Discussed.
  Kent: Your idea of "crisis management" is running around screaming "Bury me, we're fucked!"
  Ben: Bury me, we're fucked!
• Really Got Around: When discussing the possibility that Thornhill might have had an affair with a mystery person.
  Selina: Eight years ago? It could have been anyone. Could have been Ben.
  Ben: Yeah, I poked everything that moved back then.
• Playing Both Sides: Ben's is a trusted ally of both the despotic President of Georgia and the leader of the Georgian opposition party.
• Stopped Caring: This insulates him from the stress the rest of the cast endures for all the internal jockeying... Leaving him free to absorb all the stress of the real-world problems the Oval Office faces.
  Selina: (In response to learning about the number of pro-life and pro-choice lobbyists that she has to listen to) Is there a "pro-I-don't-give-a-shit" lobby?
  Ben Yeah, you're looking at him. I got posters, buttons,... not really, because I don't give a shit.
• Those Two Guys: With Kent, the former's stoicism contrasting Ben's miserable apathy.
• Undying Loyalty: To Selina, even before she became president.

Kent

Kent Davison

Portrayed By: Gary Cole

White House polling adviser and senior strategist. He was also the strategist for the President on his campaign trail and forced Selina into unwanted PR situations with her ex-husband. After the end of the Meyer Administration, Kent becomes one of Jonah's advisors.

---

• Adults Are Useless: He doesn't do anything when Jonah reveals that he's being sexually harassed by Teddy.
• Badass Biker: As revealed in Catherine's documentary. In the Distant Finale, he's shown in full biker gang regalia after retiring from politics.
• Brutal Honesty: Kent doesn't have much of a filter. When Ellen (Mike's adopted daughter from China) says that she wants to be president of the United States, he bluntly tells her that she cannot (since one of the criteria is that you have to be born in the U.S.).
• Casting Gag: Gary Cole previously played VP Bob Russell in The West Wing, who was also a sucky Veep that wanted to be President.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Some of his behavior is ascribed to this, like his terrible workout outfit.
• Damned by Faint Praise: In Season 6, he's one of Jonah's advisors alongside Ben. While arguing with Furlong, who is making fun of Jonah becoming a Congressman and Kent scraping the bottom of the barrel by working for Jonah, Jonah says that Kent totally loves working for him, right, Kent? Kent says nothing.
• Deadpan Snarker: So much so that it's hard to tell when he's kidding.
  Selina: Oh Kent, don't be funny.
  Kent: Ma'am, I haven't been funny since 1987.
• Dull Surprise: Kent's default expression rarely ever changes.
  Selina: [Kent]'s got that blank look, I bet he doesn't even have a cumface. Can you imagine fucking that guy?
• Earn Your Happy Ending: In the Grand Finale, it is mentioned that he's happily retired (he makes watches and owns a ranch) and has a daughter now (who works at NASA, but plans to step down to take over the ranch). This also means that he probably got married, which is good for him considering what happened with Sue and Julia.
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: Fitting his robotic persona, Kent knows a wide range of seemingly obscure facts and isn't shy about correcting the other characters.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • In Season 7, he's wary about Selina trying to hide her crimes because this is obviously illegal. This is likely for pragmatic reasons though rather than any moral standards.
  • In the Grand Finale, he and Amy try to convince Selina that picking Jonah as her running mate is a bad idea. When she refuses to listen, Kent ragequits.
• Eye Scream: Gets hit in the eye by Selina's lipstick in his debut episode.
• Fire-Forged Friends: To some extent. In his debut, he starts out as somewhat antagonistic to the rest of the cast (such as Selina viewing him as a nuisance and a foreigner to her team), but eventually fits right in. Particularly seems to be one to Ben.
• Get Out!: In "Midterms", when he yells at Jonah to pack his stuff and leave after leaking that President Hughes isn't running for re-election.
  Jonah: Sir, this POTUS 'OK' this?!
  Kent: GET HIM OUT OF HERE!
• The Glomp: Is subjected to one by Selina at one point.
• Honorary Uncle: Averted. Though Selina introduces herself and Ben to Ellen, Mike's adopted daughter, she calls herself Ellen's "Auntie Selina" and Ben as "Uncle Benny" to get on Ellen's good side. Kent plainly introduces himself as "Kent Davison, Chief Strategist".
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: He debuts as working for the President, to starting Season 6 working for Jonah after Selina doesn't get re-elected. Furlong even comments on this. By the end of Season 6, Kent manages to get fired by pissing off Jonah and he's more than happy to leave and return to working for Selina.
• Hidden Depths: He's a Badass Biker and he knows how to speak Spanish. The fact that he's likely in an outlaw MC that is most definitely not the Mongols might be played for laughs, but he's fully aware of the club's "legal troubles" and his own value as a mediating influence.
• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: Goes on a tangent about how dealing with a hostage situation is not that different from cooking a cup of microwavable noodles: "Both require precision timing, neither should be rushed."
  Amy: Why are we talking about noodles?
  Ben: No, let me rephrase that. Why the fuck are we talking about noodles?
• No Sense of Humor: Claims to not having been funny on purpose since 1987.
• Not So Above It All: He expressed interest in watching the gang throw Mike's expired cum at Jonah's door.
• Not So Stoic: On occasion, most notably his anger at Selina's plans to make Jonah her running mate.
• Oh, Crap!: The disappointed variant when he learns that Sue is married. A more traditional variant when a desperate Selina offers to make Jonah her Veep to get the nomination.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Near the end of the episode of his very debut, he's yelling in pain from being hit in the eye by Selina's lipstick.
  • In "Some New Business", he shouts in anger when he finds out Jonah has accidentally revealed on his blog that President Hughes wasn't running for reelection. He promptly fires him and tells him to Get Out!.
  Kent: The party's over, Mr. "WestWingMan". There's a dead guy in the pool and that dead guy is you!
  • In the Grand Finale: "FUCK THE NUMBERS!"
• Precision F-Strike: Yells "FUCK THE NUMBERS!" when Selina argues that because he's "the numbers guy", he should be supportive of her decision to choose Jonah as her running mate because doing so will help her win.
• Rage Quit: In the Grand Finale, after Jonah is confirmed as Selina's running mate, he walks out during the celebration and throws away his badge and tie.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: To Ben.
• Running Gag: will always correct your pronounciation of 'Nevada'
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the Grand Finale, Kent quits Selina's campaign in disgust after she chooses Jonah as her running mate. If the Distant Finale epilogue is any indication, this caused him to leave politics entirely.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: After Flanderization set in during Season 5, much to the other characters' annoyance.
• Sherlock Scan: He is apparently able to determine the sex of an unborn child after briefly looking at the (fully-clothed) pregnant woman. He's correct.
• Silver Fox: He's well into middle-age but most of his hair having gone grey but he's still fit and handsome and is pretty capable of seducing women when he's so inclined.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Inverted. He's one of the few characters that doesn't cuss often. He's had his moments, though, and in one instance, he excuses himself for his "ribaldry".
  • He swears when Selina accidentally throws a lipstick at his eye in "Midterms".
  • In the Grand Finale, when Selina reveals she's asking Jonah to be her running mate, he snaps and yells "FUCK THE NUMBERS!".
• The Spock: Kent only cares about facts and numbers. Others often describe him as emotionless and robot-like.
• The Stoic: He has about as much emotion as a rock. He does smile, although this is mainly for PR, and he does display anger a couple of times.
• Take This Job and Shove It: In the Grand Finale, after Selina brings in Jonah as her running mate, he snaps, quits, and retires.
• Those Two Guys: With the more unserious Ben.
  Kent: You know, all this melodrama really explains your three divorces!
  Ben: Yeah, well, I'd like to divorce your head from your neck!
• The Un-Smile: He pretends to smile while Selina sings at the Vic Allen dinner, which was a song written to make fun of him.
  Kent: Ma'am, your song last night made my lips curl. Upwards.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Sue! Everyone else just wants to know what the heck's going on. It seems to have ended when it turns out that Sue is married, and in Season 6, Kent is dating a new girl, Julia.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: At the beginning of Season 7, it is mentioned that he is no longer dating Julia, his deaf girlfriend from Season 6. According to Selina, "the police have found no leads". Word of Saint Paul states that it doesn't necessarily mean she's dead, but who knows.

Richard

Richard John Splett, PHD

Portrayed By: Sam Richardson

A bumbling young assistant who first appears on Selina's book campaign trail, and later ends up working on the Meyer campaign. In Season 4, he's promoted to Jonah's assistant in the White House. After the end of the Meyer administration, Richard becomes Selina's personal assistant.

---

• The Ace: Despite his naivety, Richard may well be the most capable person in the whole series, proving himself extremely skilled as a mayor, lietunent governor of Iowa, governor of Iowa and finally, President wherein he is elected to two terms and is awarded a Nobel Prize for resolving the Middle East conflict and is seemingly destined to go down as one of the best in history.
• The Charmer: He's pretty good at winning people over and, in sharp contrast to someone like Dan, his charm is completely genuine.
• The Dilbert Principle: A rare positive example, Richard is incredibly inept and naïve that he is seemingly not fit for the cutthroat nature of politics. But he continues to rise in season 7 thanks to these qualities. Then for all of it, he ends up President and is actually very good at the job.
• Ditzy Genius: At first glance, Richard seems to be supremely incompetent; he even manages to get his own name wrong while introducing himself. However, he has two doctorates and an encyclopedic knowledge about recount procedures (which was his doctoral subject.) When he becomes President, he gets the Nobel Peace Prize for using a "three state solution" to bring peace to the Middle East.
• "Eureka!" Moment: When describing his family history to Selina he deduces that his "Aunt" was his biological mother and his "Mother" was his Grandmother. Selina isn't listening or paying attention.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Downplayed, but it's quite notable that he is one of the few people that both Jonah and Selina seem to genuinely like and consistently treat well.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Has two doctorates - one in veterinary science, and one in constitutional law.
  • In the series finale, he apparently grows competent enough to become president for two terms as well as finding a solution to bring peace to the Middle East.
  • While helping Jonah prep for his upcoming debate during his Congressional Campaign, it's noted by Jonah's uncle that Richard is actually a very charismatic debater. This ends up foreshadowing Richard's future successful political career.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Because he only ever thinks the best of everyone he encounters, he seems genuinely convinced that both Jonah and Selina are good, honest and well-meaning people who equally deserve to be president.
• Humble Hero: He saves some people from a plane crash, which kickstarts his political career, but plays it off as nothing. He's still implied to be just as humble as president.
• Karmic Jackpot: Richard's kindess and respect towards Jonah gets paid forward in a big way when Jonah ensures that Richard gets a cabinet position in Selina's administration. This ends up setting the stage for Richard's own future presidency.
• Nice Guy: His tone deaf comments may rub people the wrong way but in stark contrast with mostly every other character, Richard is unfailingly nice and polite to everyone and genuinely wants to do good.
• No Social Skills: Downplayed; Richard is genuinely pleasant, well-meaning and charming, but he also lacks tact and tends to blurt out whatever thought is in his head as it passes through, regardless of how little the listener will appreciate it.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Inverted; Richard isn't stupid, exactly, but he is rather naive, guileless and socially awkward in a kind of "cheerfully blurting out whatever thought passes his head regardless of how appropriate it is" sense, which tends to look the same to most people. However, as his political star begins rising in the later seasons, these same qualities somehow lead people who don't actually know him into viewing him as a kind of straight-talking but savvy political operator with an effortless grasp on the public pulse and flawless instincts for when to stick the knife into his political opponents, as opposed to the bumbling nice guy he actually is.
• Older Than They Look: In the finale, set twenty-five years in the future, he looks more or less the same, with the exception of his hair having gone grey.
• Only Friend: Going along with his unfailing Nice Guy status, Richard is the only reoccuring character who is consistently nice to Jonah. He even visits Jonah to try and cheer him up after his engagement fell apart and he was forced out of his position of Congressman by his uncle. Jonah, for all his faults, seems to genuinely like and appreciate Richard in return to the point of ensuring he has a spot in Jonah's VP cabinet.
• Perpetual Smiler: Teetering on Stepford Smiler, depending on how aware he actually is of his status.
• The Peter Principle: Subverted in the final season; his meteoric rise through party politics is basically him bumbling his way into various high-profile political appointments due to good fortune, happenstance or the machinations of others, which would seemingly be the perfect set-up for him to be completely out of his depth and for disaster to ensue... except he keeps turning out to be really good at them, impressing the public with his honesty, integrity and sheer good-natured likeability, which just keeps the cycle going. Taken to a climax by the Time Skip in the finale, where he has somehow ended up as one of the greatest Presidents in the history of the republic.
• Playing Both Sides: Played for Laughs. In Season 7, he helps both Selina and Jonah on their presidential campaigns and also ends up becoming a town mayor and then the governor of Iowa, a state with an important role in the election. To the public, he may look like a Manipulative Bastard, but the truth is that he's just having trouble choosing between which one of his bosses he wants to support because they're both wonderful people.
• The Pollyanna: Richard is oblivious to how selfish the rest of the cast is and how they find him extremely annoying.
• Reassignment Backfire: At least one of his promotions in the final season ends up being a result of this. After he (almost inadvertently) exposes a major corruption scandal in Iowa state politics, causing the impeachment of the Lieutenant Governor, the sheer profile and goodwill this results in forces the equally corrupt Governor to promote Richard to the position but makes it clear that he's going to make sure that it's a dead-end political graveyard for him. Except that the Governor later catches shingles and goes blind, forcing his retirement — meaning that Richard subsequently becomes Governor.
• Skilled, but Naive: This trope pretty much sums Richard up—he's very smart, as evidenced by the fact that he has multiple PhDs, but is hopelessly innocent in the world of Washington. Although by the end of the series, it doesn't appear to have been a huge problem for him, as he gets elected President.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He's the only major character to wear glasses regularly and is gradually revealed the be the most competent of Selina's team.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Richard frequently found himself the butt of insults for seemingly having no actual function in DC. At first serving as Amy's assistant until later working under Jonah. Come Season 5, during when Selina's bid for presidential election undergoes recounts. It gets revealed that Richard has a doctorate in constitutional law, making him an expert in recounts.
• Token Black: He's the only black man and person-of-color in the main cast after Sue joins the Montez administration.
• Token Good Teammate: He's maybe the only genuinely good person in Selina's team.
• Unfortunate Names: One time when he introduced himself, he corrected someone on the pronunciation of his last name.
  • "Dick" is a common nickname for people named Richard, which would make him Dick Splett...
  • In the Distant Finale, his wife's name is Annette Splett... (it sounds like "anus split").
• Virginity Makes You Stupid: He's The Ditz (albeit a Genius Ditz) and it turns out that he's never masturbated before Catherine and her girlfriend wanted him to be their sperm donor, leading to him asking if it hurts, how the sperm cup comes into play, and when does he know when he's done. Apparently, he comes from a religious family that views masturbation as sinful, along with microwaves and laughter.

Catherine

Catherine Selina Meyer

Portrayed By: Sarah Sutherland

Selina's college-aged daughter, who has a contentious relationship with her mother mainly due to the latter's political career.

---

• All Lesbians Want Kids: She and Marjorie have a son after seasons of Catherine not seeming interested in having kids at all. Though she does suffer from postpartum depression.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: She's positively gleeful when Selina dies, celebrating with margaritas and passing out drunk.
• Bourgeois Bohemian: In Catherine's defense, she wants to do genuinely good work, in contrast to Selina's self-centredness, but she was born into a family of millionaires and oligarchs, has a degree in "interpretative dance," and is generally quite out of touch with those who are less wealthy than she is. This is before she inherits billions herself.
  Catherine: Once I got used to all the regular people and how fat they were, I really enjoyed it.
• The Chew Toy: Things rarely seem to go right for poor Catherine, and her mother's constant belittling certainly doesn't help. Of course, since it's Veep, it's all played for laughs.
  Selina: Catherine, why is that your hair?
• The Dog Bites Back: Her wealthy grandmother leaves Catherine the majority of her estate, much to Selina's shock and displeasure. When Selina loses the White House, she finds herself financially dependent on Catherine, who places her mother on a strict, but reasonable budget. In the Distant Finale, she not only refuses to attend her mother's funeral, but is treating the day as a celebration watching the news it with Marjorie and Little Richard.
• Extremely Protective Child: She was this, with perhaps providing the ultimate example when she punched a guy in the face who was threatening Selina. However, she ultimately loses this respect and, indeed, any love for her mother at all when Selina permanently overturns gay marriage just for her political career.
• Fake Guest Star: From Season 4 onwards, she's in almost every episode and gets about the same amount of screentime as the regulars, but Sarah Sutherland remains credited as a guest star until the final season.
• Good Parents: She seems to be a much better and more caring mother to her own son than Selina was to her which would admittedly not be saying much.
• Granola Girl: Has shades of this, especially after getting together with Marjorie and becoming vegan. After giving birth to Little Richard she also hops on board with several New Age parenting techniques.
• Happily Married: While their actual marriage is overturned by Selina's administration, she and Marjorie are still together in the finale and seem to still be very happy.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Selina paid more attention to her political career than to Catherine. Catherine's favorite family vacation was the time the housekeeper took her to Disneyland with her family. In "Alicia", Catherine outright tells her mother that she had a "hard, lonely, miserable life".
• I Have No Son!: Inverted as she is the one who disowns Selina and vows never to speak to her again, a promise she keeps as Selina dies without the two ever reconciling.
• Like Mother, Unlike Daughter: Both of her parents are self-obsessed and sociopathic, while Catherine is genuinely well-meaning and nice.
• Like Parent, Like Spouse: In Season 5, she not only reveals that she's a lesbian, but that she's dating Selina's bodyguard. That is, a woman who got her job largely because of how much she resembles Catherine's mother.
• Lipstick Lesbian: While not overly girly, she prefers the feminine boho look in contrast to her masculine wife Marjorie.
• Lonely Rich Kid: She grew up very wealthy but with horrible, selfish parents who showed little interest in her.
• Martial Pacifist: Given her liberal views, she's very anti-violence. However, she instinctively punches out a protester who attacks Selina—and is horrified afterwards.
  Amy: You punched that guy square in the face.
  Catherine: No! No, I hate violence!
  Selina: Well, honey, that means you're really good at it and you didn't even know it.
• Nice Girl: As shown in her documentary, off-screen everyone besides her mother seems to genuinely like her.
• Prone to Tears: Cries at the drop of a hat. In Season 7, she suffers from postpartum depression after giving birth to Little Richard, leading her to have emotional breakdowns nearly every episode.
• Rage Breaking Point: She puts up with a LOT of shit but finally loses it in the finale when Selina promises to overturn gay marriage. Catherine cuts off all contact with her and never speaks to her again.
• Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Which Selina seems to find inexplicable and annoying, because she genuinely doesn't understand that Catherine genuinely cares for her causes.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: She gets a new stylist in the season 5 finale who improves her looks so much that Dan doesn't even recognize her at first.
• This Is Unforgivable!: In the Grand Finale, when she learns that Selina has agreed to outlaw gay marriage in order to get Buddy Calhoun's support, she tells her that she'll never forgive her if she really does go through with it. Needless to say, Catherine is serious about this, as she ends up cutting ties with her mother and never sees her again, not even attending her funeral.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Catherine tells Doyle that Selina plans to break her promise to appoint Doyle Secretary of State. This leads Doyle to vote for Montez over Tom James, effectively ending Selina's career.

Marjorie

Marjorie Palmiotti

Portrayed By: Clea DuVall

Selina's Secret Service body double. She later becomes Catherine's life partner.

---

• All Lesbians Want Kids: She and Catherine have a child, Little Richard, after seasons of Catherine especially seeming to have no interest in having kids.
• Butch Lesbian: She has a very deep voice, masculine way of dressing, and she is a soldier turned bodyguard, and she becomes Catherine's life partner.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Her jokes about how Selina "gave her AIDS"^note Referring to how Selina publically announced that her charitable foundation, which she has Marjorie run, is going to do AIDS charity work without consulting with Marjorie first fall flat because her deadpan manner makes everyone who hears it worry that she's being serious.
• Closet Key: She is this to Catherine. Catherine admits to Selina that the reason none of her previous relationships with men worked out was because she didn't realize she was gay which she awakened to when Marjorie asked her out.
• The Comically Serious: Always very serious and straight laced, no matter the insanity going on around her.
• Consummate Professional: Is always completely professional. While at first this seems to be just ordinary Secret Service behavior, she continues to act like this even after she leaves the Service.
• Everyone Has Standards: Shares many of Catherine's liberal principles. But the biggest is that she declares that even though Selina is a horrible mother, Andrew is a far worse father. Selina approves of this evaluation.
• Fake Guest Star: Clea DuVall was credited as a guest star until the final season, even though Marjorie was effectively a member of the main cast as soon as she was introduced.
• Hidden Depths: Catherine's documentary in "Kissing Your Sister" shows that she is capable of behaving casually when its just her and Catherine.
  • The same episode also reveals that at the time she had first begun dating Catherine, she was still in the closet to her family.
• Not So Stoic: In the finale, she flips out and has to be restrained by Catherine when she learns that Selina is making Jonah veep.
• Sour Supporter: She despises Selina almost as much as Catherine does, but still works for her.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: She shows skills as a sharpshooter, someone asks if she was in the CIA, she responds, "I was an advisor."
• The Stoic: Almost never shows any sign of emotion.

---