'Pod Save America' co-host Tommy Vietor discusses stillbirth of baby Margot: ‘There is no playbook for how to handle the loss of a child’

Pod Save America co-host Tommy Vietor got candid about the recent death of his daughter.

Speaking at the end of the March 1 episode of Crooked Media’s political podcast, Vietor, who was away from the podcast for a month, spoke about his grief following the loss of his first child Margot, stillborn after his wife Hanna had just 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Vietor, the former spokesperson for President Barack Obama, shared that there was a knot in Margot’s umbilical cord, leading to her death.

“The broader context that made all of this much harder is that Hanna and I have been trying to get pregnant for a couple of years, we’ve had several miscarriages over the past few years,” Vietor noted. “We had just gotten to the point where we thought we were out of the woods with Margot and then this freak accident happened and we lost her and it was completely devastating.”

He shared that he and Hanna had a “weird mix of feelings” as they were “grateful” they had been able to spend some hours with their daughter.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that it has upended every plan that we’ve had for the future, and the next steps are incredibly daunting, as is this shift from acute grief and focus to just living with this forever. The finality of it all,” he continued. “That kind of manifests in ways big and small. We spent Valentine’s Day picking up our daughter’s ashes from the morgue, that was rough. But then, there’s little stuff, like really nice well-meaning people ask, ‘Do you have kids?’ And it’s like, yes, we’re parents. We have a daughter, named Margot. We love her, she means everything to us, but her time with us was brief. The options are either lie, or rip your f****ing guts out in front of a stranger.”

He also said that he felt guilty over his grief, explaining, “There is this idea to scold yourself and say, ‘Look what’s happening in Ukraine, nothing you went through compares to that.’ But that’s not useful. There’s no use in ranking grief. I think mourning is different from self-pity. I think gratitude and perspective has really helped me in this process.”

Vietor said one thing that was helpful for him was seeing others speak out about infant loss, including Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, who lost their son Jack in a similar manner in 2021. Vietor criticized those who were cruel to the couple in the wake of their grief and called them “monsters.”

“Hearing about their experience really helps, a shocking amount. It really matters,” he added. “There is no playbook for losing a child.”

He added that it was challenging for him and Hanna to mourn their earlier miscarriages differently, explaining, “We need to normalize talking about it, especially for men, because it’s not my body.”

Vietor also shared that he felt guilty over the physical burden Hanna had to deal with when it came to pregnancy loss, and explained that he felt unable to communicate his feelings with the world over her earlier miscarriages.

“Talking about Margot this time has been helpful for me, personally, because only a handful of people knew what was going on with me at the time, but what was happening manifested in every interaction I had with the world,” he said. “That was hard to keep in, and I’m sure it made me angry and shitty in situations on days when I was having a tough time and nobody knew why.”

Vietor first shared the news of Margot’s death on Instagram in January, alongside a photo of himself and Hanna holding their child. He announced he would be taking some time to heal.

“We know this is going to get worse before it gets better, so Hanna and I are going to step away from the world for a while, seek a lot of help, and try to put each other back together,” he explained. “I am in awe of Hanna’s strength, and have never loved her more. We are so grateful to our friends and family and are surrounded by love. There may be people reading this who want to send flowers or just do something. To you we say, thank you from the bottom of our hearts, but we are OK and well taken care of. The thing that would make us happiest is if you put those resources towards helping women and parents who aren’t as lucky as we are.”