In “The Obamas,” New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor reports that after the Democrats’ midterm election defeat in 2010, President Obama personally contacted White House outsiders to get a candid take on what he may be missing cloistered in the bubble of the Oval Office.

Among those the president reached out to, she said, were former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, President Clinton confidante Vernon Jordan, former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein and David Gergen, a CNN analyst and adviser to several presidents.

He also reached out to Brooks, who Kantor wrote is “the president’s favorite pundit.”