They say if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. But it helps when its one who's passed obedience training.
Secretary of State John Kerry's best friend these days is a yellow Labrador retriever known to occasionally roam the halls of the State Department, but often fails to follow protocol.
“Place," he told the misbehaving pup during an interview with TODAY’s Savannah Guthrie. "This is embarrassing. Come on, Benny. So I got to send him back to school."
Kerry tried sit, and then down, but Ben was like, I'll do it when I feel like it.
Ben is named after the nation's unofficial first diplomat, Benjamin Franklin, and even has his own Twitter account, @Diplomutt.
Watch John Kerry's full interview with Savannah
Asked if he was a good stress reliever, Kerry laughed and called the pup "a stress giver."
Ben was a hit earlier this year when Kerry brought him to a “Take Your Child to work” event. He demonstrated the same youthful energy then, too, jumping on a sign language interpreter before settling down and behaving during (most) of Kerry’s brief remarks to a group of State Department employees and their kids.