The West Wing: 10 Times Donna Moss Was The Best Character

Donna Moss was never supposed to be a main character on The West Wing. She wasn’t really supposed to be a character at all, but after the pilot, the writers fell in love with her, just as viewers (and Josh Lyman himself) would. But she became one of only three main-cast women (alongside First Lady Abbey Bartlet and Press Secretary CJ Cregg).

She has arguably the biggest upward growth, going from the Deputy Chief of Staff’s assistant to the Chief of Staff for the First Lady of the United States, and her character continues to show women that they have a place and a voice in our government.

10 Molly Morello Day

Donna is frequently used as a bit of levity in otherwise heavy or dramatic episodes. Sometimes it’s because she’s worried about a Chinese satellite falling to the earth, or in this case, wanting to get her high school English teacher a Presidential Proclamation on behalf of her retirement.

When that’s unfeasible, she aims for a month, a week, or even a day named after her teacher, Molly Morello. What she ends up getting is a call from the Oval Office, with the President in the room, so that Donna can thank her and tell her she’s where she is due to Mrs. Morello’s support. It’s a beautiful moment, and Donna’s pure joy is a bright light with which to end the episode.

9 Lemon-Lyman.com

Some shows from the ‘90s and early 2000’s date themselves with their technology, and The West Wing is no exception, but what hasn’t changed is the nightmare breeding ground that is the Internet. Donna and the assistants find a Josh Lyman fansite and make the mistake of telling Josh about it.

He gets sucked down the rabbit hole and ends up fighting with the “dictatorial ruler” of the site and, in Donna’s words, goes “way round the bend”, but it is absolutely hysterical to watch Josh’s brief and scarring venture into the land of fandom.

8 The Oh What A Shame File

It’s a gift, to be truly known by another person, and Donna truly knows Josh. When Josh gets benched from his main duties dealing with the Senate after a monumental mistake, Donna doesn’t let him dwell on it. Instead, she pulls out what she calls the “what a shame” file, which is full to bursting with real, important work they’d wanted to do when they got to the White House but didn’t have time for.

She’s perfectly nonchalant about it, but she knows Josh needs something to do or he’ll wallow for the rest of eternity about it, and she’s able to provide before he even knows he needs it.

7 She ‘Gets’ Josh

Speaking of “getting” Josh…Donna is halfway to scolding Josh’s then-girlfriend Amy on a sarcastic comment she made earlier, and she translates what she said into what Josh heard, which was that he messed up and people got hurt. It’s this little speech that prompts Amy to ask, for the first time in canon, if Donna’s in love with Josh, but the screen cuts away before we see Donna answer.

The question of love or not isn’t really the point, though; the point is that Donna is able to articulate Josh’s character in a deep, resoundingly truthful way to another person. Donna may be “just” his assistant, but she sees far more than anyone’s realized yet. It makes canon what had always been subtext with Josh – the guilt over his sister, his father’s death, the list goes on, and it allows not only Amy a better understanding of Josh, but the viewers a deeper connection as well.

6 The Supremes

Instead of “from the mouths of babes”, The West Wing uses “from the mouth of Donna”, giving her seemingly throw-away lines that end relating to the main plot of the day.

By far, the biggest and most important instance of this is in ‘The Supremes’, when Donna’s parents forgoing compromising on getting one or another new cat resulted in them getting two new cats, Josh takes that idea and runs with it, allowing the White House to put an incredibly liberal woman on the bench as Chief Justice, with an equally conservative Justice filling the empty seat.

5 Gaza

In a rare moment of appreciation, Josh managed to finagle Donna a ticket to the ill-fated fact-finding mission in Gaza. Donna’s sacrifice when she’s nearly killed in a roadside bomb isn’t the only reason ‘Gaza’ made the cut, though – it’s because Donna was truly driven to learn more, do more, be more in her position. She wanted to stretch beyond her job description and do something that mattered, even in just some small way.

She was out of her element but perfectly at home, even making a romantic connection with a photographer while she was reporting to Josh via email. She would’ve done a great job, but then the shrapnel started flying, and we see, for maybe the first time on camera, just how much Josh cares about Donna. He’s completely off his balance, to the point where Leo literally orders Josh to get to her hospital in Germany. Donna’s safety was more important to the White House than any of Josh’s other duties because if Donna wasn’t safe, he couldn’t do any of those other duties, and everyone knew it.

4 Quitting As Josh’s Assistant

It took five seasons, but Donna did finally recognize her worth. When Josh won’t even make time to have an important career conversation with her, Donna has no choice but to quit, since she’d been his assistant for many years and he was never going to voluntarily let her go.

It’s a huge blow to Josh personally, but it’s what he needed to open his eyes. It probably didn’t hurt in his decision to leave the White House to groom Matthew Santos for the Presidency, either – but even he knew how much smoother that process would’ve been with Donna.

3 Confronting A Chicken

After Donna goes to work with Will and then-Vice President Russell and Josh is desperate to get Santos in the debate, Josh realizes that the only way to get attention is to go over the top… by asking if Russell is “too chicken” to debate Santos.

Donna stops it by yanking the guy in the literal chicken suit away and yelling at him, not realizing that the press has captured the whole entire thing. Maybe not one of Donna’s finest moments, but scolding a chicken on live TV is a rare honor that not many people can claim.

2 20 Hours In America

When Josh, Toby, and Donna get left behind by the Presidential motorcade in Indiana, it takes two episodes to get them back home – as President Bartlet says, “if Donna wasn’t with them, they’d have to buy a house”. With 8 modes of transportation and the kindness of six strangers, they finally make their way to a hotel to spend the night, just in time to catch the breaking news about a pipe bomb that went off at a college swim meet.

Donna finally loses her cool with Toby and Josh’s incessant, inappropriate arguing about the upcoming election, instead of focusing on the basic humanity that they’ve gotten to witness. Without being asked to do so, Donna is writing letters to the parents of the victims of the bombing, which serves as a sobering reminder of what’s actually important here.

1 Trading Votes

It’s an honor thing, Donna says, after being out in the cold for eight hours trying to get a Ritchie supporter to vote for Bartlet because she accidentally voted the wrong way on her absentee ballot. Naturally, no one takes her up on it, until Lt. Commander Jack Reese shows up and agrees to trade.

He ends up becoming a brief guest star as Donna’s love interest while he’s working with the Situation Room, but he isn’t really the point. The point is that every vote matters, and that everyone – regardless of their political ideology – deserves their vote to count.

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