List of Madam Secretary characters

Elizabeth McCord Elizabeth "Bess" Adams McCord is the United States Secretary of State and the central protagonist of Madam Secretary. She is portrayed by Téa Leoni. Elizabeth was born and raised in Virginia, where she and her brother Will (Eric Stoltz) were orphaned in 1983 after their parents were killed in a car accident. She later attended Houghton Hall Boarding School and the University of Virginia studying mathematics, where one of her professors was future Chief Justice of the United States Frawley (Morgan Freeman). Elizabeth first met Henry McCord (Tim Daly) while attending UVA, and the pair married in 1990. They have three children: Stephanie (Wallis Currie-Wood), Alison (Kathrine Herzer) and Jason (Evan Roe). Elizabeth worked as a CIA analyst for 20 years, eventually reaching the position of Station Chief in Baghdad before resigning over an ethical dilemma and returning to the University of Virginia to teach political science. Following the death of Secretary of State Vincent Marsh (Brian Stokes Mitchell) in a suspicious plane crash, Elizabeth is approached by President Conrad Dalton (Keith Carradine)- her former mentor at the CIA- to serve in his cabinet as Secretary of State. Not a natural politician, Elizabeth frequently clashes with White House Chief of Staff Russell Jackson (Željko Ivanek). Much of her first year as Secretary of State is spent investigating her predecessor's death. Elizabeth speaks fluent French, German, Arabic, Persian, and "a year of high school Spanish". In the sixth season, Elizabeth is elected President of the United States. Henry McCord Professor (Dr.) Henry McCord is the husband of United States Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord and the father of Stevie, Alison, and Jason McCord. He is a retired United States Marine Corps Captain, professor of theology and ethics, and later the First Gentleman of the United States. He is portrayed by Tim Daly. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Henry is the son of Patrick McCord (Tom Skerritt)- a steel worker- and has three siblings: Maureen, Shane, and Erin. Henry is Catholic, and was an altar boy in his youth. Henry attended the University of Virginia on a scholarship, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Adams, and was a member of the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps. He was commissioned in the United States Marine Corps after graduation and served five years on active duty, during which he was assigned to the 3rd Marine Air Wing out of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and flew F/A-18 Hornets during Operation Desert Storm. Henry mustered out of the Corps with the rank of Captain. After leaving the Marines, Henry returned to academia, where he earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy and became a renowned religious scholar. He has published eight books (as of the first season) and has worked as a professor at the University of Virginia, Georgetown University, and the National War College, where he serves as chairman of the Military Ethics Department. Not long after his wife was appointed Secretary of State, Henry found himself back in government service, working for, among others, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency as both a consultant and an operative. At the end of the third season, Henry was named head of the CIA's Special Activities Division; he eventually resigned after failing to receive Congressional support for his operations in Afghanistan. Upon taking his leave, Henry and his team were awarded the National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citation, having turned down the individual National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, as he believed he wasn't in service long enough to qualify for such an award. In the fifth season, Henry is hired by President Dalton as his personal Ethics Advisor, which requires him to step down as Chairman of the National War College's Military Ethics Department. Nadine Tolliver Nadine Tolliver is the Chief of Staff to the United States Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord. She is portrayed by Bebe Neuwirth. A graduate of Cornell University and Yale Law School, Nadine is a veteran politician who worked for Secretary of State Vincent Marsh since he was a Senator, during which the two of them carried on a six-year affair that ended with his death. Due to her relationship with Marsh, Nadine is hesitant to warm up to his replacement, but eventually relents as Elizabeth wins her over. In the fourth season, Nadine retires from the State Department and moves to the San Francisco Bay Area to be closer to her son and his girlfriend, who are expecting their first child. Russell Jackson Russell Jackson is the White House Chief of Staff to President Conrad Dalton. He is portrayed by Željko Ivanek. Early into Elizabeth's term as Secretary of State, Russell frequently clashed with her due to her unorthodox diplomatic style and lack of political experience. However, they eventually grew to trust each other, as they worked together to oust Dalton's National Security Advisor Craig Sterling (Julian Acosta) and eventually Russell admitted that he'd like to see her succeed Dalton as president. In "The Unnamed", it is revealed that Russell met Dalton just after the latter's unsuccessful run for Governor of California. In 2008, Conrad runs an unsuccessful campaign to become Governor of California; after the loss, he meets his future White House Chief of Staff Russell Jackson (Željko Ivanek). In the third season, Conrad fails to receive his party's nomination for a second term as president, losing to Pennsylvania governor Sam Evans, after revamping the United States' entire foreign policy for military base locations. Nevertheless, Dalton remains popular enough with certain parts of the population that Elizabeth convinces him to run as an independent. After a hard campaign, Dalton narrowly wins the swing state of Ohio, deadlocking the Electoral College and staging a contingent election in the House of Representatives. He eventually wins the election after defusing a military confrontation between Iran and Israel, and negotiating a framework for peace between the two countries. In "Sound and Fury", Conrad takes a medical leave of absence under Section 3 of the 25th Amendment, leaving Vice President Teresa Hurst serving as acting president. He returned to the Presidency after two months. He is portrayed by Sebastian Arcelus. Originally from Connecticut, Jay and his family moved to Dallas when he was a child. His first work in politics came when he helped future Texas Governor Lockwood run for Mayor of Galveston, Texas as a college student. Like most of Elizabeth's senior staff, Jay worked for her predecessor, Vincent Marsh, as his senior policy advisor, and remained with the State Department after his death. Jay was initially reluctant to work for Elizabeth, particularly as he had been preparing to accompany Secretary Marsh on a potential White House bid when he challenged President Conrad Dalton in the 2016 primaries. Jay's displeasure at working for a woman who lacked such ambition and the loss of the possibility of working in the White House was something he eventually expressed to Elizabeth. Jay's apparent displeasure is seemingly expressed in the first-season episode "Whisper of the Ax": after Elizabeth is humiliated before Congress while defending the State Department's micro-loan program, she angrily berates her inherited staff and she seemingly fires Jay as the first sign of staff re-organization. A disgruntled Jay is approached at a bar by one of her political enemies, seeking information in return for employment. At the next hearing, Jay's information is used by the Secretary's enemies to further humiliate her and gut the State Department's budget. However, the ploy backfires and the micro-loans program is saved. At the end of the episode, Jay is revealed to have been working for Elizabeth the whole time, his firing having been organized between them so he could leak false information and outflank her opponents. At the start of the series, Jay was married to Abby Whitman, who gave birth to a daughter, Chloe Elizabeth Whitman, in the first season. In the third season, Abby leaves him. When he comes back from being kidnapped, Abby wants to work on things but they ultimately do not reconcile. They now share custody of Chloe. In the fifth season, Jay meets a world-famous Dutch chess player named Annalies De Runnow while stuck in an Irish airport. They are instantly attracted to one another and, over the course of several hours stuck in transit and many chess games (which Jay loses), they decide to start a long-distance relationship. Although Jay originally joins Elizabeth's presidential campaign at the end of the fifth season, it is revealed at the beginning of the sixth season that he opted to leave politics and start a life in Amsterdam with Annalies. Jay returns in the sixth-season finale for Stevie McCord and Dmitri Petrov's wedding at the White House, where he is warmly embraced by Elizabeth. After teasing her about getting impeached the second he left her staff, he tells her that he and Annalies are returning to DC, and that they are expecting a baby. After Russell Jackson's resignation, Jay becomes Elizabeth's third White House Chief of Staff. Kat Sandoval Katelyn "Kat" Sandoval is the policy advisor to Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord. She once served as the Chief of Staff to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, but left politics to become an avocado farmer in California after allegedly throwing a chair at a difficult diplomat. She is bisexual, divorced, and has a child named Desi. She is portrayed by Sara Ramirez. Michael Barnow Michael "Mike B." Barnow (Kevin Rahm) is a political official who is said to drift between the United States Cabinet departments. He is a Rhodes Scholar who turned his brilliant legal career into a promising political career that was cut short by a scandalous divorce six years prior to his first appearance in the series. He is often seen assisting Secretary McCord. During the fifth season, Mike runs Elizabeth's campaign for president and, after her election, he serves as her interim White House Chief of Staff (a job he did not want) for her first 100 days in office, until Elizabeth convinces Russell Jackson to come out of retirement; Mike subsequently becomes counselor to the President (the position he originally wanted in her administration). ==Recurring characters==