Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren Last fall, Colorado’s MICHAEL BENNET was one of the few front-line Democratic Senate candidates willing to campaign alongside President JOE BIDEN. The main reason: Biden was coming on an official visit to designate Camp Hale as a new national monument, something for which Bennet had pushed. As they rode together in Biden's motorcade from the Eagle County Regional Airport to the camp through the Aspen gold, Bennet spoke to the president about another Colorado priority: keeping U.S. Space Command in the state — a move that would require Biden to reverse President DONALD TRUMP’s directive to locate Space Command in Alabama. Biden is set to visit again on June 1 to give the commencement address at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where Space Command is still being built. Once again, Bennet plans to make his case directly to a president who, much to his consternation, has yet to make a decision on the matter. “This decision should have been overturned at the beginning of this administration because it was so naked a political decision,” Bennet told West Wing Playbook. “It would be absolutely outrageous if the Biden administration ratified Donald Trump’s political decision.” Trump announced the decision to relocate Space Command to Huntsville, Ala., on Jan. 11, 2021, five days after the insurrection at the Capitol. The move was purely political, according to the Republican mayor of Colorado Springs, JOHN SUTHERS. Nearly a year earlier, Trump told Suthers he would unilaterally decide where to locate the headquarters but would wait to do so until after the 2020 presidential election, Suthers recently revealed. Colorado, as Trump may have sensed, went for Biden. Alabama, by contrast, went handily for Trump and saw its top elected officials — like former Rep. MO BROOKS — back his lies about the election having been “stolen.” Bennet’s argument is that Trump’s political vendettas constitute a poor reason to move Space Command to Alabama. But in the last several months, he has hit on a secondary argument for keeping it in Colorado. Following through with Trump’s relocation would mean forcing the military and civilian personnel of Space Command to move from a state where lawmakers have just codified abortion protections — after the Supreme Court overturned Dobbs — to one where lawmakers have banned them with almost no exceptions. “The bureaucrats at DOD don’t want to admit any of this,” Bennet said. “They want to put blinders on and not look at this question about abortion.” Before Trump weighed in, Pentagon officials had put Colorado, already home to NORAD, atop the list of potential locations, mainly because a facility there was closest to operational readiness, according to a GAO report. “The national security rationale that led the generals to recommend it hasn’t changed, and if anything it’s become more compelling,” said Bennet, who noted how critical satellite imaging has been in the Ukraine war and that China has become nearly a peer of the U.S. in space. “It’s easy to look at this and say, ‘Oh, this is just a parochial interest.’ But I think it’s important to restore integrity to the basing process.” In March, after DAVID IGNATIUS wrote in the Washington Post that the Biden administration “appears ready to reverse” Trump’s relocation order, Bennet asked the White House if that was indeed the case. “They did not confirm that was the direction they’re headed,” he said. “But I’ve heard from the president and others some sympathy with Colorado’s position here.” An initial review last year by the Pentagon’s inspector general found Trump’s Alabama relocation move “reasonable” and the Government Accountability Office also said the Air Force had “largely followed” the standard base-location process. But the White House requested another review last December, citing concerns that shifting Space Command to Huntsville would delay its operational readiness. That review is ongoing, according to an Air Force spokesperson. When last asked about the matter publicly in March, Air Force Secretary FRANK KENDALL said “operational capability and mission performance is one of the fundamental things we look at in every basing decision.” Kendall also suggested he is not expecting Biden to weigh in or act unilaterally as Trump did. MESSAGE US — Are you FRANK KENDALL? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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