To Thread or not to Thread

Jul 06, 2023

Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Lawrence Ukenye.

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Twitter has served as an important outreach tool for the West Wing ever since the White House launched its account in 2009 under President BARACK OBAMA. For four years under DONALD TRUMP, it seemed like Twitter was the presidency, offering a shockingly unfiltered feed of the president’s true feelings, frustrations and television consumption habits, all in real time. He fired people on the platform, kept reporters chasing countless tennis balls, affected markets and jangled the nation’s nerves.

But it’s not just presidents who have utilized Twitter. It’s also become a critical tool for the staff as well, and not just to push out the White House’s message. In the same way that reporters turn to Twitter for their news feeds, so do White House aides. The platform has been a key way for communications and press staff to keep tabs on what reporters are talking about via their painstakingly curated Twitter lists and TweetDecks.

For those reasons, Twitter’s meltdown over the past few days — from imposing limits on how many tweets users could read per day, to launching a new (worse) version of TweetDeck — has hit the West Wing hard, making it unsurprisingly more difficult for everyone to do their jobs.

“I opened TweetDeck yesterday and gave up after five minutes,” said a White House staffer. “It’s a mess.”

Instead of turning to Twitter to keep track of news stories, several staffers told West Wing Playbook that they started relying more and more on the press clippings sent around each day. But in a sign of just how ubiquitous Twitter has become in the White House, even the junior staffers who compile the press clippings are finding life not as simple. After all, they rely on the platform to find news stories.

Twitter’s utility has been up for debate ever since ELON MUSK took over the company earlier this year and started making changes. Although users have been complaining about Twitter for months, there wasn’t a competitor that was able to capture a significant user base and recreate a similar ecosystem — until Meta launched Threads on Wednesday night.

A trickle of White House reporters and staff alike have since begun sharing their Threads handles on Twitter, encouraging users to follow them on the new app. The Wall Street Journal’s ANNIE LINSKEY, Thursday’s print pooler, said she’d be providing updates on President JOE BIDEN’s trip to South Carolina on Threads. Domestic Policy Council director NEERA TANDEN, deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES, assistant secretary of State BILL RUSSO and Biden campaign digital director ROB FLAHERTY (currently on holiday in Europe) are among a growing number of Biden staffers who have joined the platform in the past day.

“It’s nice to be here and see so many friends already!” Tanden threaded (yes, we’re using that verb).

Meta CEO MARK ZUCKERBERG said in a post that more than 30 million users have signed up for Threads since it launched, an impressive start for the Twitter competitor. And while some White House staffers said that it made sense for them to be on the same platforms as reporters, and were hopeful Threads could also be a useful work tool, they and others in the news business concede it has some work to do if it wants to replicate classical Twitter’s water-cooler feel.

There’s no ability to have a reverse chronological feed. There’s no option to see posts only of those you follow. There are no list functions to sort feeds topically. And there is no alternative to TweetDeck, as broken as it is.

For now, staffers are signing up for personal accounts. Asked Thursday whether the White House planned to use Threads in an official capacity, Bates said that he did not have an announcement to share. “We can keep you all posted if we do,” he said.

In a statement, White House spokesperson ROBYN PATTERSON (who joined Threads too) added: “No one understands better than President Biden that Twitter is not — and never has been — real life. We’ll of course continue to use a variety of platforms to push out our message while continuing to reach Americans through local news, outlets that speak to a variety of audiences, and other mediums Americans use to get their news.”

Although Threads has caught the attention of the White House, it’s not clear yet if the West Wing views it as a worthwhile investment. It takes time and resources to set up new official social media accounts and build the same followings that the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse Twitter handles currently have. Infrastructure would also have to be put in place to make sure the White House was complying with the Presidential Records Act, and dedicated staffers would need to actually manage the account and produce content.

“Is this a good use of resources and time? The calculus for the White House is a little different than most organizations,” NATHANIEL LUBIN, former director of the Office of Digital Strategy in the Obama White House, said about joining new platforms. “Whatever channel [the White House] goes out on is going to get attention. So it needs to have a critical mass of utilization beforehand.”

Is Twitter sweating it? When asked for comment, the company sent an auto reply of a poop emoji.

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POTUS PUZZLER

With help from the White House Historical Association

Which president liked to vacation at his family home in Long Branch, N.J., for a summer getaway?

(Answer at bottom.)

The Oval

WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU'RE LAME: No institution better encapsulates Washington’s social scene quite like Georgetown’s Cafe Milano. That’s where, occasionally, powerful people and those who find meaning being near them gather nightly for mediocre Italian food in a garishly decorated dining room, largely to be noticed by others. It’s all in Annie Linskey’s WSJ A-Hed Thursday, which featured Democratic fixer HEATHER PODESTA’s description of the restaurant as “the grown-up’s table,” a place where differing political beliefs or value sets are overcome by a dish attendees share: a main course of status-consciousness with a side of self-regard.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This coverage of Biden’s trip Thursday to West Columbia, S.C. by The State’s ANNA WILDER that is almost certain to wind up in the president’s package of local press clips tomorrow. Speaking before a crowd of around 250 people at Flex LTD manufacturing facility, Biden asserted that the company’s new partnership with a California-based solar panel manufacturer was the direct result of the tax incentives enacted in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act – and expected to create 600 new jobs at the plant. It’s part of a bigger manufacturing boom sparked by an industrial policy that’s focused, he said, on rebuilding the country and lifting the middle class. “Jobs that used to go to Mexico, Romania and China are now coming home to South Carolina,” Biden said.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by Bloomberg’s JONATHAN BERNSTEIN about the brewing drama between the DNC and New Hampshire Democrats, who remain unwilling to change their January primary slot at the national party’s request.

Biden and the DNC prefer South Carolina — a state they argue more accurately reflects the diversity of the country — to lead the primary schedule, but party officials in New Hampshire remain insistent that their state go first. Opting to have Biden boycott the state could risk handing ROBERT KENNEDY JR. a win in what would be an unforced error for the DNC, Bernstein writes.

THE BUREAUCRATS

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: CHRISTINA WILKES is now deputy associate director for communications covering the management portfolio at the Office of Management and Budget, DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. She most recently served as the press secretary for HUD and is an alum of GSA and NANCY PELOSI.

MORE PERSONNEL MOVES: DANA SHUBAT has been promoted to be deputy chief of staff for the White House Office of Legislative Affairs, Lippman has also learned. She most recently was senior legislative affairs adviser.

— SANAM RASTEGAR has been promoted to chief of staff, Office of Cabinet Affairs. She previously served as associate director for Cabinet Affairs.

Filling the Ranks

CAMPAIGN MOVES: MAURY RIGGAN is joining the Biden-Harris campaign to serve as its general counsel, Bloomberg’s TATYANA MONNAY reports. Riggan most recently served on the National Security Council and was tapped to be White House counsel during the first half of Biden's presidency.

Agenda Setting

YOU DOWN WITH MTG?: At his stop Thursday in South Carolina, Biden announced that he will be making a trip to Georgia, for a groundbreaking of a plant in the town of Dalton. “Dalton?” you ask. “Why … that’s MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE’S district, isn’t it?”

Indeed, it is. The president seemed to take some delight in decamping to the backyard of the House member spearheading his impeachment. As our JENNIFER HABERKORN noted, he was grinning when he told the crowd about the stop.

“The solar panel manufacturer Qcells, which is owned by South Korea-based Hanwha Solutions, announced in January that it planned a $2.5 billion expansion of its Georgia manufacturing facility,” Jennifer writes, “potentially the largest ever investment in such manufacturing in the U.S.”

SAVING WATER: Despite the Biden administration last month launching new rules to help conserve water in the Colorado River, more work is required among Western states to navigate the political and economic hurdles of the river’s limited flows, our ANNIE SNIDER reports for Pro subscribers.

Various states will need to determine how the new regulations may affect Native American tribes, local wildlife and what role the federal government should play in ensuring some states don’t shoulder a disproportionate burden. Relations between California and Arizona were strained during negotiations as both states were forced to agree to severe cuts in water usage through 2026.

NEW JUNK RULES: The White House on Friday is expected to propose a new rule to curtail short-term insurance plans, marking a continued effort by the administration to reduce prescription drug costs and target so-called junk fees, our ADAM CANCRYN and ROBERT KING report.

What We're Reading

Bypassing Biden: Democrats Think of What Could Have Been (POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin)

Former U.S. officials have held secret Ukraine talks with prominent Russians (NBC News' Josh Lederman)

Americans Have Quit Quitting Their Jobs (WSJ’s Austen Hufford and Gwynn Guilford)

The Oppo Book

Everyone has their own way of celebrating a big win.

For Biden principal deputy campaign manager QUENTIN FULKS, it’s watches. “If you know me you know I like to get watches to commemorate things,” Fulks wrote on Instagram in June.

To commemorate his work as campaign manager for Sen. RAPHAEL WARNOCK’s 2022 campaign, Fulks bought a mint green Rolex. He had “Thank you Georgia” engraved on the back along with the dates of the general and runoff elections.

Quentin, what do you have your eye on if Biden wins in 2024?

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

President ULYSSES S. GRANT liked traveling to his family’s seaside cottage in Long Branch, N.J., where he enjoyed driving his team of horses along the beach, according to the White House Historical Association.

A CALL OUT — Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents with a citation and we may feature it.

Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.

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