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 MITCH MCCONNELL’s announcement Wednesday that he would step aside as Senate GOP leader next year shocked official Washington — and it signaled anew that the political era he and long-serving contemporaries defined is coming to a close. In making his announcement, McConnell said that “it’s time for the next generation of leadership.” All of which served as a reminder of one of the Kentucky Republican’s longest-serving friendly rivals — President JOE BIDEN — who could end up being the last political dinosaur as he seeks another four-year term this fall that would keep him in office until the age of 86. McConnell’s reasoning for stepping aside echoed Biden’s 2020 promise that he would serve as a “bridge” to the next line of Democratic leaders. Unlike McConnell, Biden has refused to step aside. He’s done so largely out of a belief that only he can beat DONALD TRUMP, with whom McConnell has also sparred. But Biden has also been driven, more broadly, by a belief in a congenial kind of politics (one that is now mostly a distant memory) that defined the capital when both he and the Senate minority leader came of age. “I'm sorry to hear McConnell stepped down,” Biden said when asked about the news during an appearance Wednesday in the White House East Room. “I've trusted him and we have a great relationship. We fight like hell. But he has never, never, never misrepresented anything.” In an official statement recognizing how he and McConnell, despite being partisan adversaries over several decades, were able to build mutual trust, Biden pointed to their shared work on cancer research and the impact the Republican leader has had on his own presidency as proof of what can be accomplished when lawmakers set partisanship aside. But the fulsome tribute also served as tacit acknowledgment of how different a second term might be legislatively without him there. Elected, in part, to bring stability and collegiality to the country after the four chaotic, controversial Trump years, Biden took office determined to be more than a placeholder. And in many instances along the way, McConnell — the longest serving Senate leader, and enough of a friend to Biden to attend the funeral of his son, BEAU — helped fulfill his Rooseveltian ambitions. Aiming to protect the legislative filibuster, McConnell stayed open to forging agreements with Democrats. He supported bipartisan deals on gun safety, infrastructure and boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing to compete with China during the first two years of Biden’s term, even appearing with the president at an event highlighting the repairs of a rundown Kentucky bridge due to funding from the infrastructure law. It was a far cry from a decade ago, when McConnell had said his foremost priority was to make BARACK OBAMA a one-term president. “Sen. McConnell is a conservative Republican who has foiled many policy objectives of Democratic presidents, but he is a straight shooter and has joined with the president to pursue progress on matters that should be beyond politics,” said RON KLAIN, who was Biden’s first chief of staff. “The president would always appreciate Sen. McConnell’s candor when saying he could not work with us on an issue, and his effectiveness when he found an area of common interest.” In recent months, McConnell blessed bipartisan negotiations on a border security measure that ran aground due to opposition from Trump. He also aligned himself with Biden on providing additional defense aid to Ukraine. While Senate Democrats fiercely still recoil at McConnell’s obstructionism — including his refusal to hold a vote on MERRICK GARLAND’s appointment to the Supreme Court during the Obama administration — many have grown a smidge of a soft spot for him during the Biden era. They see him as the last formidable Republican bulwark against Trump. That is true of Biden as well, who may welcome an unencumbered McConnell during the close of this general election but now faces a potential second term without a Senate GOP leader with whom he’s had decades of experience. McConnell will be the last of the four congressional leaders who served during Biden’s vice presidency to depart their posts. And Biden is not known to have meaningful relationships with any of the Republicans who may succeed McConnell. White House press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE downplayed that concern, pointing to recent bipartisan Senate votes as evidence that there is GOP support for Biden’s agenda beyond the man at the top of the conference. But on the Hill, the reaction among Democrats to the McConnell news was mixed. Some feared that the chamber could soon descend into a form of anarchy, or worse, the House. “We want a successor that will be willing to work together but what I worry about is when you look at the dysfunction in the House, does that dysfunction move over to the Senate?” said Sen. MARK KELLY (D-Ariz.). But others in the party were more serene. Political eras change, and leaders too. Biden may now be the last of that class to hang up his spikes. But it doesn’t mean that the governance ends with him. “So?” said Sen. DICK DURBIN. “Time marches on.” MESSAGE US — Are you GRACE LANDRIEU, director for economic policy and labor? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! 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