| | | | |  | | By Eli Stokols, Lauren Egan and Ben Johansen | 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 If you and your friends have been texting a lot about the greatest British reality drama since Bake Off, you are hardly alone. Those at the highest levels of political power are doing it, too. The many mysteries swirling around the royal family — Who doctored that photo? Was that really the DUCHESS OF WALES going to the market? Is she okay? Is her marriage okay? Is KING CHARLES okay? — are consuming official Washington. Among those obsessing over all of this are a group of operatives with close ties to the JOE BIDEN White House. For the past two years, about two dozen political insiders — some who used to work for Biden as well as a handful of outside Democratic operatives — have stayed in touch over a group text message thread called “Locals Only.” It’s been used, primarily, to organize events and discuss what’s going on in D.C. But when speculation about the royals started to dominate the conversation a few weeks ago, the chatter on Locals Only became all-consuming. Eventually, it prompted the need for a separate thread. “I kind of became an early obsessive about this, and it was starting to take over the chain,” said CAITLIN LEGACKI, a former senior adviser to Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO. “One day I was like, ‘Look, I’m going to start a second chain [text] to protect the original chain. Because some of the people on here actually can’t text about this all day.’” Legacki, with the permission of her pals on these threads, agreed to discuss the matter with West Wing Playbook after we found out about the group chat and inquired. Her only condition: that we kept the other members anonymous. All told, 14 members of the original thread opted into the new one devoted to royals chatter. They titled the new thread: “Just asking questions.” And, frankly, aren’t we all? Given that many of them specialize in communications work, they’ve viewed the crisis largely through that lens — shocked over, among other things, the release of the clearly doctored photo and how the palace’s PR operation has allowed so many conspiracy theories to fester. “It’s fascinating to people who only deal with how to best sell a story, or whatever, that the story was told so poorly here,” said a person who is part of the group chat but did not want to be named. “There are real lessons to be taken of whatever is going on because this is a communications debacle.” Legacki dutifully keeps even those who declined to join the curated chat updated on key parts of the discussion. Among those who opted out was former White House communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD, who said she couldn’t “deal with the stream of notifications.” As is often the case with group text chains — not that we have any personal experience with them — there are a lot of tweets being shared and discussed. “My week: Royal press office,” a lampoon written like a diary by an aide to the royal family that appeared in the Times of London last week, was fodder for a lot of texts, Legacki said. President BARACK OBAMA’s visit to 10 Downing Street generated a lot of conversation too. Many of the tweets batted around are just jokes, like this image of King Charles with sausage links for fingers posted by @NoContextBrits with the caption, “Clearly Photoshopped.” “Part of why this resonates so much is, number one, the mystery is just so rich,” Legacki said. “And the internet content is just so good it reminds people of when the internet was good.” Put another way: the utter mess roiling the House of Windsor makes for a welcome distraction in the capital city of late-stage America. That may be especially true for Democrats facing down the not slim possibility that DONALD TRUMP could be back in the Oval Office this time next year. It’s an escape. But not an entirely light-hearted one. There has been more serious discussion of how the crisis has been managed or mismanaged and lots of speculation about what’s at the root of it all. “Our theories are that it's a multi-pronged crisis, meaning Kate is having very real health issues and that that is happening at the same time as Charles is sick — and that that affects the dynamic between Kate and William,” Legacki said. “Each one of these crises would be manageable on their own, but when you add them all together it gets a lot harder.” How long “Just asking questions” will last depends, in large part, on how the rest of the royals saga plays out. But it has a ways to go before it matches the scope and membership of D.C.’s other powerhouse text chain: the separate, quasi-secretive one filled with flacks and journalists where talk is almost exclusively about The Bachelor. MESSAGE US — Are you A WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL IN THE BACHELOR TEXT CHAIN? We want to hear from you (but not about the show, thanks). 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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| | DOC RIVERS SPILLS ON BIDEN MEETING: After our scoop Wednesday about Biden’s private meeting with Milwaukee Bucks owner WESLEY EDENS and coach DOC RIVERS, the Journal-Sentinel’s JIM OWCZARSKI got a full readout from the coach last night just before his squad lost to the Celtics. Which is funny because the team’s PR department refused to comment when we inquired about the meeting. Rivers said the meeting was fairly last minute and included three players: THANASIS ANTETOKOUNMPO (!!!), PAT CONNAUGHTON and KHRIS MIDDLETON (come on Dame, where you at?). Biden, Rivers said, spoke about past racial injustices in Wisconsin, actually repeating remarks Rivers made after the 2020 police involved shooting in Kenosha. And he recorded a video for Antetokounmpo’s mother, as the president tends to do. “I’ve been to a lot of things that are formal, it’s rare that you get an informal meeting,” said Rivers, who will likely be available to campaign for Biden some time in early May. “We just came in, we were just talking and it was awesome.” WE GET IT ALREADY: KERRY KENNEDY, the younger sister of ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., posted *another* group pic of the family’s visit to the White House over the weekend for the St. Patrick’s Day celebration — this one from inside the Oval Office. As West Wing Playbook wrote about yesterday, the Biden team has been taking steps to neutralize RFK Jr. and other third party threats. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by CNN’s EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE and KRISTEN HOLMES about the contrast between Biden and DONALD TRUMP’s campaign schedules. Since Super Tuesday, Biden has made campaign stops all across battleground states, while maintaining his presidential duties. Meanwhile, Dovere and Holmes write that Trump has seldom made trips to states like Wisconsin and Arizona, and held only one rally in a battleground state in those two and a half weeks — in Georgia. Instead, he has spent much of his time at Mar-a-Lago playing golf and schmoozing donors. Communications director BEN LABOLT shared the piece on X. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This Time Magazine cover story by CHARLOTTE ALTER, BRIAN BENNETT and PHILIP ELLIOTT (the cover image: Biden on a bike riding through mud with the caption “Stuck”). The piece takes measure of the race and Biden’s difficulty in improving his current standing: “If the election were held tomorrow, more than 30 pollsters, strategists, and campaign veterans from both parties tell TIME, Biden would likely lose,” they write. “Publicly, Biden’s brain trust is confident in their turnaround plan. Privately, even some White House insiders admit that they’re scared.” While the piece is obviously a downer for any Biden stan — especially those who might still subscribe to the print edition — the cover image is also the exact sort of thing Team Biden will likely save and tweet after the election if they win. MEA CULPA: Yesterday, while analyzing Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ March Madness bracket, we pointed out how it seemed logical that she has Oakland University upsetting the Kentucky Wildcats. The school, as many of you pointed out, is not based in Oakland, California (where Harris is from) but, rather just outside of Detroit, Michigan. We totally knew that but are glad to see that our readers are on top of this type of stuff. ON THE TOPIC OF MARCH MADNESS: Congrats, EUN KIM, for avoiding having to see her Arizona Wildcats suffer another humiliating first round exit on Thursday afternoon. The Wildcats took down Long Beach State and DAN MUNSON’s Cinderella dreams.
| | | SWIMMING IN GREEN: The Biden campaign expanded its fundraising advantage over Donald Trump in February, ending the month with $71 million on hand, our ELENA SCHNEIDER, JESSICA PIPER and ZACH MONTELLARO report. It leaves Biden and the Democratic National Committee with a combined $97.5 million in the bank, more than double the combined $44.8 million that Trump and the Republican National Committee have. And the folks in Wilmington continue to taunt Team Trump about it: “Donald Trump enters this general election weak and hiding out at his country club - without the infrastructure or staff in battleground states, and he doesn’t have the money to even build it,” rapid response director AMMAR MOUSSA said in a statement. FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Senate Majority PAC, the Democratic super PAC close to Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.), is setting aside a $500,000 donation it received from GAURAV SRIVASTAVA, the L.A. businessman accused of fraudulently pretending to be associated with the CIA, our DANIEL LIPPMAN writes in. West Wing Playbook reported on Tuesday that the Biden campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee were freezing hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations they received from him. Srivastava also donated half a million dollars to Senate Majority PAC on Nov. 7, 2022, the day before Election Day, according to FEC records. Senate Majority PAC spokesperson SARAH GUGGENHEIMER said they were putting it aside “as a precaution.” Schumer met Srivastava once, according to a person close to the senator, who added that he doesn’t have a relationship with him. Asked for comment, Srivastava’s lawyer passed along a statement from his client saying: “I have not been made aware by the committee that my contribution has been placed in escrow. If indeed the funds are not being deployed for election purposes for which it was solicited, then I request my contribution to be returned immediately.” When asked if SMP will comply with his request, Guggenheimer said the super PAC currently has no plans to return the money.
| | | | A ONE MAN WOLFPACK: If you missed deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES’ tweets from the arena Saturday night, there are six — six! — paragraphs detailing Bates’ experience watching NC State’s first ACC hoops championship since 1987 in this piece by EMILY VESPA in the student newspaper, The Technician. And to no one’s surprise, Bates was laying it on thick with the quotes, describing, among other things, how he chose to go to the game over the Gridiron Dinner (what a sacrifice!) and the scene among fans in the Capital One Arena Saturday night: “There was kind of a twinkle in the eyes of some of State’s fans, like an understated kind of confidence.”
| | | | ANYONE WANT A SAMSUNG?? The Justice Department and 16 state attorneys slapped Apple with a lawsuit on Thursday, arguing that the company violated antitrust laws by having a monopoly on the smartphone market, our JOSH SISCO reports. The government argues that Apple has prevented competitors from offering applications that would compete with their products, including digital wallets. “Apple has maintained its power not because of its superiority, but because of its unlawful, exclusionary behavior,” Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND said in a press conference. “Monopolies like Apple’s threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based.” It’s the latest move from the Biden administration to make attacking corporate power a key part of its economic agenda. AG SPEAKS OUT: During the same press conference, Garland said it was “absurd” to think that he should have edited or withdrawn the special counsel report depicting the president as forgetful, our JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY report. And when asked about POLITICO’s reporting about how Biden officials thought Garland should have done more to rein in the report, the attorney general said that no one from the White House has ever said as much to him. “When the president announced my nomination, he said to me directly — and then to the American public — that he intended to restore the independence and the integrity of the Justice Department,” Garland said. “I sincerely believe that that’s what he intended then and I sincerely believe that that’s what he intends now." JUST A TEASE: President Biden announced $5.8 billion in student debt forgiveness for nearly 78,000 public sector workers, CNN’s KATIE LOBOSCO reports. Biden will send congratulatory emails to borrowers this week, and an additional 380,000 borrowers eligible for debt relief in the next one to two years will get a message from the president saying: “keep it up!” Under the program, known as PSLF, qualifying borrowers such as teachers, social workers and nurses are eligible for debt cancellation after 10 years of monthly payments.
| | | | Kamala Harris Won’t Apologize for Doing What’s Right on Abortion (Elle’s Kayla Webley Adler) Miranda’s Last Gift (The Atlantic’s David Frum)
| | | RICHARD NIXON, which in light of his coverup of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, is quite ironic. A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it! Edited by Sam Stein.
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