You can call him Al

Apr 12, 2024

By Eli Stokols, Eugene Daniels, Jonathan Lemire and Ben Johansen

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It was a long week for President JOE BIDEN, with questions mounting over the future of Ukraine aid and the crisis in Gaza as he hosted a three-day state visit with Japan’s prime minister and prepared for a likely Iranian attack on Israel.

But he still made time on Friday afternoon to walk across West Executive Drive to deliver virtual remarks from a soundstage to an audience gathered hundreds of miles away.

These are the things you do for Al.

Biden’s speech to Rev. AL SHARPTON’s National Action Network on Friday was not just a nod to the need to engage Black activists in an election year, it was a sign of the personal respect the president has for the longtime civil rights leader.

Sharpton, once a velour-track-suited rabble-rouser viewed with skepticism in elite circles, is now seen within the White House as the de facto leader of America’s legacy civil rights organizations. He is a cable news fixture in bespoke suits, one who has an open door to the Biden White House.

It wasn’t always this way. Sharpton took Biden to task in 2007 during the early days of the Democratic primary over his description of former President BARACK OBAMA as “articulate” and “clean,” urging him to consider what the remark might insinuate about other Blacks. More than a decade later, during the Democratic primary in 2019, he joined Vice President KAMALA HARRIS in attacking Biden’s record on busing, equating his past deference to local school boards as an endorsement of the states’ rights stance pushed by segregationists.

But that was then. Friday’s address to Sharpton’s group is the outgrowth of a relationship that has gotten closer since Biden took office. While Sharpton’s bluntness on television and in private meetings can occasionally still grate on administration officials, the president and aides have come to appreciate his direct feedback and his willingness to defend and vouch for Biden, as he did in his introduction on Friday.

“He’s always been candid, and he’s always been straight. He’s always done what he said he would do,” Sharpton said, noting that Biden has attended his annual meeting before, confided in him about his decision to run in 2019 and even called him from the White House to talk about topics he had featured on his show.

Biden, Sharpton continued, has “a history with National Action Network” and has treated Black voters “like grown folks,” drawing a contrast with former President DONALD TRUMP. “There are those that want our votes, that want to take us for granted and show us some gold sneakers and other foolishness. We want to know about concrete things and what have you done for me lately?”

Biden, in a 10-minute speech, outlined his administration’s major accomplishments and promoted a second-term agenda that includes the passage of additional police reform legislation and restoring federal voting rights protections.

“The results are real,” Biden said. “We’ve reduced Black unemployment to a record low. More Black Americans have health insurance than ever before.”

Few people enjoy the influence that Sharpton now possesses. Since taking office, the president has been quite responsive to his encouragement to increase his outreach to Black communities. Sharpton helped organize a 2021 summit at the White House to discuss administration efforts to protect voting rights and advance police reform legislation in response to the 2020 murder of GEORGE FLOYD at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

The civil rights leader has attended several other private West Wing meetings where senior staff have sought out his insights. Early in the administration, he conveyed concerns to the president about a proposed menthol ban after meeting with the mother of ERIC GARNER.

Sharpton has also hosted Biden at the annual Martin Luther King Prayer Breakfast, marched with him across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. to commemorate Bloody Sunday in 2023 and chatted several times with the president on his radio show Keepin’ It Real, including on the eve of the 2022 midterms and again this year on MLK Day. Sharpton was last at the White House in August 2023 for a meeting with President Biden, Vice President Harris and civil rights leaders — including King’s oldest son, MARTIN LUTHER KING III — to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington.

All of this has made Sharpton a man in demand, including by those who are keen on getting their issues — however parochial — before Biden’s eyes. For a civil rights leader who bickered with GEORGE W. BUSH, had some notable tiffs with Barack Obama and was a fierce critic of Trump, the Biden-Harris administration has given him something different: acceptance.

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POTUS PUZZLER

During his inauguration, THEODORE ROOSEVELT wore a ring containing whose hair?

(Answer at bottom.)

Photo of the Week

President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida toast each other during a state dinner on Wednesday.

President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida toast each other during a state dinner on Wednesday. | Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla

The Oval

ENJOY THE WEEKEND: When asked how imminent an attack on Israel from Iran might be, President Biden told reporters on Friday that his expectation is that it would be “sooner rather than later,” Eli, NAHAL TOOSI and ERIN BANCO report. Asked what his message to Tehran would be, Biden warned: “Don’t.”

Iran sent a warning to the Biden administration earlier this week through several Arab countries that if the U.S. were to get involved in the fighting between itself and Israel, U.S. forces in the region would be attacked, Axios’ BARAK RAVID reports. Officials say that the administration told Israeli leaders to notify the U.S. ahead of any retaliation they might take, so that they are able to have a say in the decision.

And on a call Thursday, Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN told his Israeli counterpart YOAV GALLANT that Israel “could count on full U.S. support to defend Israel against Iranian attacks.”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: Any story on Friday’s announcement of the latest salvo in the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan, wiping out another $7.4 billion in debt for roughly 277,000 borrowers. Our BIANCA QUILANTAN reports that a large chunk of forgiveness will go towards those enrolled in the administration’s income-driven SAVE repayment plan — about $3.6 billion for 206,800 people. The DOE also announced $3.5 billion in debt would be wiped out for 65,700 borrowers enrolled in older income-driven repayment plans. The move comes as Biden continues to work on more sweeping debt relief plans after the Supreme Court struck down his larger plan last summer.

Deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES and deputy communications director HERBIE ZISKEND shared the news on X.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by Axios’ ALEX THOMPSON, who reports that President Biden used campaign donations to pay for legal fees during last year’s special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents. The payments, made through the Democratic National Committee, come as the Biden camp has attacked Donald Trump for spending his own campaign funds on his various legal troubles. During the probe, the DNC paid more than $1.5 million to lawyers or firms representing Biden, including to the firm of his lead attorney, ROBERT BAUER. That, it should be noted, is a far cry from the tens of millions of dollars that Trump’s committees have spent.

PISSING OFF ALL THE DEMS: A coalition of a dozen Democratic organizations and labor unions wrote a letter to President Biden on Friday, demanding that he end military aid to Israel until its government ends restrictions on humanitarian aid going into Gaza, NYT’s REID J. EPSTEIN reports. The signatories vary from progressive groups like MoveOn and the Working Families Party to more mainstream Democratic groups like Center for American Progress and NextGen America.

“This will send a clear message that the Netanyahu government is not above the law and that the U.S. will not stand by while the war kills innocent Palestinians and continues to drive escalation throughout the region,” the letter reads.

FOUR YEARS LATER … President Biden on Friday issued an executive order moving the White House’s Covid-19 response team into its pandemic preparedness office and revoked three pandemic-era executive orders, our DAVID LIM scooped for Pro subscribers. The move — largely a formality after the White House transferred much of the day-to-day operations around Covid-19 to federal agencies — shows how the administration is treating the virus as just another respiratory disease.

ON THE MOVE: National security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN, cracked rib and all, will travel to India next week, Foreign Policy’s ROBBIE GRAMER reports. During the trip, Sullivan will attend the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology meeting. Gramer also notes that Sullivan could also prepare for a potential Biden trip to India for a Quad summit.

A message from GE Aerospace:

GE Aerospace is investing $550 million in its U.S. manufacturing facilities and supply chain this year to increase production and strengthen quality. The future of flight is made in the United States. See where we are investing.

CAMPAIGN HQ

DUNDER STIFFLIN: President Biden is taking a three-day swing through Pennsylvania next week, beginning with Scranton on Tuesday and hitting Pittsburgh and Philadelphia the next two days, AP’s COLLEEN LONG reports. While in Scranton, Biden will deliver a post-Tax Day “major address” on taxes, which the campaign said will “drive home a simple question: “Do you think the tax code should work for rich people or for the middle class?”

THE BUREAUCRATS

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: ALEXANDRA VICTOR MAY will be joining the Treasury Department as deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Legislative Affairs, our DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. She is coming from the office of Sen. DICK DURBIN (D-Ill.) where she has been economic policy adviser.

A message from GE Aerospace:

Agenda Setting

ON TO BIDEN’S DESK: The House of Representatives on Friday voted to reauthorize and reform the key U.S. spy program known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, our JORDAIN CARNEY reports. FISA gives U.S. intelligence the authority to collect information from foreign adversaries, but a small group of conservative privacy hawks blocked the legislation from moving forward Wednesday arguing that it did not go far enough in protections for collecting intelligence on U.S. citizens. In a bid to get the holdouts on board, Speaker MIKE JOHNSON shortened the reauthorization for the program from two years instead of five — allowing for another review of the program to happen under a potential Trump administration.

The Biden administration waged intense lobbying efforts on reauthorizing FISA, with Attorney General MERRICK GARLAND and national security adviser Jake Sullivan calling members to urge them to support on the bill.

BIT OF A WIN FOR POLAR BEARS: The Biden administration on Friday finalized a rule that would charge oil and gas companies 10 times more to drill on federal lands, our BEN LEFEVBRE reports for Pro subscribers. The new rule will require companies pay $150,000 per lease on federal lands, up from the previous $10,000. Companies will now also have to pay an increased royalty rate, 16.67 percent, for the oil and gas they extract from those lands, until 2032.

Bureau of Land Management Director TRACY STONE-MANNING said the move will “help protect critical wildlife habitat, cultural resources, and recreational values, and it will ensure a fair return for American taxpayers.”

What We're Reading

Biden’s Plan B on Inflation: Turn It Against Trump (NYT’s Jim Tankersley)

Why I’m going public with my prostate cancer diagnosis (Francis Collins for WaPo)

4 years ago, Sanders and Biden united Democrats. Biden needs young progressives again (NPR’s Elena Moore)

A message from GE Aerospace:

GE Aerospace is investing $550 million in its U.S. manufacturing facilities and supply chain in 2024 to meet demand and bolster safety. More than $100 million will go to its external supplier base for the newest tools, further reducing the possibility of defects. Another 10 percent of the investments into GE Aerospace’s facilities will go toward inspection equipment and specific tools that help preserve quality. Learn more about how GE Aerospace is investing in communities to build the future of flight.

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

In 1905, when Roosevelt was sworn in for his second term, he wore a ring full of ABRAHAM LINCOLN’s hair. JOHN HAY, Lincoln’s personal secretary from 1861 to 1865, gifted Roosevelt the ring, which contained six strands of Lincoln’s hair.

A hair ring is totally normal, right?

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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