A White House-Murdoch hot war

Jun 18, 2024

By Lauren Egan, Eli Stokols and Ben Johansen

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

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off this Wednesday in recognition of Juneteenth but will be back in your inbox on Thursday, June 20. We hope absence makes the heart grow fonder.

A few weeks ago, as the White House press shop worked to blunt the impact of a Wall Street Journal story suggesting President JOE BIDEN was “slipping,” some aides pointed the finger squarely at RUPERT MURDOCH, arguing that the media tycoon with well known conservative leanings was getting his empire into partisan form ahead of the election.

That accusation turned out to be the opening salvo in what is now a very public war.

Since that WSJ story dropped, Murdoch’s other media properties (most notably the New York Post) have caricatured the 81-year-old Biden as a senile, lost old man. The focus of their stories is hardly new. Biden’s diminished physical stature exists in plain sight and age and stamina have been a genre of White House reporting with several predecessors. Everyone around the president sees, among other things, that his gait has slowed and that he speaks more softly than before.

But the New York Post stories have relied on selectively edited or decontextualized videos. And that’s led Biden’s team to take uncommonly public shots against the outlet.

In the past few days, Biden aides have shared countless fact-checks and “Morning Joe” clips slamming the New York Post for amplifying these videos. They’ve warned of “cheap fakes,” a term coined by misinformation researchers, and “the bad faith actors who post them.” And they’ve painstakingly posted the full video clips that undercut some of the New York Post’s sensationalized headlines. Senior deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES alone has posted about the misleading videos more than 60 times in the past week.

The White House comms shop has long had a contentious relationship with the New York Post’s reporter who covers the beat, STEVEN NELSON, and the paper’s coverage overall. But Biden aides viewed the recent flurry of New York Post stories as proof that their instincts about the Journal piece were correct.

It wasn’t lost on the Biden team that the New York Post based its stories on videos that were selectively cut and shared online by the Republican National Committee, including one of Biden appearing “to freeze up on stage” at a Los Angeles fundraiser and another that made Biden look like he had wandered off from other heads of state during the G7 summit in Italy. (Wider shots of those events painted a different picture.)

“The Murdoch outlets are so desperate to distract from @POTUS’s record that they just lie,” Bates posted on X, a reference to not just the New York Post’s coverage but the ubiquitous replaying of the videos on Murdoch’s Fox News (where they’ve been only occasionally contextualized).

The White House has also emphasized that some of the fact-checks have come from right-leaning publications and individuals.

According to two people familiar with the matter, the White House reached out to staff at the New York Post and pointed to the wide range of mainstream media fact checks, seeking a retraction of its story and front page headline. The paper flatly refused.

A spokesperson for the New York Post declined to comment. But defenders of the paper note that the Biden team complained vociferously about its coverage before, encouraging other outlets to ignore the pre-2020-election reporting on the contents of HUNTER BIDEN’s laptop, under the auspices that it could be Russia disinformation. STEVEN CHEUNG, Trump campaign communications director, accused the Biden team of engaging in a “media-wide conspiracy.”

There is a risk, of course, in Biden aides currently trying to shape reporting around the president’s age with a barrage of fact-checks. The Streisand effect comes to mind. (Though, speaking of, the actual BARBRA STREISAND ripped the New York Post for “printing lies” about Biden. “No other media outlets should amplify its disinformation,” she wrote on X.)

Ultimately, however, the White House believes it must engage, in large part to keep these posts from spreading beyond right-wing outlets. Whether it can move fast enough is another question. It only took a few hours for the RNC’s videos of Biden at the LA event to get picked up by the New York Post, which was then shared by DONALD TRUMP on his social media platform. On social platforms like TikTok, the misleading videos spread faster than any fact check could.

A Biden official said the campaign has established a taskforce to mitigate the risks posed by AI and cheap fakes, but stressed that the responsibility rests with social media platforms and news companies.

“Voters deserve accurate information to inform their choice this November and our campaign will be vigilant in calling out these lies when we see them,” said Biden campaign spokesperson MIA EHRENBERG. “We hope media organizations and others with influential platforms follow our lead.”

Although X ultimately added a banner to the New York Post story from the G7 noting that the video it was based on had been “cropped,” it’s not clear if putting pressure on such companies will have the desired effect. Other Democrats argue that the better solution may be to create a separate stream of content that overshadows the stuff that the New York Post and others are highlighting.

“Ultimately how the President performs in high-profile moments like the debates will be exponentially more impactful than some clips circulating on TikTok,” said former Obama White House communications director DAN PFEIFFER.

MESSAGE US — Are you RUPERT MURDOCH? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.

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POTUS PUZZLER

What passion project did RICHARD NIXON pick up in the midst of the fallout from the Watergate break-in?

(Answer at bottom.)

The Oval

SOME LIGHT DAMAGE CONTROL: On Tuesday, President Biden announced a major new policy initiative that would shield tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants from being deported, our MYAH WARD reports. Under the initiative — referred to as “parole in place” — the Department of Homeland Security would grant federal protections to roughly 500,000 undocumented spouses and 50,000 undocumented children of U.S. citizens, according to administration officials.

The timing is especially notable, as it comes just weeks after the president unveiled a controversial executive action to clamp down on asylum at the southern border — which drew some sharp critiques from progressive allies.

MOM AND DAD ARE FIGHTING AGAIN: In a video posted to X, Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU attacked the Biden administration — singling out Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN — for “withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.” Blinken on Tuesday assured the Israeli leader that U.S. military assistance is “moving as it normally would,” aside from one delayed shipment of bombs, our MILES HERSZENHORN reports.

And at today’s press briefing, press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE echoed Blinken’s comments: “We genuinely do not know what he is talking about. There is one shipment that was paused, everything else is moving.”

Netanyahu is slated to speak before Congress soon. Should be an interesting visit.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO WATCH: This segment of JOHN OLIVER’s “Last Week Tonight,” in which the comedian details what a potential second Donald Trump presidency would look like — and the role the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 would play.

Project 2025 aims to overhaul the structure of the federal government and replace it with a Trump-loyalist bureaucracy. Oliver highlighted one specific priority: Schedule F, which would reclassify about 50,000 career civil servants as political appointees — meaning they would lose employee protections from being fired for political reasons, and potentially be replaced with someone based on loyalty over merit.

Campaign spokesperson JAMES SINGER shared the clip on X.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by our JENNIFER SCHOLTES, who reports that the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the nation will run a $2 trillion deficit this year.

The latest forecast is up from its previous $1.6 trillion estimate earlier this year — largely due to President Biden’s student loan relief policies, which the office predicted will cost about $145 billion during the current fiscal year through September. That includes higher subsidies for student loans and the administration’s plan to reduce balances for many borrowers.

CAMPAIGN HQ

INSIDE THE ATTACK: Yesterday’s Biden campaign attack ad describing Trump as a “convicted criminal who’s only out for himself” was a notable break from its relative restraint in highlighting the former president's criminal conviction.

But with internal polling and focus groups showing just how much the verdict turned off key voters, the campaign is getting ready to continue hammering Trump over the coming weeks, our ELENA SCHNEIDER, Lauren and LISA KASHINSKY report. Biden advisers are aiming to both set up a favorable narrative ahead of next week’s debate and keep Trump’s felony conviction top-of-mind for voters who haven’t yet fully tuned into the election.

“We’ve seen in polling since the conviction that the more the conviction is front and center in voters’ attention, the worse it is for Trump,” said one Biden campaign pollster.

THE BUREAUCRATS

BIDENITES IN BEANTOWN: Thanks largely to the play of Finals MVP JAYLEN BROWN and wizardry of JOE MAZZULLA, the Boston Celtics easily secured the franchise’s 18th NBA championship over the fifth-seeded Dallas Mavericks on Monday night. And a handful of folks from Biden world were in the building to see it.

Campaign finance chair and Boston native RUFUS GIFFORD posted on X about having surprised his dad, who took him to C’s games as a kid, with tickets to game five (they wore passes that read “Dallas Mavericks Guest” — hmmmmmmm). And BHARAT RAMAMURTI, who served as deputy director of Biden’s national economic council from 2021-23, also posted photos on X from his seats (not quite as good as Rufus’!) as the confetti rained down. “Pretty good night,” he wrote.

PERSONNEL MOVES: STACY DEAN, deputy undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture is leaving her post to join the JOSÉ ANDRÉS-backed Global Food Institute at George Washington University as its executive director, our GRACE YARROW reports for Pro subscribers. Dean’s last day as deputy undersecretary for USDA’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services will be in mid-July.

CINDY LONG, the current administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, will fill Dean’s role.

Agenda Setting

FANNING OUT: President Biden’s Cabinet is hitting the road this week to promote the administration’s work to reduce costs, NBC’s MIKE MEMOLI reports. As part of the tour, 18 Cabinet members and senior White House officials will hold more than two dozen events in 15 states in the days leading up to the first presidential debate between Biden and Donald Trump. Energy Secretary JENNIFER GRANHOLM will hold events in Nevada focused on energy costs, while Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN will discuss housing costs in Minnesota.

GETTING THEIR HANDS DIRTY: The Biden administration on Tuesday swore in its first class of the American Climate Corps, a federal program that aims to give young people experience working in the clean energy, conservation and climate resilience sectors, NBC’s LUCAS THOMPSON and ARIEL WEIL report. AmeriCorps, the federal agency overseeing the new program, said it estimated that more than 9,000 members will be in their roles by the end of the month.

What We're Reading

The Gun Lobby’s Hidden Hand in the 2nd Amendment Battle (NYT’s Mike McIntire and Jodi Kantor)

The unbearable heaviness of thinking everything is good for Trump (WaPo’s Ben Terris)

The Oppo Book

Ambassador to the United Kingdom JANE HARTLEY and her husband, RALPH SCHLOSSTEIN, are both JIMMY CARTER alums. The two met briefly before Hartley started at the White House in 1978 as an associate assistant to the president in the Office of Public Liaison, but became close during the late night White House grind.

“Memos to the president were always due on Saturday morning and we were the point people for the memos to the president and urban policy,” Hartley said on an episode of Ruthie’s Table last week. “But we could never agree, so we’d be editing late into Friday night. And the joke was that we broke so many dates with other people that we ended up together.”

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

During the summer of 1972, Nixon set aside time to assemble a list of his all-time greatest baseball players, WaPo wrote in 2022. The effort culminated with a nearly 3,000-word piece in the Associated Press, which appeared in newspapers across the country. Nixon’s list had many of the sport’s giants — BABE RUTH, LOU GEHRIG, TED WILLIAMS and JACKIE ROBINSON — as well as some hot takes, including DICK GROAT and BOBO NEWSOM (who?).

The sports press corps was not impressed. “When you regard him as a sports writer, you can’t help feeling that he really ought to go back to being President of the United States,” New York Times sports columnist RED SMITH wrote. “That’s a dreadful, difficult line to write.”

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 and Rishika Dugyala.

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