| | | | |  | | By Jonathan Lemire, 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 ATLANTA — When President JOE BIDEN’s team pushed to debate DONALD TRUMP in late June, it was an implicit admission of the anxiety they felt about the state of the race. The campaign had been remarkably static to that point, and a high-profile showdown between the two men was perhaps the best lever left to alter its trajectory. Six weeks later, few in the Biden orbit are downplaying the significance of Thursday night’s debate. The stakes, they acknowledge, are incredibly high. “Hardly anyone is paying attention to this race or to the stakes of this race — and this is our best chance to change that,” said a senior Biden official granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal discussions. “We’re pushing a lot of our chips to the center of the table.” No one in Biden’s orbit would go so far as to say that a bad night on Thursday would effectively doom the president’s chances of a second term. Five officials in Wilmington and the West Wing believe that there would be time to recover if the debate goes poorly. But they also aren’t sugarcoating just how difficult a bad night would be. A major mistake by Biden — like a bad verbal gaffe or freeze-up — could linger in the eyes of the public with few remaining opportunities to correct it. The convention is not until August, and the only other debate currently on the books is not until September. They also know that Biden is being judged on a different scale than his predecessors were, owing to the questions that swirl continuously around Biden’s age. The senior official and three other officials not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations said it was critical that the president use the evening to prove to some skeptics in the national audience that he is able to handle another four years in the Oval Office. If he were to bomb, the panic from other Democrats could overwhelm the president’s campaign. The flip side of risk, in this case, is opportunity. And the president’s team sees the debate as presenting that as well. It’s not just that they believe the 81-year-old Biden could dispel doubts that he is too old for the job by having another strong showing akin to his March State of the Union address. They believe he can rattle and land serious blows against Trump. Polls have slightly trended toward the incumbent in recent weeks. Still, few inside Biden’s orbit think that the night — even the best night — would move the race more than a couple of points. But in a race that is likely to remain razor thin, even that would be substantial. “It is highly unlikely that there will be any big shift in the polls next week when you have a very locked-in electorate, two incredibly well-defined candidates and a small group of swing voters,” said MOLLY MURPHY, one of the Biden campaign’s pollsters. “In this media environment where it’s rare to be able to break through, what this debate is useful for is to drive a strong contrast that can be amplified by state events and paid media to build to the next moment and the next moment: The debate will be key for momentum, not for next week’s polls." According to two of the officials, Biden plans to go after his adversary on several fronts. He is hoping to goad Trump early in the night to once again deny the results of the 2020 election. The president will also accuse his Republican opponent of overturning abortion rights. He has plans to attack him for suggesting he’ll “be a dictator on day one” and for undermining the nation’s international alliances while emboldening autocrats. The goal for the Biden team, ultimately, is to remind Amercans who have tuned out Trump since 2021 just how dangerous and chaotic he is, according to the officials. But, for that reason, the Biden team is also preparing for the debate to be deeply personal and potentially angry, too. Biden makes no secret of his distaste for Trump, whom he refers to as a “sick fuck” in private and believes is a stain on the White House. And aides are preparing for Trump to attack Biden’s son HUNTER, who was convicted on a gun charge this month, urging the president to flash a little anger that could resonate with Americans whose own families have struggled with addiction. In short, the debate will provide Biden with an unparalleled chance to “drag Trump into Americans living rooms,” as one of the officials said, and force voters to accept that he stands a chance of winning again. The downside is: Voters may leave the night comfortable with that outcome. MESSAGE US — Are you SERENA WALKER, special assistant to the office of cabinet affairs? We want to hear from you. 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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| | IN WITH THE OLD, OUT WITH THE NEW: NYT’s PETER BAKER is out with an exhaustive piece about the ways in which President Biden has had to adjust to a new political climate — one where his time working across the aisle as a senator and as vice president is not nearly as rewarded. In 2021, Biden called Sen. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.) after he publicly chastised Republicans on the Senate floor for nearly risking a national default. That wasn’t helpful, Biden told him. “You don’t know how much he’s been beating up on me,” Schumer replied, referring to Sen. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-Ky.). The debt ceiling was raised eventually. And Biden’s bipartisan approach resulted in landmark legislation on other fronts, too. But it has hardly brought the parties closer together. And now, the election is providing additional pressures. “I can say he certainly feels the weight of the world. He has said it to me,” said Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO. “He wears that burden every day.” A BAGEL FOR YOUR SUPPORT: White House chief of staff (and Call Your Mother entrepreneur) JEFF ZIENTS spoke to TNR’s GREG SARGENT about the administration’s quiet outreach to CEOs. Beyond his appearance at the Business Roundtable earlier this month, Zients and others — including Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN, Raimondo and senior adviser STEVE RICCHETTI — have been meeting privately with the country’s top executives to make the case for Biden. “The most important thing for U.S. economic growth and for progress and good fortune,” Zients said, reprising his CEO pitch to Sargent, is “to have a stable, predictable environment.” Interestingly, former American Express CEO KENNETH CHENAULT has been helping out, serving as an informal emissary and Biden validator to corporate America, amid a slew of GOP attacks that Biden’s been bad on the economy. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by our MYAH WARD, who reports that the number of illegal crossings into the U.S. has plummeted by 40 percent in the three weeks since President Biden’s executive action on asylum, according to the latest data from the Department of Homeland Security. Border agents have brought fewer than 2,400 migrants into custody per day over the past week, the lowest level of illegal crossings since Jan. 17, 2021, right before the president took office. Senior deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES shared the piece on X. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by WaPo’s COLBY ITKOWITZ, EMILY GUSKIN and SCOTT CLEMENT, who report on a new Post/George Mason University poll which found that voters in key battleground states trust Donald Trump to protect democracy more than they trust the incumbent president — signaling Biden’s warning that a second Trump term would present an existential threat isn’t resonating. Of the likely voters polled in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states Biden narrowly won four years ago — 38 percent said they trust Trump to handle threats to democracy, compared to the 29 percent who trust Biden. DUDE’S AN ABSOLUTE HOMER: Second gentleman DOUG EMHOFF is a tried and true Los Angeles Rams fan (I mean, as much as you can be since the team moved to L.A. in 2016). And on the RICH EISEN Show today, Emhoff gave his thoughts on the team’s upcoming season, predicting the outcome of the Rams 2024 schedule. Obviously, Emhoff couldn’t resist showing his inherent bias: He said L.A. would go 13-4, likely good enough to take the NFC West from the Super Bowl runner-up San Francisco 49ers. (Emhoff didn’t get to the last two games — against the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks — but let’s be real. MATTHEW STAFFORD will get it done.) West Wing Playbook — an unbiased news source for Rams analysis — also went through their schedule. After lengthy deliberation … They’ll go 10-7.
| | GAMECHANGER! Former Rep. ADAM KINZINGER, an outspoken anti-Trump Republican, endorsed President Biden’s reelection campaign on Wednesday, making the case that he would “always protect the very thing that makes America the best country in the world: our democracy.” In a video posted to X, Kinzinger urged voters to “unite behind Joe Biden and show Donald Trump off the stage, once and for all.” As our ADAM WREN, ELENA SCHNEIDER and NATALIE ALLISON reported back in May, this latest endorsement is a part of a much broader effort from the Biden campaign to woo not only anti-Trump Republican voters, but conservative surrogates who can make the case to those conflicted voters. The campaign held a press conference in Atlanta this afternoon with Kinzinger, former Georgia Lt. Gov. GEOFF DUNCAN — another outspoken anti-Trump Republican who endorsed Biden — and Capitol police officer HARRY DUNN. Meanwhile DONALD TRUMP JR.’s out here making his own, uh, pitch to undecided NIKKI HALEY stans: “Nikki Haley, who served as the puppet of Democrat billionaires and warmongerers, would be a wonderful choice [if] my dad wants to get impeached within about 7 seconds of being sworn in,” he said Wednesday in reference to speculations Trump would tap her as his VP. BOTTOMS, UP: Former Atlanta Mayor KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS is joining the Biden campaign as a senior adviser, EBONY’s MEENA ANDERSON reports. Bottoms has been serving as the DNC vice chair and previously was a senior adviser for public engagement at the White House. “We often say that each election is the most important election of our lifetime,” Bottoms said. “This one absolutely is.” The addition comes as some Democratic operatives have questioned the campaign’s Black outreach effort, with some Black-run firms complaining to West Wing Playbook that the president’s mostly white inner circle has not engaged them more.
| | PERSONNEL MOVES: JANA NELSON is now deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western hemisphere, our DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. She most recently was senior policy adviser at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
| | SCOTUS GIVES BIDEN ANOTHER WIN: In a 6-3 ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court struck down a lawsuit against the Biden administration over its efforts to urge social media companies to take down alleged misinformation about Covid-19, election fraud and other topics, our REBECCA KERN and JOSH GERSTEIN report. Justice AMY CONEY BARRETT wrote in the majority opinion that the two conservative states and five social media users who brought the lawsuit do not have the legal standing to sue various federal officials over their communications with the tech platforms. ‘RIGHTING AN HISTORIC WRONG’: President Biden on Wednesday pardoned roughly 2,000 U.S. veterans who were convicted over a 60-year span for violating a military law banning gay sex, CNN’s HALEY BRITZKY, OREN LIEBERMANN and NATASHA BERTRAND report. In a statement, Biden said he was “righting an historic wrong” by pardoning service members “who were convicted simply for being themselves.” The pardons won’t automatically change convicted veterans’ records. But they would allow those impacted to apply for a certificate of pardon that will help them receive withheld benefits. DON’T DO IT. SERIOUSLY. IT WOULD BE BAD: Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN on Tuesday warned that a war between Israel and the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah would have “terrible consequences,” Bloomberg’s JOHN HARNEY and LARRY LIEBERT report. Austin spoke at the Pentagon yesterday alongside Israeli Defense Minister YOAV GALLANT, who’s visiting Washington this week. His warning was aimed at Israeli military officials, who are threatening to launch a new offensive against Hezbollah. Such a conflict, Austin said, “could easily become a regional war with terrible consequences for the Middle East.”
| | | | How to Debate Trump and Biden — According to People Who Actually Did It (WSJ’s Ken Thomas and Vivian Salama) What Joe Biden Could Learn From Betty White About Aging in Public (NYT’s Michelle Cottle) I’m worried about Biden’s debate with Trump this week (Robert Reich for The Guardian) A signature Biden law aimed to boost renewable energy. It also helped a solar company reap billions. (AP’s Brian Slodysko)
| | | The White House Solarium was built during the CALVIN COOLIDGE presidency and was the idea of first lady GRACE COOLIDGE. The Solarium has been used as a classroom, as private family quarters and, at times, as a meeting space, according to the White House Historical Association. Thanks to the White House Historical Association for this question! 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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