| | | | |  | | 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. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren In the nearly three weeks since President JOE BIDEN's debate meltdown, the Democratic Party — largely unified in opposition to DONALD TRUMP for the last eight years — has slowly unraveled as some have come to grips with Biden’s dimming electoral prospects and some, well, have not. And nowhere has that downward spiral played out as publicly and messily as within the party’s intellectual ranks, as some of the most followed and beloved liberal thinkers and writers have coalesced in opposition to the incumbent president. First there was EZRA KLEIN writing before the debate that Biden needed to drop out of the race. Then there were warnings from BRIAN BEUTLER about the shellacking that could come if the party stuck with him. Next, a humble acknowledgement by MATTHEW YGLESIAS that he had been wrong about Biden’s ability to campaign. Biden, it can now be firmly stated, has lost the faith of the “Juicebox Mafia” — the group of liberal bloggers, now well into their middle-age years, who shook up the Washington media landscape in the late GEORGE W. BUSH and early BARACK OBAMA years. Those twitchy, hyper-online journalists have earned a loyal following of current and former White House staffers and Democratic officials over the years, in part for their willingness to go after the Republican Party and some of their media colleagues with facts and data — whether on the HILLARY CLINTON email scandal, birtherism or GOP budget proposals. And although they’ve also played the role of inside-the-tent critics, this cohort of journalists has lately turned its attention almost entirely to the ways that some in the Democratic Party seem to be denying the grim reality of Biden’s polling and viability. And not everyone in the party is taking it well. That dynamic spilled out into the open Tuesday night when NATE SILVER — whose data aggregation and polling site was religiously followed by White House aides and Democratic officials across multiple election cycles — posted on X that DNC Chair JAIME HARRISON was “blatantly lying” about the need to plow ahead with the party’s plan to virtually nominate Biden ahead of the Chicago convention in order to get on Ohio’s general election ballot, sparking a heated back-and-forth exchange between the two. “You’re trying to gaslight people based on a technicality. They changed the law. The GOP legal case to remove the D nominee from the ballot would be extremely weak,” Silver wrote. Harrison shot back: “Maybe you should stop speculating and base your commentary on the facts as stated not by unnamed sources.”
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| | Yes, we know that there’s some debate about whether Silver is technically a card-carrying member of the Juicebox Mafia (and some corners of the Democratic Party soured on his work long before Biden was in office). He has morphed over the last decade from the talismanic idol whose data was a daily salve for Democratic nerves into just another contrarian crank. But Harrison’s decision to publicly engage came across to some Democrats as yet another sign of the bunker mentality that is dominating the party and the White House. “The defensiveness is not a good look,” said a Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign, speaking of Harrison’s response. Klein, who has warned about the risks of social media, rescinded his yearslong break from posting on X to point out the ways the party is being disingenuous about the strength of Biden’s candidacy and to cast doubt on Biden’s post-debate interview performances. In an email to West Wing Playbook, he said he was back online for now “because I think this is the rare discussion that actually is shifting on a minute-to-minute basis, and Twitter/X is still one of the few places that happens.” And it’s not just the liberal blog corner of the internet that has called on Democrats — who have long taken pride in what they see as their moral superiority when it comes to telling the truth and being honest with the American public — to be more transparent about Biden’s ability to continue running. The Obama bros at “Pod Save America” has been hitting Biden and his advisers ever since the debate for framing dissatisfaction with the president’s candidacy as simply an “elite” opinion. On Wednesday, co-host TOMMY VIETOR even took aim at MSNBC “Morning Joe” host JOE SCARBOROUGH, who himself argued following the debate that Biden would be wise to step aside. Vietor asked why Scarborough had criticized him and his co-hosts for harping on the same point. “Isn’t honesty more important than access?” Vietor wrote in his post on X as a stinging rejoinder to Scarborough, whose show Biden watches more than any other. If emotions are running high among the well-compensated writers and talkers in the liberal media ecosphere, it’s even worse for many of their loyal listeners. Including those White House aides running on fumes and looking for a pep talk. “When the people you count on to champion your work, who you listen to and read, are calling senior staff out on their bullshit — yeah, it makes it suck even more,” said one White House staffer. MESSAGE US — Are you BARACK OBAMA? 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!
| | | | CHECK OUT WHAT YOU MISSED IN MILWAUKEE!
Watch the full event from the CNN-POLITICO Grill at the RNC HERE.
The program featured Bayer’s Jessica Christiansen, senior vice president and head of crop science and sustainability communications, as well as a conversation with Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) and POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill for discussions about agriculture, food policy and how these issues will impact the November election. | | | | | | | When was the status of the vice presidency truly elevated? (Answer at bottom.)
| | DEM VOTERS TO BIDEN: PLEASE LEAVE: Biden has claimed that Democratic voters still want him atop the ticket even if some party elites have turned on him. But they don’t. Period, full stop. This new AP/NORC poll, conducted mostly before the attempted assassination of DONALD TRUMP and released Wednesday, found that nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters (65 percent) want Biden to drop out. And only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president. One respondent, ALEXI MITCHELL of Virginia — speaking for a quiet majority of Democrats in Washington — told The AP that even though she thinks Biden is still mentally up to the job, the erosion of support following the debate makes his candidacy untenable. “If he doesn’t have control over his own party, that’s a fatal flaw,” she said. “He’s put us in a bad position where Trump might win.” ADAM SCHIFF TO BIDEN: SAME: Rep. ADAM SCHIFF, the Democratic senate candidate in California and a close ally of former House Speaker NANCY PELOSI, went public on Wednesday with his own opposition to the president staying on as the nominee — a sign that the Democratic revolt against Biden’s candidacy is alive, if not intensifying. In a statement to LAT’s KEVIN RECTOR, Schiff praised Biden as “one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history” but urged him to step aside to help Democrats stop Trump. “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November,” the lawmaker said. THE DNC SLOWS ITS ROLL, A LITTLE: In an effort to calm another Democratic uprising, the DNC’s rules committee signaled on Wednesday that it will put off setting the date and rules for a roll call vote to lock in Biden’s nomination until next week, our ELENA SCHNEIDER scooped. The letter from rules committee chairs LEAH DAUGHTRY and Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ also stated that no voting would occur until Aug. 1 at the earliest. And it came after quiet pressure from both Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER and House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES. Now the group of furious House Democrats who was preparing to publicly repudiate the expedited vote — led by Rep. JARED HUFFMAN (D-Calif.) — is standing down, our JENNIFER HABERKORN, SARAH FERRIS and Elena report. Huffman told POLITICO he is no longer sending his letter to the DNC after the party agreed to delay the vote. While he said the move was welcome news “for now,” major concerns remain about the effort to confirm Biden as the nominee virtually, before the convention. BIDEN CRACKS THE DOOR OPEN: The president, after stating that only the “Lord Almighty” could knock him out of the race, told BET News’ ED GORDON that he would reevaluate his candidacy “if I had some medical condition that emerged.” As our ADAM CANCRYN reports, the comments made on Tuesday (and released by the network on Wednesday) marked the first time Biden opened the door to a theoretical medical condition forcing him from the presidential race. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: A good novel, probably. WHAT WILMINGTON WANTS YOU TO WATCH: This new minute-long Biden-Harris campaign ad featuring Kentuckian HADLEY DUVALL, who spoke about becoming pregnant at the age of 12 after her stepfather raped her. “First thing that was told to me when I saw that positive pregnancy test was ‘You have options,’” says Duvall, reflecting on the Supreme Court’s June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. “There’s someone who doesn’t get to hear that now,” she continued. “Trump and J.D. Vance don’t care about women. They don’t care about girls in this situation. They will continue to take our rights away.” Duvall was also featured in a similar ad from Kentucky Gov. ANDY BESHEAR’s campaign during the 2022 cycle. First lady JILL BIDEN posted the ad from her campaign account on X, writing: “Her name is Hadley Duvall and you need to hear her story.” WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: Last night’s newsletter from Puck’s JULIA IOFFE that included the full picture of Biden’s meltdown Saturday during a call with moderate House Democrats. As was previously reported, Biden took issue with Rep. JASON CROW (D-Colo.) suggesting he needed to step aside. Ioffe, who watched a video of the Zoom call, has the full exchange verbatim, which includes the president lashing out at the former Army Ranger and Bronze Star recipient in defense of his own foreign policy record. Biden told Crow he was “dead wrong on national security” and referenced last week’s NATO summit in Washington. “I put NATO together. Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me! Tell me who the hell that is!” the president railed. “Tell me who put NATO back together! Tell me who enlarged NATO, tell me who did the Pacific basin! Tell me who did something that you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son — and I’m proud of your leadership, but guess what, what’s happening, we’ve got Korea and Japan working together, I put AUKUS together, anyway! … Things are in chaos, and I’m bringing some order to it. And again, find me a world leader who’s an ally of ours who doesn’t think I’m the most respected person they’ve ever—” Crow interjected: “It’s not breaking through, Mr. President … to our voters.” “You oughta talk about it!” Biden responded. “On national security, nobody has been a better president than I’ve been. Name me one. Name me one! So I don’t want to hear that crap!”
| | MONEY TALKS. BUT BIDEN AIN’T LISTENING: Some megadonors are trying to squeeze the president into reconsidering his decision to continue his reelection bid, NYT’s THEODORE SCHLEIFER reports. They’ve gone on the record to trash Biden, contemplated standing up a super PAC to amp up the public pressure on Biden and privately promised to write big checks to lawmakers who come out publicly against his candidacy, while threatening to cut off those who stay quiet. TOM STRICKLER, a founder of the WME talent agency, said he recently posed that ultimatum to Sen. MARTIN HEINRICH (D-N.M.): “If you don’t publicly call for Biden to step aside,” Strickler said he told Heinrich aides, “you are not getting a dime from me.” Heinrich, of course, has kept his powder dry. And Biden has ignored criticism from the donor set, repositioning himself as an underdog who ignores the elites. MORE SIGNS OF TROUBLE: A new survey shows that Black women, one of Biden’s most loyal constituencies, are less enthused about him than they were four years ago. The poll of 1,200 Black women by The Cut — and conducted prior to his disastrous debate last month — found that 64 percent would back Biden. That’s a massive drop-off from 2020, when 95 percent of Black women backed the Biden-Harris ticket. Notably, Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ approval rating with likely voters was 68 percent, five points higher than Biden’s. CONTEMPLATING KAMALA: Public polls following the debate suggest Harris would be a stronger nominee than Biden, and focus groups with swing-state voters bear that out, according to anti-Trump Republican researcher SARAH LONGWELL. During an appearance on TNR’s podcast with GREG SARGENT, Longwell asserts that a Harris-led ticket would boost Democrats’ prospects in the “blue wall” states, especially with Pennsylvania Gov. JOSH SHAPIRO as her running mate. Voters, she said, “would look at a Kamala-Josh Shapiro ticket and see something exciting and young.” At the moment, Harris is also well positioned to go after Trump’s new running mate, Sen. J.D. VANCE, whose main political vulnerability sits right in the Veep’s policy sweet spot. “He’s fanatical on abortion,” Longwell said, referencing the Ohioan’s support for a national abortion ban. “Trump’s been pretty clear-eyed about what a liability abortion is for Republicans, so to go grab somebody who has turned into like a real zealot on abortion seems like a weird choice.” AND YET … the Veep’s first shot across the bow at Vance, a video message that dropped Wednesday morning hours ahead of the Ohio senator’s primetime speech at the Republican National Convention, was pretty … flat. “He supports a national abortion ban and voted against protecting IVF,” Harris said in the video, also noting that “unlike Mike Pence, Vance said he would have carried out Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 election.” But the rendition of talking points was rote and emotionless in tone, especially considering the primacy of the issues Harris said are at stake. The two will likely take the debate stage in coming weeks, as a campaign official today confirmed Harris has accepted a third proposed date — Aug. 12 — for a debate with Vance on CBS News. The alternate dates being considered are July 23 and Aug. 13, our EUGENE DANIELS reports. Although Trump’s campaign isn’t committing to anything just yet, citing the uncertainty around the Democratic ticket. “We don’t know who the Democrat nominee for vice president is going to be so we can’t lock in a date before their convention,” said BRIAN HUGHES, a senior Trump campaign adviser, in a statement. “To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate.” STAYING ON OFFENSE: About a mile and a half from Fiserv Forum, the site of this week’s convention, the Biden campaign held a press conference with Walz, Rep. VERONICA ESCOBAR (D-Texas) and AMANDA ZURAWSKI, a reproductive rights advocate who nearly died after being denied an abortion in Texas. The presser, focused on previewing what a Trump-Vance administration would mean for abortion access, was the first of what will be many months of the campaign tying Vance to extreme abortion policies. “He is the perfect Frankenstein monster created by the Heritage Foundation,” Walz said of the Ohio senator. Deputy campaign manager QUENTIN FULKS, who led the presser, scolded two reporters who pressed the governor over the virtual roll call and concerns many Democrats have over it: “Folks, Republicans yesterday and the day before have lied constantly to the American people. … And we’re focused on a process?”
| | PERSONNEL MOVES: NASA press secretary FAITH McKIE is starting a detail as deputy press secretary in the office of Vice President Harris. MEIRA BERNSTEIN is NASA’s acting press secretary in addition to her role as senior adviser for communications.
| | WHILE HE’S IN THE SILVER STATE: On the second day of his Nevada campaign swing, Biden outlined a new push to expand economic opportunities for Hispanics and Latinos. A new executive order aims to strengthen Hispanic Serving Institutions, or “HSIs.” The administration also announced that, starting in August, the noncitizen spouses and children of U.S. citizens who’ve been in the country for 10 years or more could apply for lawful permanent residence without leaving the country. The White House outlined those and other actions in this fact sheet.
| | America’s Political Leaders Are Living in Fear (The Atlantic’s McKay Coppins) Biden's rescue operation: Leap left to survive (Axios’ Alex Thompson and Andrew Solender) The Plot to Destroy Biden, According to His Biggest Fans (POLITICO’s Calder McHugh) Bernie Sanders Wants Joe Biden to Stay in the Race (New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner) They love Trump. They reject that Biden inspired the rally shooting. (WaPo’s Danielle Paquette)
| | | During JIMMY CARTER’s administration, he integrated Vice President WALTER MONDALE into the daily operations of the West Wing for the first time in presidential history, according to presidential scholar JOEL GOLDSTEIN. Carter met with Mondale privately each week, invited him to government meetings, gave him staff support and told White House aides to treat a request from Mondale the same as one from himself, NPR’s JOE HERNANDEZ writes. 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 Steve Shepard and Rishika Dugyala
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