Taking his talents to Cleveland

Sep 25, 2024

By Ben Johansen, Eli Stokols and Lauren Egan

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A mid-30s White House staffer leaving for the private sector is the opposite of news.

But it’s ADRIAN CULEA’s next job that makes this story unique.

After overseeing travel for JOE BIDEN’s 2020 campaign, Culea ended up as the director of the White House travel office for two years until January 2023, when he moved to the Department of Energy’s intergovernmental affairs office. And then, just last month, Culea packed up to become a special assistant to new Cleveland Cavaliers head coach KENNY ATKINSON.

“Basketball has been my first love since I was a kid,” Culea told West Wing Playbook in an interview.

Culea will now have the glorious responsibility of ~~grabbing~~ ~~DONOVAN MITCHELL~~~~’s water~~ helping with practices and drills. “I might be operating the shot clock one day, might be grabbing rebounds, might be a decoy defender,” Culea said. “It’s all a little similar to working on a campaign, right? No task is too small. It’s functionally like a chief of staff type role for the coaching staff.”

This isn’t Culea’s first stint in the basketball world. (No, we’re not talking about the mini-hoop he had in his office at the White House. Or the pickup basketball league he started with White House colleagues called “Ball Back Better.”) After interning on HILLARY CLINTON’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential bid, as well as for a number of smaller campaigns, Culea took an internship with the Brooklyn Nets just a year after the team moved out of Jersey. Because clearly he was sick of BILLY KING and his decision to torpedo their future for an aging, 36-year-old PAUL PIERCE, Culea left Brooklyn after almost two years and started working for the NBA league office.

Ever been unreasonably angry at a referee’s call, only for them to send it to Secaucus to review it and conclude that it was, in fact, the right call? Well, that zooming in — changing angles and slow-motion that the refs see on the in-arena monitor — was Culea. “The game would go to review, refs would put their headsets on. And then you’d get a shot of the replay center, and a lot of times I’d see myself on TV,” Culea recalled of those glory days.

He bounced around in the league for five years, having the role of “phantom technician” for three seasons. For speciality shots of plays, the NBA used a slow-motion camera for various purposes, such as ESPN or Gatorade commercials, as well as social media. And it was Culea’s job to make sure the camera got to whatever city the game was in, in one piece, and coordinate with the cameraman pre-game. “Let’s say LeBron or whoever had a big dunk, I would rip them the camera and then package it for social media and send it to NBA headquarters.”

We were curious: What skills will Culea take from the White House to the Cavaliers?

“Needing to be resourceful. Needing to think outside the box,” Culea said.

That might be understating it. The travel office, during the beginning of the Biden administration, was woefully understaffed. Culea was the only staffer in the office for the first eight months amid the Covid pandemic, until he eventually got a deputy, and was doing a job that had typically gone to someone with decades of experience booking and billing travel.

Although Culea — and to a greater extent his boss, RYAN MONTOYA — frequently drew the ire of news organizations upset about various travel snafus, he maintained an upbeat attitude, according to several officials and journalists who recalled working with him. At the end of Biden’s first trip abroad in the summer of 2021, which required a full press charter and daily Covid tests, Culea thanked travelers by reciting a haiku over the aircraft intercom when the charter plane landed back at Dulles (it became his signature move; Culea repeated it on later trips).

“It’s that type of mentality, right? That adaptability, being resourceful and getting things done however they need to get done,” he said.

If some were puzzled over how he came to run the travel office, the answer may have a lot to do with an innate eagerness and willingness to do, well, anything.

From the week KAMALA HARRIS was tapped as Biden’s running mate, up until the eve of his inauguration, Culea became one of the “few people trusted” to go to Biden’s house in Wilmington, he told us. He began driving the then-candidate Biden and JILL BIDEN to various fundraisers during the transition period, which certainly came with its perks. “There were times where I would be staking out at the house, waiting for an event that kept getting pushed … I remember Dr. Biden came out and gave me water and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, because she knows I like peanut butter cups.”

Hear that, Atkinson?

Culea reconnected with the now-Cavaliers head coach at the White House in early 2023, when Biden honored the Golden State Warriors for the team’s 2022 title, approaching Atkinson, who was associate head coach under STEVE KERR, after the ceremony in the East Room. “I was like, ‘Hey, I don't know if you remember me, but I was basically a ball boy,’” Culea recalled of their overlap from when Atkinson was coach of the Nets. (In 2018, he rejoined the team before moving to the Biden campaign.)

With the season beginning in just under a month, Culea is looking to make the coaching staff’s job as easy as possible, comparing it to his work in the White House or on the campaign. “If I could make their jobs 5 to 10 percent easier and take something off their plate, that has real ramifications for the game plan and what we see on the court.”

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POTUS PUZZLER

Which president established the tradition of planting “commemorative trees” on the White House grounds?

(Answer at bottom.)

CAMPAIGN HQ

HARRIS’ BIG ECON SPEECH: Vice President Harris delivered a speech to The Economic Club of Pittsburgh on Wednesday afternoon, pitching herself as a pragmatic leader who will focus on growing the middle class while DONALD TRUMP, she argued, “is only interested in making life better for himself and people like himself.”

Harris, who laid out a plan to incentivize manufacturing across several sectors, also tried to counter Trump’s claim that she is too far left and appeal to more moderate voters that might be uneasy supporting the former president. “I am a capitalist,” she stated plainly. She acknowledged the “limitations of government” and said she believes that most businesses are trying to do “the right thing” — though she’d still hold to account those who don’t play by the rules. (Spotted in the audience: MARK CUBAN.)

SAFE SPACE: After her live Q&A with OPRAH WINFREY last week, Harris sat for an interview in Pittsburgh on Wednesday with MSNBC anchor STEPHANIE RUHLE that will air on the network tonight at 7 p.m.

Ruhle is a credible journalist with a background in banking and financial news that makes her an understandable choice for a candidate eager to fill in the details of her economic plans. But we must also note that Ruhle, just days ago during an appearance on "Real Time with Bill Maher," effectively endorsed Harris in a viral exchange dressing down the anti-Trump NYT columnist BRET STEPHENS over his inability to vote for the Democratic nominee.

Maybe this is an effort to troll Trump, who blasted Ruhle over that exchange. But given that MSNBC moms aren’t exactly the swing voters Harris needs to reach, we’ll be watching the interview … and wondering if and when Harris will sit for another national interview with a more impartial journalist.

GOING FOR THE GAMER VOTE: In an effort to chip away at Trump’s lead with young male voters, the Harris campaign bought advertising space on IGN, the world’s biggest games media outlet, the WaPo’s GENE PARK reports.

Park writes that IGN “is the most influential news site in the gaming world, boasting about 250 million monthly users worldwide” and the ads “highlight a tussle — played out across streaming, social and gaming platforms — over a potentially decisive slice of young male voters.”

LEANING INTO ‘COACH’: Minnesota Gov. TIM WALZ will head to Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Saturday to attend a football game at The Big House between 12th-ranked Michigan and Minnesota, WaPo’s DYLAN WELLS reports. During the trip, Walz will also meet with students to discuss the importance of registering to vote and the power of their participation.

The Walz family had already planned to attend the game — the teams compete for a trophy known as the Little Brown Jug — before he became the VP nominee, as part of several celebrations of the governor’s 60th birthday earlier this year. Trump, meanwhile, is expected to be in Tuscaloosa on Saturday for No. 4 Alabama’s game against second-ranked Georgia.

USSS, GET IT TOGETHER: The U.S. Secret Service is investigating one of its agents after he was accused of sexually assaulting a female staffer who works for Vice President Harris, Real Clear Politics’ SUSAN CRABTREE reports. The incident occurred last week during an advance trip to Wisconsin for a campaign event that ultimately did not take place.

“The special agent in question and several Harris staffers were dining and drinking alcohol at a local restaurant after wrapping up work for the day. The group went back to the Harris staffer’s hotel room when the Secret Service agent in question allegedly forced himself on the woman staffer, groping her in the process — actions that were apparently witnessed by other people present,” Crabtree writes. “One source in the Secret Service community said the accused agent was so inebriated that he was kicked out of his hotel room by co-workers and passed out in the hallway, where photos were taken of him.”

The Oval

LIVE FROM NEW YORK: President Biden appeared on “The View” Wednesday morning, where he warned that “all-out war is possible” in the Middle East, acknowledging the limits of his own persistent diplomatic efforts to reach a cease-fire deal, Eli reports. “I’m using every bit of energy with my team” to get a cease-fire, he said. “But I think there’s also the opportunity, still in play, to have a settlement that could fundamentally change the whole region.”

The otherwise lighthearted and friendly interview with the show’s six hosts focused largely on what he hopes to be his legacy, as well as why he decided to end his campaign. Biden downplayed the intra-party opposition to him staying in the race, suggesting he made the decision on his own accord, not based on NANCY PELOSI’s pressure campaign.

“I never fully believed the assertions that somehow there was this overwhelming reluctance to my running again,” Biden said.

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THE BUREAUCRATS

PATTIE’S PAYS A POLITICAL PRICE: Things are not going well for Political Pattie’s, the new U Street sports bar that mysteriously scrubbed the word “Political” off its facade just a few days after opening. Apparently its neighbors were so offended by what they felt like was an imbalance of red versus blue lettering and decor (implying that Political Pattie’s was … a Republican?) that the bar was forced to issue a statement on its Instagram account Tuesday night.

“Soon after our logo was painted on our building’s facade, we realized that the representation of the red elephant was hurtful to the community. And out of respect, we decided to change the logo, removing both the donkey and the elephant. The word ‘Political’ was also temporarily removed. We plan to replace the word in larger blue print to balance out the red doors,” ANDREW BENBOW and SYDNEY BRADFORD, who opened the bar on Friday, wrote in the Insta post.

Benbow and Bradford have faced significant online backlash since they announced the concept for the bar, which took over space from popular gay bar Dirty Goose. And a quick scroll through the replies on their Instagram post suggest that the outrage isn’t going away anytime soon.

“That a Dem & GOP unity environment is what would attract people ... in blue ass D.C. ... on the fresh grave of a queer space ... is a bad idea,” one user commented. Another wrote: “It’s not just about the elephant … it’s the fact that in a row of LGBTQ+ bars and restaurants, YOU are openly catering to Republican patrons, some of whom don’t believe queer individuals have the right to exist freely and embrace their true identity.”

BEEFING UP THE KEYSTONE STATE: The Harris campaign has hired PAULETTE ANISKOFF to lead get-out-the-vote and voter contact efforts in Pennsylvania, NBC’s YAMICHE ALCINDOR reports.

MORE PERSONNEL MOVES: THILEE YOST is now briefing manager for the Harris campaign, our DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. She most recently was deputy director of strategy and operations at the White House.

— KEVIN HERMS is now chief of the OMB Privacy Branch and chair of the Federal Privacy Council. He most recently was chief privacy officer and director of the Student Privacy Policy Office at the Department of Education.

— ALEJANDRO ALEMAN is now staff director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy at the White House. He most recently was director of Latin American and Caribbean affairs at the Department of Homeland Security.

— EMILY BENSON is now policy adviser for the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection at the National Security Council. She most recently was a foreign affairs officer in the Office of Migration Affairs in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department.

— ALIYAH N. JOHNSON has been promoted to senior adviser for public engagement at the White House. She previously served as an adviser in the same office and associate director for employee engagement and leadership development.

COMING SOON: NEW DEM DONOR RETREAT SPOT: Celebrity chef and activist JOSÉ ANDRÉS announced today that he will open a luxury hotel called “The Bazaar House by José Andrés” in Georgetown in 2027, Washingtonian’s JESSICA SIDMAN reports. The hotel will include a “signature restaurant with views of Georgetown.”

Agenda Setting

EXPECT ANOTHER ESCALATION: The Israeli military is preparing for a potential ground incursion into Lebanon, CNN’s LAUREN IZSO and MOHAMMED TAWFEEQ report. “You hear the jets overhead; we have been striking all day,” Lt. Gen. HERZI HALEVI, chief of the general staff, told troops while visiting the northern border, according to a military press release. “This is both to prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”

It’s the second time Wednesday that a top Israeli general said that a ground operation may be imminent. Israel’s top general in the north, Maj. Gen. ORI GORDIN, said that the military “must be fully prepared for maneuvers.”

PLAYING IT SAFE: Senior Pentagon officials have recommended that the U.S. provide Ukraine with white phosphorus munitions, but the White House has rejected the idea multiple times, NBC’s COURTNEY KUBE reports.

White phosphorus munitions are not illegal nor are they classified as a chemical weapon, but they can cause deadly burns and harm lungs and eyes. Although the Pentagon recommended the munitions be given to Ukraine to help produce light and smoke on the battlefield, Kube reports that the “stigma around white phosphorus and concerns that it could affect civilians has kept Biden administration officials from approving the recommendation.”

BUT HOW WILL JACOB SPREYER GET TO WORK? D.C. staffers were aghast when they received a push notification from Lyft on Wednesday afternoon informing them that their popular scooters will no longer be available starting Oct. 1. Capital Bikeshare, it is!

What We're Reading

His Father Is Leaving Office. Is Hunter Biden’s Art Market Also Over? (NYT’s Graham Bowley, Mattathias Schwartz and Zachary Small)

The War That Would Not End (The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer)

An EV plant bolstered by Biden’s climate law sparks hope in Northeast Ohio – but not a revival of its Democratic roots (CNN’s Phil Mattingly, Andrew Seger and Jeremy Moorhead)

Secret Trusts, a Bitter Divorce and the Battle Over One of America’s Biggest Homes (WSJ’s Candace Taylor)

Threatened with jail over a scandal headlined by Brett Favre (ESPN’s Mark Fainaru-Wada)

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

President RUTHERFORD B. HAYES started the tradition of planting a commemorative tree in the 1870s, according to the White House Historical Association.

“More than three dozen special commemorative trees, in addition to a great variety of other trees, cover the grounds surrounding President’s Park. Among the trees that present vivid fall colors at the White House include White Oaks planted during the administrations of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, a Sugar Maple planted by President Ronald Reagan, and a Scarlet Oak planted during the administration of Benjamin Harrison,” according to the WHHA.

The National Park Service also has a map of which types of trees presidents planted and where they are on the grounds.

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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