What The White House Wants You To Read

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Mar 23, 2022 View in browser   By Alex Thompson and Max Tani Presented by Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice.  Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max When JOE BIDEN ran for president, his campaign team complained to anyone who would listen about what they perceived to be unfair coverage in The New York Times. But these days, the president and his team are striking a different tone about America's most prominent newspaper. That's largely thanks to the work of one reporter. Over the past month, the White House's press shop has repeatedly promoted stories from The New York Times' fact-checker, LINDA QIU. Biden cited a Qiu piece himself earlier this month when he addressed House Democrats in Philadelphia. "Headline fact checker in the New York Times: "Republicans Wrongly Blame Biden for Rising Gas Prices," he said, reading the headline of the piece. "And it goes on to explain why gas prices are so high." Many members of the president's press team have also become Qiu content boosters in recent weeks. On March 10, deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES tweeted out the same Qiu fact check on why "Republicans Wrongly Blame Biden for Rising Gas Prices," adding a touch of his own commentary. "The only way to be straight with readers is to include this context," Bates noted. Press secretary JEN PSAKI shared the same piece, noting "FACT CHECK on GOP."  On Monday, Bates shared another story by Qiu. "@nytimes Fact Check: 'Attacks on Judge Jackson's Record on Child Sexual Abuse Cases Are Misleading' Hawley and Blackburn 'have taken the judge's remarks and sentencing decisions out of context, distorting her record,'" he tweeted. Fact-checkers are tools of extreme convenience for politicians and their teams—there to boost when they affirm your case and ignore into mere non-existence when they cut you down. Not all of Qiu's fact checks have been heralded by the White House. "Biden's Inaccurate Claims in Defending Afghanistan Withdrawal," went one headline from last August with the subheadline: "The president made misleading or false claims about the reaction of allies to the withdrawal, the presence of Al Qaeda and conditions for Americans traveling to the Kabul airport." But there have been recent ones that have boosted the administration and pushed back against misleading or murky stories. "Theory About U.S.-Funded Bioweapons Labs in Ukraine Is Unfounded," went one. "Explaining the Claim That the Biden Administration Is Funding 'Crack Pipes,'" went another. The New York Times did not respond to a request for comment. Qiu, who joined the Times in 2017 after working at PolitiFact, is part of a new generation of journalists specializing in fact-checking—a journalism sub-genre that other reporters bemoan because it at times presumes that they aren't actually checking facts in their own copy. In response to the explosion of false information online and former President DONALD TRUMP's habit of not telling the truth ( "truthful hyperbole," he once called it), numerous major news organizations beefed up on fact-checkers. The Washington Post even maintained an "untruth tracker for the ages" that reported Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims as president. CNN's DANIEL DALE became a household name among liberal political junkies with his fact checks of the past president and accumulated 1.2 million Twitter followers in the process. But many prominent fact checkers employed by the major outlets have also been heavily criticized—especially among conservatives—for how they select the topics they check. And it has lost steam during the Biden presidency. Biden does not exaggerate or mislead as often as Trump did, but the appetite and audience for Biden fact checks also seems to have abated. As a result, outlets aren't fact-checking Biden as aggressively as they did Trump. Dale largely has kept his fact-checking focus on Republicans, with his latest Biden fact-check story for CNN's online publication coming in January. The Washington Post, which still publishes fact checks, only kept a running tally for Biden's first 100 days, finding 78 false or misleading statements (511 such statements in Trump's first 100 days). "Here's the Biden database -- which we do not plan to extend beyond 100 days," The Post's GLENN KESSLER tweeted at the time. "I have learned my lesson." TEXT US — Are you KRISTEN ALLEN, the new press secretary in KAMALA HARRIS' office? We want to hear from you (we'll keep you anonymous).  Or if you think we missed something in today's edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow.  Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal/Wickr/WhatsApp Alex at 8183240098 or Max at 7143455427. A message from Facebook: We're making investments in safety and security—and seeing results Facebook has invested $13 billion over the last 5 years to help keep you safe. Over the last several months, we've taken action on: •62 million pieces of explicit adult content •51.7 million pieces of violent and graphic content See how we're working to help you connect safely.   POTUS PUZZLER It's reader-submitted trivia Wednesday! Thanks to ANDREW FEINBERG for this one. Which president once wrote he didn't remember having the job and even considered it to be a second-rate achievement? The Oval EXIT INTERVIEW — Bloomberg's JENNIFER EPSTEIN has covered Biden since his time as vice president, and was one of the reporters who followed him from the first days of his campaign through his first year in the White House. Sunday is her last day on the beat. West Wing Playbook asked her to reflect on her time covering Biden. We've included some of the abbreviated responses below. On what people don't always understand about how Biden makes decisions: "He's had the same inner circle and many of the same people have been a part of his team in one way or another for a long time. He's known them and trusted them for years, and that's something that's really important to him…He can bring in new people but they're people who come from his broader network and that's very much how his dynamic works. And that's why you sometimes hear frustration from Democrats who are not in the broader circle around the president, but that's really key to how he functions. Starting out with being a young politician in a small state where everybody knows everyone else, he's ramped that up all the way to the presidency." On the Biden team's aversion to people publicly campaigning for roles or policies within the administration:  "The Biden staff attitude is a very low profile, low drama, not particularly high on self promotion... That's not who these people are, and they kind of take that lead from Biden and the way Biden operated when he was senator. Choosing to go home and spend time with his family instead of showing up at Georgetown salons. And that's sort of the dynamic overall. In the first year, you saw very few staff profiles. There's certainly self promotion, but it's much more around the work than promoting their own individual brand. It's a different way of operating, and it comes from a lot of people who are close to the president who have a real distaste for showiness and leaks." On the challenges of covering this particular White House: "In general you've seen a lot less unauthorized leaks about internal drama or palace intrigue. One factor in that was the pandemic. In the West Wing, they're pretty much in the office daily, but even people in EEOB and other parts of the administration were almost entirely remote for the first year, if not until now. And I think that changes the dynamic of how factions build and how gossip moves within the administration, and that's created challenges for reporters to get to know people and there hasn't been as much travel. Even just scheduling coffee in D.C. has been tricky at certain times. All of that has fed into some of those relationships not developing and that creating a situation where it can be a little tougher to get a real understanding of what is going on in the administration." TIGHT CIRCLE: As Epstein notes, Biden keeps a tight circle. That was also seen today in Europe. Among the people greeting Biden at the Brussels airport, EU ambassador MARK GITENSTEIN (been with Biden since the 1980's), NATO ambassador JULIE SMITH (Biden's deputy national security adviser as vice president) and Belgium ambassador MICHAEL ADLER (Biden's 2008 campaign finance chair). h/t the Journal's KEN THOMAS.  WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ, Part II: Anything about the UK's inflation rate. Really. Earlier on Wednesday, Bloomberg's JOE WEISENTHAL noted that UK inflation hit a 30-year high due to rapidly rising global prices for energy, food, and household goods. The National Economic Council's JESSE LEE was quick to tout the number, pointing out that while the Biden administration was taking steps to curb inflation, "it really is a global problem stemming from a global pandemic and global supply chains." At least we're not alone! WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ: LARRY SUMMERS ' tweets. Yes, again. "No matter how many times Administration officials suggest otherwise it is an economic falsehood to assert that big profit increases following a collision between rising demand & inelastic supply constitute evidence of profiteering or excessive market power," the former Treasury Secretary and NEC director wrote, linking to this New York Times story with the headline "With Inflation Surging, Biden Targets Ocean Shipping." Summers continued: "If the Administration were serious about competition in shipping it would suspend the Jones Act." If you're a policy nerd with a POLITICO Pro subscription, here's some more details on the Jones Act from the excellent ALEX DAUGHERTY (follow him here! ). "It would be fair to say that support for significantly altering or scrapping the Jones Act has little support in Congress," Daughtery tells us.   JOIN THURSDAY FOR A CONVERSATION ON CRYPTOCURRENCY AND REGULATION:  Cryptocurrency has gone mainstream. With the market now valued at $1.8 trillion, Washington's oversight of the fast-growing industry remains in its infancy. How should Congress and federal agencies shape future regulation of digital asset markets? Join POLITICO in person or virtually for a deep-dive discussion on what's next for crypto, regulation and the future of finance. Programming will run from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. EDT with a reception from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. EDT. REGISTER HERE.     Agenda Setting ANOTHER BOOSTER RECOMMENDATION OTW — The Biden administration is considering authorizing a fourth Covid-19 booster shot for the older Americans within weeks, our ADAM CANCRYN and ERIN BANCO report. The recommendation would allow those 65 years or older to receive a fourth vaccine dose, in an effort to get ahead of a potential wave of cases with the spread of the Omicron subvariant, BA.2. MAKING IT OFFICIAL — Although Biden called Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN a "war criminal" last week, the administration formalized it today and accused members of Russia's armed forces of committing war crimes in Ukraine, our NAHAL TOOSI and QUINT FORGEY write. Though the impact of the administration's statement is unclear, Nahal and Quint note that it could dampen the morale of the Russians fighting in the war. TACKLING THE CRISIS — Our own LAURA BARRÓN LÓPEZ  has the scoop on Biden's plans to address the refugee crisis developing in the midst of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Read all about it here. THE BUREAUCRATS NOMINEE WOES — Biden came into office with a more skeptical eye of corporations and major financial institutions, hoping to implement strong antitrust policies and clamp down on badly behaving banks. But POLITICO's VICTORIA GUIDA wrote about how the president continues to struggle to get his banking nominations through a divided Senate. Guida notes that more than a year into Biden's first term, none of the government's major bank regulators have been Senate confirmed, frustrating progressives who hoped to make it tougher for banks to merge and want the Biden administration to press financial institutions to prepare for climate change. VEGETABLES UNLEASHED — In an announcement on Wednesday, the White House said that Biden had appointed celebrity chef JOSÉ ANDRÉS to co-chair the president's Council on Sports, Fitness, & Nutrition, the Commission of Fine Arts, and the President's Committee on the National Medal of Science. The famous Spanish chef, known for both his philanthropy and cooking, has been preparing meals in Poland and Ukraine in recent weeks for refugees fleeing the Russian invasion. As part of the appointment, the administration also told Dr. MEHMET OZ,  who is currently running for the Republican Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, that he needed to step down from the council. Oz had been appointed by then President DONALD TRUMP to two terms. But, like others who serve, it was at the whim of the sitting president.     What We're Reading Buttigieg opens applications for money to build large infrastructure projects (WaPo's Ian Duncan) Ukrainian President Asked Biden Not to Sanction Abramovich, to Facilitate Peace Talks (WSJ's Vivian Salama, Justin Scheck and Max Colchester) Biden got a live performance from the Washington Ballet (Maki Onuki's Instagram) Where's Joe Biden traveled to Brussels, where he arrived around 3:50 p.m. Aides traveling with the president abroad include Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN, deputy chief of staff JEN O'MALLEY DILLON, National Security Adviser JAKE SULLIVAN , senior adviser to the president MIKE DONILON, director of communications KATE BEDINGFIELD, director of Oval Office operations ANNIE TOMASINI and principal deputy press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, among others. The president met with Belgium Prime Minister ALEXANDER DE CROO. Where's Kamala Harris delivered remarks on home valuations with House and Urban Development Secretary MARCIA FUDGE and domestic policy adviser SUSAN RICE.   DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.     The Oppo Book SONIA AGGARWAL, Biden's senior adviser for climate policy and innovation, started thinking about climate change and the environment as a kid. "At home we had a field in our yard that was full of wild plants, and I used to go outside and collect them and do little projects with them," she told Ideastream last week. "Sort of by accident I started noticing that there were fewer and fewer milkweeds out there, and I was seeing fewer butterflies, and that just really got me curious." Sonia, our butterflies are grateful for your service. POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT. After serving as president, he became Chief Justice of the United States and he wrote that the appointment was his "greatest honor," according to The White House website. He wrote: "I don't remember that I ever was President." A CALL OUT — Thanks again to Andrew for that question. Think you have a more difficult one? Send us your best question on the presidents with a citation and we may feature it. Edited by Sam Stein A message from Facebook: We're making investments in safety and security—and seeing results Facebook has invested $13 billion over the last 5 years to help keep you safe. Over the last several months, we've taken action on: •62 million pieces of explicit adult content •51.7 million pieces of violent and graphic content See how we're working to help you connect safely.     Follow us on Twitter Alex Thompson @AlexThomp Maxwell Tani @maxwelltani Allie Bice @alliebice   Follow us

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