Neera Tanden takes the wheel

Aug 09, 2022 View in browser   By Alex Thompson and Daniel Lippman 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   Inside the White House, NEERA TANDEN has taken a far more assertive role in determining what papers make it to the president's desk than her predecessor as staff secretary, according to several people familiar with the dynamic. That internal shift in the West Wing's paper flow has earned her both fans and detractors. Tanden's advocates say that she has necessarily tightened up the process and sharpened the material that makes it to the Oval Office. That sometimes requires sending back memos and rejecting certain materials. A popular staff secretary – the person who handles the material the president sees — is not necessarily a good staff secretary, they argue. Other current and former administration officials, however, see Tanden as a roadblock who is further slowing down an already lengthy decision-making process. "Oftentimes, we need to get a memo to the president very quickly — whether it's from [chief of staff] Ron [Klain's] direction or [deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed's] direction, and then it will sit there for 12 hours and sometimes it will miss the [president's] book that day," said one former administration official. The same person said they felt Tanden too often inserted her own policy and political opinions into a role that's meant to function as an honest broker who determines what's worthy of the president's attention — and what needs more polish first. Others across the administration have been surprised she continues to be a frequent tweeter after her past posts led her to withdraw her nomination to head the Office of Management and Budget. Some also note that there has been a good deal of turnover in the staff secretary's office since Tanden's arrival as many of the officials at the beginning of the administration have gone to other jobs within the executive branch. Tanden has annoyed people inside the West Wing mostly because of her success in asserting more control over the paper flow, according to two people familiar with the dynamic. Part of this is due to a perception inside the building that Tanden is on the same page as Klain, so appealing her decisions to a higher power is not usually fruitful, they said. "Ron must really love her because otherwise I can't figure it out," said one baffled administration official. Tanden's internal stature is also reflected in both her salary and title. She makes the maximum White House staff salary, $180,000, compared to $155,000 made by Biden's former staff secretary, JESSICA HERTZ. When Tanden negotiated her role in the fall of 2021, she also secured keeping her title as "senior adviser," according to one person familiar with the arrangement. But those dual titles have contributed to the friction as Tanden has inserted herself into debates common for senior advisers but not typical for staff secretaries. Indeed, none of the staff secretaries in the Obama or Trump administrations held a "senior adviser" title, according to the White House's annual staff disclosure forms from those years. (The 2011 disclosure is difficult to access online but RAJ DE, the staff secretary at the time, confirmed his title didn't include "senior adviser.") In a statement, press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE called Tanden "a friend" and told West Wing Playbook that she "is doing the job that she was asked to do by the President and doing it well, ensuring that he has the information he needs every day. I have seen firsthand the trust and faith the President has in her as a member of his senior team." Through a White House spokesperson, Tanden declined an interview. JOHN PODESTA, a former staff secretary for BILL CLINTON who is also close to Tanden, told West Wing Playbook he talked with her about the job when she took it but didn't know about the current internal dynamic. As for the job itself, he said it's set up in a way that naturally invites detractors. "Your duty to the president is to sharpen up decisions and there are people who chafe at that," he said. "Sounds to me, from what you're saying that people are unhappy about, it's kind of exactly what the staff secretary should be doing. You know, I had a lot of friends, and I made some enemies in the White House when I had that job." MESSAGE US — Are you confidential assistant SOPHIE MAHER? We want to hear from you! And we'll keep you anonymous if you'd like. 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 .   STAY UP TO DATE WITH CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's 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.     POTUS PUZZLER This one's from Allie. Which president's father wrote to Harvard University, describing his son as "careless and lacks application in those in which he is not interested?" (Answer at the bottom.) The Oval THE LOOSE COUGH: During a bill signing Tuesday morning, our SAM STEIN noted the president's persistent cough , following his recovery from Covid-19. The White House press office confirmed that Biden tested negative for coronavirus Monday and Tuesday morning. "What he's experiencing right now is the lingering effects of COVID," said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. But she added that Biden had used an inhaler to treat a pesky cough even before he got sick. SPEAKING OF THAT BILL SIGNING … Biden signed into law a bill authorizing $52 billion in subsidies for semiconductor production and funding for research. Advocates have framed it as a necessary investment in a domestic industry vital to competing against China in the 21st century, while some detractors call it an industry giveaway with too few strings attached. LAMAR JOHNSON wrote about the signing today. FLASHBACK: BOB DAVIS 's piece in POLITICO Magazine earlier this month — Did Biden Just Boost U.S. Tech — or Fund a Bunch of Solyndras? BRIEFING DUTY: ADAM CANCRYN, POLITICO's reporter at the White House briefing Tuesday, writes in about the session: At the very least, you gotta give 'em credit for the effort. White House reporters tried every conceivable way to get Jean-Pierre to weigh in on the FBI's surprise search of Mar-a-Lago. They pressed her on what the White House knew in advance (nothing), what it made of the political implications (not much) and even how exactly Biden found out (from the news, like everyone else). But Jean-Pierre wouldn't break, sticking to what she called a blanket no-comment policy on ongoing criminal investigations. Notably, that extended even to the yes-or-no question posed by Fox News' PETER DOOCY: Was the White House weaponizing the Justice Department against political opponents? "It's a yes-or-no for you," she said in a testy back-and-forth. "You may not like it, but I'm answering the question and I'm telling you we are not going to comment on a criminal investigation." WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This PAUL KRUGMAN NYT op-ed that touts the impact of the Democrats' health, climate and social spending package, the Inflation Reduction Act, which the Senate passed Sunday: "The act isn't, by itself, enough to avert climate disaster. But it is a huge step in the right direction and sets the stage for more action in the years ahead." White House chief of staff RON KLAIN tweeted out the piece which had the headline: "Did Democrats Just Save Civilization?" WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ: This story by AP's AAMER MADHANI recounting the past year after the president ended the U.S. war in Afghanistan , which the usually sober AP dubs a "disastrous drawdown." "As of last month, more than 74,000 Afghan applicants remained in the pipeline for special immigrant visas that help military interpreters and others who worked on government-funded contracts move to the United States and pave the way for them to receive a green card," Madhani writes. "More than 10,000 of that pool of applicants had received a critical chief of mission approval, according to State Department data." He adds that internal accounting of what went wrong has also been delayed. "Days after the unexpected fall of Kabul last year, national security adviser Jake Sullivan promised the White House would 'conduct an extensive hot wash' and 'look at every aspect' of the withdrawal from top to bottom," he writes. "But that effort has dragged on and is not expected to be completed before the Aug. 30 anniversary of Biden ending the war." VEEP ON THE MOVE: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS will travel Wednesday to Las Vegas, where she plans to speak at the annual convention of the United Steelworkers. She also will meet with Nevada state legislators to discuss reproductive rights, her office announced. THE BUREAUCRATS FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: GINA LEE is now senior adviser to the U.S. Ambassador to France, a person familiar with the matter told DANIEL LIPPMAN. She most recently was director of scheduling and advance for first lady JILL BIDEN. Also, DJ SIGWORTH is now director of scheduling and advance for the first lady. He most recently was director of COVID principal protection at the White House. Lippman — follow the guy here! — also has learned: — JESSICA VALLEJO has left the White House, where she was senior adviser for congressional engagement in the Office of Legislative Affairs. She is heading to Microsoft to handle congressional relations. — ERIKKA KNUTI is now comms director for the Office of Personnel Management. She most recently was director of strategic communications for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, and previously worked as a communications consultant at Purple Strategies and Ogilvy Public Relations. She's an alum of the offices of Sen. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.) and former Reps. JOE SESTAK (D-Pa.) and DAVID OBEY (D-Wis.). Agenda Setting COMING TO AN END: The Biden administration said it will begin phasing out a Trump-era program that forced asylum seekers to "Remain in Mexico" as they waited out their U.S. cases. The Department of Homeland Security announced the move late Monday, after a federal judge in Texas lifted his order preventing the administration from ending the program formally known as Migrant Protection Protocols. The decision follows a June 30 Supreme Court ruling that authorized the government to formally unwind MPP. ADDITIONAL AID: The administration announced on Tuesday that it will provide $89 million to help Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, clear land mines now scattered around the country as a result of Russia's invasion, our LARA SELIGMAN reports. The money will go toward funding 100 de-mining teams in the next year.   INTRODUCING POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don't miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY .     What We're Reading Ford's New F-150 Lightning Truck to Get Price Hike (WSJ's Nora Eckert) Biden rule would give organic chickens access to outdoors (Reuters' Leah Douglas) POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER JOHN F. KENNEDY's father, JOSEPH, wrote in a letter to Harvard's dean that his son "has a very brilliant mind for the things in which he is interested, but is careless and lacks application in those in which he is not interested. This is, of course, a bad fault." Kennedy got in anyway. A CALL OUT — Do you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents with a citation and we may feature it. Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.   Follow us on Twitter Alex Thompson @AlexThomp Maxwell Tani @maxwelltani Allie Bice @alliebice   Follow us

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