| | | | |  | | By Alex Thompson and Max Tani | Presented by Walmart | 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 Last week, our own ALEX THOMPSON traveled out west, as one does during a sweltering heat wave. While there, he caught the premier of the new Breitbart-produced flick, "My Son Hunter." It's a film that has been widely hyped by conservative media and politicians — including former president DONALD TRUMP — who see it not so much as entertainment but as a means of injecting the HUNTER BIDEN story into the broader cultural bloodstream. The scene was revealing both about where the MAGA id currently is, and the political wars around Hunter that are likely to come. Here's part of Alex's dispatch which you can read in full here : "My Son Hunter" is not your prototypical Hollywood movie — and it did not get a typical Hollywood premiere. The new film produced by the conservative media empire Breitbart and released today had its first public viewing last Wednesday night at a small screening room inside a nondescript office building on South Sepulveda, Los Angeles. It was miles away from Tinseltown's red carpets, literally and figuratively. In place of cocktails and expensive hors d'oeuvres were bottled water and pre-bagged "Corn Pop," a wink at a story JOE BIDEN has often told about this youth in Delaware intermingling with the city's Black population. "Corn Pop" was a real person but sometimes, the president recounts it in ways that have drawn mockery. The screening was followed by a trivia game about the film where the prizes for the 70 or so guests included a hefty-sized bong and parmesan cheese. Both are references to Hunter Biden's drug abuse, including his frank admission that he was so addicted to crack cocaine that he tried smoking everyone's favorite spaghetti topping. A representative promoting the film said beforehand that Oscar winner JON VOIGHT was set to attend, but he did not make it. The highest profile actors were DEAN CAIN , best known for playing Superman in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and NICK SEARCY. Consider it the MAGA set for the movie industry. Searcy is a star of the show Justified who also recently produced a documentary on January 6 called "Capitol Punishment." Cain has played former FBI agent PETER STRZOK in a stage play called "Lovebirds" that was produced by one of the people behind "My Son Hunter," PHELIM McALEER . While the scene may not have been as glamorous as across town, it is part of a growing effort among some conservative groups to find a firmer footprint in the film industry as a counterculture to what they see as Hollywood's liberal agenda. Alex goes on…. It all may seem like fodder for the conservative media ecosystem. But it's been serious enough to catch the attention of Hunter Biden's associates. On Oct. 31, 2021, three Hollywood producers including KEVIN MORRIS — a lawyer for and close confidante of the younger Biden — traveled to Serbia and obtained extensive access to the set. They did so by claiming to be working on a Hunter documentary. "Stylistically, it would be great to do these interviews informally on set during gaps in production," ROBB BINDLER, a documentary filmmaker, wrote to McAleer in an email shared with POLITICO…. At the time, Morris did not identify himself as a lawyer or confidante of Hunter Biden. And his presence on the set wasn't reported until this past spring when his association with the president's son became public. It's possible that the Hunter-allied filmmakers are indeed planning to use the footage from the set of "My Son Hunter" for a documentary. The New York Times reported in May that Morris is funding a "documentary project" surrounding Hunter Biden. Morris and Bindler declined to comment. McAleer, for his part, didn't try to downplay the episode. He told POLITICO that the filmmakers stayed for several days and "never left the set and had the camera constantly running." In short: they got what they wanted. Click here to read the full piece. MESSAGE US — Are you JON VOIGHT? We want to hear from you and we may publish your response tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.
| | | | A message from Walmart: Walmart launches Spark Driver, bringing speed & efficiency to delivery. Walmart's Spark Driver platform uses thousands of drivers to deliver nearly three-quarters of delivery orders for the company. The platform is Walmart's largest delivery service - reaching 84% of U.S. households. Drivers also fulfill orders for Walmart GoLocal, the company's white label deliver-as-a-service business, enabling small & medium sized businesses to reach their customers with affordable delivery. Learn more. | | | | | | With the White House Historical Association Which president vacationed in a spot in the Florida Keys he referred to as "The Little White House?" (Answer at the bottom.)
| | | VROOM VROOM: The president is set to attend the Detroit Auto Show on Sept. 14 to "highlight the electric vehicle manufacturing boom in America," according to the White House. On Friday, Biden called himself a "car guy" and said he was planning to attend, The Detroit News' MELISSA NANN BURKE and RILEY BEGGIN note. KJP Vs. DJT: During Tuesday's briefing, press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE forcefully defended herself when pressed about comments she once made calling the 2016 election "stolen." Asked by Fox News' PETER DOOCY to compare her comments to Trump's 2020 election denialism, the press secretary dismissed it as "ridiculous." She argued she was talking about voter access, while Trump did little to discourage a violent mob from attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This NBC News piece by MIKE MEMOLI that contends Biden has "visited more battleground congressional districts than you might have guessed," given his low approval ratings. Memoli writes: "Of 36 incumbent House Democrats running in districts rated as competitive by the Cook Political Report, Biden has held official events with 20 either in, or near their home districts since taking office, according to a review of Biden's schedule by NBC News." Deputy communications director KATE BERNER retweeted the story. He notes, however: "Many of those events took place well before the midterm election campaign had kicked into gear, and Biden's poll numbers took the plunge he's only recently begun to reverse." WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece in POLITICO Pro by BEN LEFEBVRE and CATHERINE MOREHOUSE about Biden's new headache: natural gas. "Gas' domestic price has more than doubled in the past year, driven by factors such as climate change, a dip in output during the pandemic, tight spending by industry, Russia's war in Ukraine and a surge in U.S. exports to energy-starved Europe. The spike is adding to the inflation that has soured voters' moods this year — and it's expected to pose an increasing challenge for millions of households as the midterm elections approach."
| | | | HAPPENING 9/29 - POLITICO'S AI & TECH SUMMIT : Technology is constantly evolving and so are the politics and policies shaping and regulating it. Join POLITICO for the 2022 AI & Tech summit to get an insider look at the pressing policy and political issues shaping tech, and how Washington interacts with the tech sector. The summit will bring together lawmakers, federal regulators, tech executives, tech policy experts and consumer advocates to dig into the intersection of tech, politics, regulation and innovation, and identify opportunities, risks and challenges ahead. REGISTER FOR THE SUMMIT HERE. | | | | | | | | SUCCESSION SEASON 4: VEDANT PATEL , recently an assistant press secretary in the White House, did his first in-person daily press briefing at the State Department Tuesday (topics included a mix of Ukraine, Iran nuclear deal, and the new U.K. prime minister). He is scheduled to conduct another tomorrow, an administration official told West Wing Playbook. State's spokesman NED PRICE has been doing the job since the beginning of the administration but Patel is getting some early reps in. SEAN SAVETT , a National Security Council spokesperson, also gave Patel a shout out on Twitter.
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Tweet by Sean Savett | Twitter | GINA PROFILE: Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO got herself a deep-dive (and mostly flattering) profile in the Wall Street Journal Tuesday. It includes nuggets about her bipartisan advocacy of the CHIPS Act and how she has elbowed her way into claiming some turf that usually belongs to the U.S. Trade Representative. It also details her ongoing disputes with Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-Mass.) and the delays on revising federal rules on TikTok. The administration was clearly pleased, as representatives for Raimondo blasted the piece out to reporters on Tuesday. One fun detail in the piece: "She is seen as popular with Mr. Biden and attends Mass weekly at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown, sometimes alongside the president and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) with whom she claims a bond as 'small Italian women in public service.'" It was a big day for Raimondo, who also appeared in Tuesday's White House press briefing. PERSONNEL MOVES: MILLICENT HENNESSEY has departed the White House to be a senior manager of public policy at Samsung Semiconductor, Inc., DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. She spent five years on the National Security Council, where she focused primarily on China issues and women's economic empowerment. ALYSSA GIAMERELLA left her role as the White House's associate director of scheduling on Sept. 1. She is headed to Seattle, where she'll work as the interim executive business administrator of scheduling at Pivotal Ventures. SCIENCE OFFICE CHANGES: ELLEN QUALLS, the chief communications officer for the White House science office, marked her last day Friday and is returning to communications consulting. Her replacement is AMY ALEXANDER, a former journalist who most recently served as a senior strategic communicator at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The office's new speechwriter is LISA ZAGAROLI, also a former journalist and most recently spent 13 years working for the Federal Aviation Administration.
| | | | A message from Walmart:   | | | | | | BETTING ON THE VACCINE: Although more than 352,600 people have gotten the vaccine to combat monkeypox, our KRISTA MAHR points out that the vaccine, which was designed to prevent smallpox, has not yet undergone trials to assess how it fights against the virus in humans. While studies have shown it fights against monkeypox in animals, much less is known about how it works in humans. The Biden administration is betting on its use to stop the monkeypox from turning into an endemic. Yet, "if the vaccine comes up short, Americans will have another disease to live with, and health officials will almost certainly further damage confidence in public health," Mahr writes.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO 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. | | | | | | | | Biden Administration Has Admitted One Million Migrants to Await Hearings (NYT's Eileen Sullivan) Lack of US Workers Is 'Bigger Threat' Than Inflation, Labor Secretary Walsh Says (Bloomberg's Akayla Gardner) US: Russia to buy rockets, artillery shells from North Korea (AP's Aamer Madhani)
| | | President HARRY S. TRUMAN escaped to "The Little White House," the Key West Naval Station in Florida, a total of 11 times throughout his presidency. 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.
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