The Harris thing, again

Presented by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living: The power players, latest policy developments, and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing.

Jan 30, 2023 View in browser   By Eli Stokols and Lauren Egan Presented by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living 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 Eli | Email Lauren No one on the internet — or at the White House — seemed to miss what Sen. ELIZABETH WARREN was saying. In an interview with a Boston radio station, she emphatically endorsed President JOE BIDEN, at 80, running for a second term but hedged on the question of keeping Vice President KAMALA HARRIS on the ticket. “I really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on his team,” Warren told WGBH on Friday. Warren’s immediate effort to qualify her response didn’t change the radio station’s headline on its write-up of the interview: “Warren stops short of backing Harris for VP in 2024.” Dozens of similar headlines followed. On Sunday afternoon Biden tweeted a photo of himself with Harris in the Oval Office. The caption: “Proud of what we’ve gotten done together, @VP.” Warren herself tried to clean things up with an unambiguous statement too. “I fully support the President’s and Vice President’s reelection together, and never intended to imply otherwise,” the Massachusetts Democrat said. But the dust-up still managed to illustrate how, within the capital’s online bubble of outsized egos, perceived slights can be internalized and magnified. It also offered up more fodder for the persistent Washington chatter around Harris’ supposedly shaky standing within Biden world and the broader Democratic Party. “We have a compounding problem of compounding narratives about women in politics here,” said JENNIFER PALMIERI, a former Obama administration aide who wrote a book about misogyny in politics following her stint on HILLARY CLINTON’s 2016 campaign. “One, there’s a lot of speculation and attention around a woman vice president; and then when a woman speaks about another, there’s an assumption that she’s trying to undercut her, which I don’t think is what’s happening at all.” Harris’ loyalists inside and out of the administration echo Palmieri’s general point. They say she’s a committed partner to the president who offers some capital as well. They also note the polls testing a hypothetical 2024 primary field without Biden that show her the clear front-runner. “She’s right where vice presidents typically are,” one administration official said. “And since 1960, every Democratic vice president to seek the presidential nomination has gotten it.” But while the steady drumbeat of criticism directed at the first woman and person of color to serve as vice president has always carried an undertone of racism and misogyny, many Democrats insist their worries about Harris are political and performance-based. For instance, her speech last week to House Democrats was regarded as uneventful publicly. But privately, it left some attendees underwhelmed. “She said absolutely nothing,” one lawmaker who was in attendance told us. “I’m still at a loss what the point was.” The administration and, in a sense, Harris are at an inflection point. As the White House transitions from RON KLAIN to JEFF ZIENTS running the show, and from a two-year period of legislation into campaign mode, the vice president is eager to build on a stronger second year. Harris’ speech earlier this month in Florida marking the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling signaled she will continue to be the administration's leading voice on an issue that galvanized women voters in last year’s midterms and is likely to continue to be a top motivator next year. Harris will also continue to beef up her foreign policy bonafides by meeting with foreign leaders and traveling abroad. She’s set to attend the Munich Security Conference in a few weeks. Her domestic travel going forward will center on selling the administration’s big achievements – infrastructure upgrades, lower prescription drug costs, renewable energy tax credits and the like. Aides say she’ll also emphasize coalition building, with a focus on communities of color and college campuses. On Monday, she held an event in Raleigh, N.C. to tout advances for Latino small business owners, taking part in a panel discussion with ISABELLA CASILLAS GUZMÁN, the Small Business Administration administrator. But the biggest thing Harris has going for her may just be Biden himself. The president has carefully made clear that she has his complete support. And on Friday, Harris will travel with Biden to Philadelphia for an event focused on efforts to accelerate the lead pipe replacement initiative funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Both will also appear together at the Democratic National Committee meeting downtown, offering members a preview of the likely 2024 ticket during speeches and a private fundraiser to follow. “She’s actually a very important player for the administration, even if that’s often at odds with her media coverage,” Palmieri said. “When you’re vice president, it takes a long time for the work you’re doing to register with the public because it takes a while for things to take effect. It’s year three now and a better composite picture of what she’s doing is emerging.” MESSAGE US —Are you HILLARY CLINTON? 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!  A message from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living: Nursing homes are doing everything they can to recruit caregivers, but can't find workers. The labor crisis in long term care is affecting all aspects of health care, creating bottlenecks in hospitals as patients wait for beds in nursing homes. A federal staffing mandate without resources to help with recruitment would force nursing homes to limit the number of residents they can serve. Learn more about the solutions to the labor crisis.   POTUS PUZZLER This one is from Allie. What president inspired Delaware’s nickname, the Diamond State? (Answer at the bottom.) The Oval TUNNEL VISION: Biden on Monday visited a deteriorating rail tunnel in Baltimore that will get an upgrade thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. “For years, people talked about fixing this tunnel,” Biden said, standing in front of an Amtrak train. “This is a 150-year-old tunnel, you wonder how in the hell it’s still standing.” The visit comes as administration officials are traveling around the country to promote Biden’s accomplishments in the lead up to next week’s State of the Union address, CNN’s MAEGAN VAZQUEZ reports. Biden on Tuesday heads to New York for an event focused on funding for the Hudson Tunnel Project. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by NBC News’ SAHIL KAPUR about how Biden’s time as vice president handling debt limit negotiations in 2011 taught him how to navigate the battle this time around. The president “is executing on that lesson as he faces down a new Republican-controlled House that is similarly demanding spending cuts as a concession for extending the debt ceiling. He says there won’t be any negotiations, and Congress must allow the government to pay its bills.” WHILE WE’RE ON THE TOPIC…  Biden allies, GOP lawmakers and Wall Street are butting heads over how best to tackle the debt limit. Administration officials warn of catastrophe if Congress fails to raise the government’s borrowing limit in the coming months, but Republicans and those on Wall Street support a different pathway, our ZACHARY WARMBRODT reports. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This analysis by WaPo’s PHILIP BUMP about how Republican messaging on Biden’s document drama — and comparing it to Trump’s — is proving to be effective. “The situations are not the same in the context of possession of marked documents; the situations are not the same in the context of concerns about either man somehow putting the documents to use,” he writes. “But Americans, asked whether they see the documents as the same, suggest that they do. And that, too, matters.” ALL ABOUT HUNTER: Former Twitter employees — VIJAYA GADDE, who served as the platform’s chief legal officer, JAMES BAKER, formerly deputy general counsel and YOEL ROTH, formerly the head of safety and integrity — are set to testify before the House Oversight Committee next month on how the platform handled news about the president’s son, HUNTER BIDEN. The hearing is one of the first moves by the Republican-controlled House, whose leaders have vowed to investigate various elements of Biden’s presidency. AP’s FARNOUSH AMIRI has more.   JOIN POLITICO ON 2/9 TO HEAR FROM AMERICA’S GOVERNORS: In a divided Congress, more legislative and policy enforcement will shift to the states, meaning governors will take a leading role in setting the agenda for the nation. Join POLITICO on Thursday, Feb. 9 at World Wide Technology's D.C. Innovation Center for The Fifty: America's Governors, where we will examine where innovations are taking shape and new regulatory red lines, the future of reproductive health, and how climate change is being addressed across a series of one-on-one interviews. REGISTER HERE.     THE BUREAUCRATS THIS YEAR, IN JERUSALEM: Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN met Monday with Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU in Jerusalem and reinforced U.S. support for Israel’s security. Blinken’s trip comes as violence increases in the region. “It’s important that the government and people of Israel know America’s commitment to their security remains ironclad,” Blinken said. More details from NYT’s MICHAEL CROWLEY.  PERSONNEL MOVES: MARK LATONERO has joined the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as deputy director for the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Office. He was previously a senior policy advisor at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, where he worked on AI risk management.   A message from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living:   Agenda Setting RAMPING UP ACCESS: The Biden administration proposed a rule Monday that would reverse “some of the Trump administration’s policies supporting employers’ right to exclude birth control coverage from their employees’ health insurance plans,” our ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN and MEGAN MESSERLY report for Pro subscribers. “The new rule also offers a workaround for people seeking contraception if they work for employers that do not provide the benefit because of religious objections.” DONALD TRUMP, HE’S JUST LIKE US (JOURNALISTS): The former president, incensed apparently by House Democrats demanding his tax returns, tried to gum up the works by filing a number of Freedom of Information Act requests to the Internal Revenue Service, Bloomberg reports. The idea was to hinder the release of the tax returns. It didn’t work. But maybe now there will be another champion in the FOIA reform movement.   DOWNLOAD THE POLITICO MOBILE APP: Stay up to speed with the newly updated POLITICO mobile app, featuring timely political news, insights and analysis from the best journalists in the business. The sleek and navigable design offers a convenient way to access POLITICO's scoops and groundbreaking reporting. Don’t miss out on the app you can rely on for the news you need, reimagined. DOWNLOAD FOR iOS– DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID.     What We're Reading U.S. arms left in Afghanistan are turning up in a different conflict (NBC News’ Junaid Kathju) Netherlands and Japan Said to Join U.S. in Curbing Chip Technology Sent to China (NYT’s Ana Swanson) Fact check: Profane chant was digitally edited into a Biden speech on gun violence (USA Today’s Molly Stellino) The Oppo Book When Biden’s senior speechwriter, DAN CLUCHEY, was an undergraduate student at Amherst College, he took a course in Russian literature. But he slept through the class “a large number of consecutive times,” he confessed during his 2008 commencement speech. “I’m not going to say how many classes I missed, but it’s the sort of number where if you flipped a coin and it came up tails this many times in a row, you would call CNN, he said. The repeated skips resulted in the professor calling him in for a meeting. The two chatted for 45 minutes without a mere mention of the absences. “Eventually he said, ‘Okay, thanks for coming in,’ and I got up. And then just as I got out the door, he said ‘Daniel, there’s one more thing.’ And I said, ‘Yes?’ And he said, ‘If you miss one more of my classes, I’m going to kill you,’” Cluchey said. “I spent the rest of the semester sharing my pillow with my alarm clock, and I didn’t miss class again.” POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER THOMAS JEFFERSON called Delaware a “jewel” among states, “due to its strategic location on the Eastern Seaboard,” according to the state’s government website. A CALL OUT — Do you think 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. A message from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living: The long term care community is facing a historic labor crisis, forcing more nursing homes to limit the number of residents they can serve and some facilities may permanently close. Nursing homes are doing everything they can to recruit caregivers, but can’t find workers. A federal staffing mandate without resources to help with recruitment is not the answer. It will only reduce access to care for our nation’s seniors. The labor crisis has already created bottlenecks in hospitals as patients wait for beds in nursing homes. We need an investment in our long term care workforce to build a pipeline of caregivers - not unfunded staffing mandates. A one-size-fits-all approach is not the solution. Help us hire, don’t require.     Follow us on Twitter Eli Stokols @EliStokols Lauren Egan @Lauren_V_Egan Allie Bice @alliebice   Follow us

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