You actually can see Russia from her house

The power players, latest policy developments, and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing.

May 03, 2023 View in browser   By Eli Stokols and Lauren Egan 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 When President JOE BIDEN allowed the controversial Willow pipeline project in Alaska to proceed over the environmental community’s loud opposition, many saw the behind-the-scenes influence of Sen. LISA MURKOWSKI. Senior Biden aides call her the president’s “favorite Republican senator.” Murkowski has shown a willingness to support White House priorities, from the nomination of Interior Secretary DEB HAALAND to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. She also helped arrange first lady JILL BIDEN’s 2021 visit to Alaska, White House officials said. Two months after Biden took office, Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN and national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN sat down with Murkowski and fellow GOP Sen. DAN SULLIVAN while in Alaska to meet with their Chinese counterparts, talking about a range of state-specific concerns. And Biden has gone the extra mile for Murkowski, even inviting her and the small Alaska delegation to a private Oval Office ceremony when he signed their bill enabling cruise ships headed to the state to get around Canada’s Covid-19 restrictions. Perhaps the biggest area where Murkowski has succeeded in spurring Biden into action is in the Arctic, a region with growing national security, economic and geopolitical implications that for decades has been out of sight and out of mind for most Americans. “Even before he left the Senate, Sen. Joe Biden took me as a serious legislator who focused on my state's priorities and who wanted to work to get things done,” Murkowski said in an interview. “What I've been trying to do with him in the White House now [is] assure him I'm working on serious initiatives that are important to my state and to our country. It's not like l’m advocating for an Alaska earmark. These are priorities for us as an Arctic nation that I'm advocating for.” Murkowski’s push on the Arctic began in December 2020, when she sent then President-elect Biden an eight-page letter on the region’s importance. It also offered a number of policy proposals — several of which Biden has since acted on, especially with regard to personnel. Biden laid out a new strategy for the Arctic last October and re-launched the Arctic Executive Steering Committee under a new executive director, Ambassador DAVID BALTON. At the Pentagon, the administration installed IRIS FERGUSON as assistant secretary for Arctic affairs, a new position it established. And earlier this year, after extensive consultation with Murkowski, Biden nominated MIKE SFRAGA to serve in a new position as ambassador to the Arctic Council, the intergovernmental forum established to foster cooperation among the eight Arctic nations. “There is no bright line between domestic and foreign policy and the Arctic is a classic example of that — everything from the climate crisis to economic opportunity to our competitiveness are at stake,” Jake Sullivan told West Wing Playbook. “President Biden is prioritizing the region like never before, and we are grateful for Sen. Murkowski’s and the Alaska delegation’s partnership.” But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year has brought decades of post-Cold War cooperation in the Arctic to a halt. It also clarified the national security and economic implications of developing a new strategy for the region. Only 55 miles of water separate American and Russian soil. After Finland’s accession to NATO, Russia intensified military drills in the Arctic and just last week signed an agreement with China to strengthen cooperation in the region. With the Arctic warming three times faster than the rest of the world over the last 50 years, rising sea levels are affecting indigenous coastal communities and opening new shipping lanes. "Even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Arctic was a place where a lot of this administration's priorities came together,” Balton said in an interview. “People are having to move from their villages or because coastlines are eroding, permafrost is thawing. There are serious infrastructure problems. Particularly in northern Alaska, there are a lot of communities that lack some of the basics that most Americans take for granted — in water and sewer, broadband connection, roads, ports, airports. So there's a big agenda of things to do." But shoring up resources in the region is going to take years. Those working on Arctic issues seem to agree the U.S. is a long way from having the kind of Coast Guard presence and general readiness it would need to respond to an actual crisis in the region. Sfraga is still awaiting Senate confirmation, and his position, created by an executive order, isn’t yet enshrined in statute. There’s $250 million in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for expanding Alaska’s deep-water Port of Nome, as well as $5.5 million to extend broadband to remote Arctic communities, but dozens of other infrastructure imperatives remain. Last year’s National Defense Authorization Act included funding for a new polar-capacity icebreaker to serve the Arctic (the U.S. currently has just two, one of which has been out of service for more than a decade), but the delivery timeline has been delayed, something Murkowski plans to investigate during a visit next week to the Alabama shipyard where it’s being built. Murkowski has little patience for the glacial pace of the federal bureaucracy — and little compunction about continuing to prod the president. “I want to know why this [ship] has been made a priority,” she said, acknowledging the global production issues related to supply chains and workforce issues. “If you want to make something a priority, you can get around things like that." MESSAGE US — Are you Alaska Gov. MIKE DUNLEAVY? 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!    DON’T MISS THE POLITICO ENERGY SUMMIT: A new world energy order is emerging and America’s place in it is at a critical juncture. Join POLITICO on Thursday, May 18 for our first-ever energy summit to explore how the U.S. is positioning itself in a complicated energy future. We’ll explore progress on infrastructure and climate funding dedicated to building a renewable energy economy, Biden’s environmental justice proposals, and so much more. REGISTER HERE.     POTUS PUZZLER This one’s from Allie. Which president had a treadmill on Air Force One so he could get his workout in while traveling? (Answer at bottom.) The Oval GET MITCH OR DEFAULT TRYING: Senate Minority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL has so far stayed out of the fray on debt ceiling talks. He maintains the president and House Speaker KEVIN MCCARTHY need to first reach a consensus on the matter. But given how unlikely that is, the decades-long relationship between McConnell and Biden could come into play ahead of the president’s meeting next week with the four congressional leaders, our JENNIFER HABERKORN reports. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This Daily Beast opinion piece by DAVID ROTHKOPF, who argues Biden “has done more to dramatically transform U.S. policy and thinking in more areas than any of his predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt.” Rothkopf writes that Biden “ended the slavish deference of Washington neoliberals to Wall Street, and the consequent grotesque growth in inequality and injustice it has fueled.” Communications director BEN LABOLT shared the piece on Twitter and the press office did an email blast to reporters. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by NYT’s LYDIA DEPILLIS about how U.S. manufacturing is in a slump: “Manufacturing employment bounced back quickly after the pandemic but has contracted for two months. While layoffs in the industry remain low, job openings and hires have sunk from recent highs. A bigger question for the American economy is whether this heralds a broader downturn, since cooling demand for goods usually signifies that consumers are feeling financially strained.” A BLOW TO UNION JOE: The politically influential United Auto Workers plans to withhold its endorsement of Biden in the early stages of the 2024 presidential campaign, according to an internal memo written by the union president SHAWN FAIN and obtained by NYT’s SHANE GOLDMACHER and CORAL DAVENPORT. Biden’s push to transition the country to electric vehicles — which don’t require as many workers to assemble as gas-powered cars — has been a tension point for UAW. In the memo, Fain writes the “EV transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom,” and adds that UAW wants “to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.” EYES EMOJI: West Wing Playbook got a lot of responses to yesterday’s newsletter about TJ DUCKLO’s reentrance into Biden world. This tweet in particular from HILARY ROSEN in support of MICHAEL LAROSA, for going on the record to criticize the campaign’s likely decision to rehire Ducklo, caught our eye. Rosen’s SKDK partner, ANITA DUNN, is quoted in the piece defending Ducklo. BY GOD, MAN, GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT: UConn men’s basketball coach DAN HURLEY told The Athletic last month that he missed a call from the president after winning the national championship because he was on the phone with a recruit. Turns out that wasn’t the case. In a speech this week at the New York Athletic Club, Hurley corrected the record. “I lied,” he said. “I was on the phone with my agent. We just won the national championship, you should be on the phone with your agent.” CT Insider’s DAVID BORGES has more. Filling the Ranks IT’S OFFICIAL: Biden’s nominee to lead the World Bank, AJAY BANGA, was officially voted in Wednesday by the World Bank’s executive board, our STEVEN OVERLY reports. Banga, the former CEO of Mastercard, replaces DAVID MALPASS, who was appointed by former President DONALD TRUMP. THE BUREAUCRATS FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: ALEX SOPKO is expected to be named deputy director of the office of intergovernmental affairs at the White House and a special assistant to the president, a person familiar with the matter told DANIEL LIPPMAN. She currently is chief of staff for that office. MORE PERSONNEL MOVES: STEPHANIE EPNER is now global senior director of the Climate Imperative Foundation, Lippman has also learned. She previously was a special adviser and acting senior director for climate and energy at the National Security Council and is a former longtime aide to JOHN KERRY.  — MICHAEL LINDEN is leaving OMB, where he has been behind-the-scenes integral to budget strategy and much more for the administration, NYT's JIM TANKERSLEY has learned. Meanwhile, JACOB LEIBENLUFT is heading from Treasury to OMB to take on Linden's role as executive associate director, Lippman, scrambling to keep up, has learned. Agenda Setting ONE LAST TIME (MAYBE…): The Fed moved to raise rate hikes again on Wednesday, but the increase may be the central bank’s last this year to ease inflation as the battle to cool it enters a new phase, our VICTORIA GUIDA reports. NO WARNING SIGNS: The Biden administration said Wednesday it did not have prior knowledge of an impending attack on the Kremlin after Russia said two drones attempted to assassinate President VLADIMIR PUTIN, our ALEXANDER WARD and JONATHAN LEMIRE report. Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN said Wednesday that statements from Moscow should be taken with a “large shaker of salt.” BLAME IT ON THE IRS: The Internal Revenue Service’s productivity this year is partly to blame for the sooner-than-expected debt limit deadline, our BRIAN FALER reports. The agency “is processing people’s tax returns faster. Because of its newfound efficiency, the government will run out of money to service its debts earlier than it expected,” Faler writes. Last year, the IRS sat on a backlog of 5 million tax returns, but this year the backlog is less than half of that. What We're Reading The Media Hid Donald Trump's Physical Attack On A Reporter For 37 Days (Oliver Willis via Substack) Prosecutors near charging decision in Hunter Biden case (WaPo’s Devlin Barrett, Matt Viser, Josh Dawsey and Perry Stein) Biden, Trump and Feinstein symbolize a generation loath to cede power (CNN’s Stephen Collinson)   GET READY FOR GLOBAL TECH DAY: Join POLITICO Live as we launch our first Global Tech Day alongside London Tech Week on Thursday, June 15. Register now for continuing updates and to be a part of this momentous and program-packed day! From the blockchain, to AI, and autonomous vehicles, technology is changing how power is exercised around the world, so who will write the rules? REGSITER HERE.     The Oppo Book Netflix’s fictional political thriller, “The Diplomat,” features the chaos and drama of KATE WYLER, a newly-appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. AARON SNIPE, a spokesperson with the U.S. Embassy in London, told POLITICO that there’s a “lot of detail in there that’s really, really smart.” Which makes sense, as some of the show’s staff, including creator DEBORA CAHN, visited the embassy and met with officials to get a more accurate depiction. But, “as a career diplomat, I must say you’re watching it thinking, ‘Wow, my job is not nearly as sexy as Ambassador Wyler’s romps through foreign policy,’” Snipe added. POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER A folding treadmill was installed on Air Force One for GEORGE W. BUSH so he could work out while traveling to Colombia, fitness trainer TED VICKEY told Reuters in 2015. 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.   Follow us on Twitter Eli Stokols @EliStokols Lauren Egan @Lauren_V_Egan Allie Bice @alliebice   Follow us

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