Dark Brandon rises

Presented by American Clean Power: The power players, latest policy developments, and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing.

Feb 20, 2024 View in browser   By Lauren Egan and Eli Stokols Presented by American Clean Power Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from producer Raymond Rapada. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren Biden allies have a new favorite social media account: @VoteDarkBrandon. In the past few weeks, the X account — which takes on the Dark Brandon meme, and posts as if it were the president’s alter ego and some sort of master of the political dark arts — has increasingly caught the eye of Biden staffers and Democrats close to the White House. The account doesn’t post nearly as feverishly or as obsessively as some of the other normie Biden fan accounts, like @What46HasDone. But when “Dark Brandon” does speak, Biden allies feel like it packs a punch. Posts from the account have circulated among Biden alumni group chats, and reposts from Biden allies have flooded reporters’ timelines in recent weeks, especially those that criticize the media. As West Wing Playbook noted last week, a tweet calling out a New York Times headline (“Which Is Worse: Biden’s Age or Trump Handing NATO to Putin?”) appeared particularly appreciated — and amplified — by current and former Biden staffers. “Here’s the deal, folks,” the post read. “@nytimes will never forgive me for stopping the Trump click gravy train. Bad news for them. I’m just gonna piss them off more.” Current and former Biden staffers have described the account as “clever” for its impersonations of President JOE BIDEN, and some staffers have described its pot shots at the media as nothing short of heroic. It’s also not lost on anyone that a formidable, robotic, lasers-shooting-from-the-eyes doppelgänger might be of some political utility for a politician whose age is a dominant campaign storyline. Ever since Dark Brandon went viral in 2022, the Biden team has leaned into the meme, poking fun at right-wing activists while embracing a depiction of the president as always one step ahead of his competitors. The campaign has sold Dark Brandon merch and Biden has even posted about it on X. The verified Dark Brandon account has nearly 100K followers, but no one knows — or acknowledges — who is behind it. Some Democrats close to the White House have joked that it must be deputy campaign manager ROB FLAHERTY using the veil of anonymity to drop more F-bombs and take harder hits at the press (not that he’s shied away from doing so on official channels). Others like to tease that former chief of staff RON KLAIN needed a new outlet to keep up his Twitter habit (although we can rule him out, as Dark Brandon has yet to tweet about gas prices). And some Democrats have said that it’s probably someone from an allied advocacy group. … But they can’t say for sure. West Wing Playbook reached out to the account and asked who they were. “I’m Jill Biden’s husband,” they replied. MESSAGE US — Are you DARK BRANDON? 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 American Clean Power: America Can’t Afford a False Start on Green Hydrogen: Green hydrogen is key to winning the race for clean and secure energy. The Biden Administration must provide greater flexibility for the first wave of new, green hydrogen facilities or the U.S. will be left in the starting blocks. Learn more.     POTUS PUZZLER What was the name of HARRY TRUMAN’s domestic agenda from 1949-1953? (Answer at bottom.) The Oval WHY NOT JUST A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER? National security communications adviser JOHN KIRBY announced the White House on Friday will reveal a “major” package of additional sanctions against Russia in response to the death of opposition leader ALEXEI NAVALNY, our MATT BERG reported. Kirby, in a call Tuesday with reporters, offered no other details about the sanctions, nor did President Biden during a brief back-and-forth with the press before he left the White House Tuesday afternoon. After meeting with Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN in Geneva in 2021, Biden vowed “devastating” consequences should Navalny die in prison. But when asked about that promise last Friday following news of Navalny’s death, Biden scoffed that his remark was from three years ago and made prior to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, for which, Biden said, Russia has faced “a hell of a lot of consequences.” Whatever economic pain the West has inflicted on Russia since the war began two years ago, it didn’t deter Putin, who Biden and others hold responsible for Navalny’s death. VALENTINE’S DAY WAS LAST WEEK, JIM: This love letter to NYT profile of MIKE PYLE, who is leaving the National Security Council, touts the “under the radar” aide’s “outsized role” in selling Biden’s green industrial policy to allies nervous about the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically the tax credits for American-made electric vehicles. Over many months, Pyle worked with Assistant Treasury Secretary WALLY ADEYEMO to allay Europe’s concerns. NYT reporter JIM TANKERSLEY did sneak some news into his piece, reporting that Pyle and colleagues “previewed a Treasury Department regulation — before it was announced publicly” to inform European officials that the U.S. planned to allow leased EVs from European and Asian automakers to qualify for a full consumer tax credit under the IRA. OK, WHICH OF YOU MORONS ASKED THIS?  WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece on “Biden’s colossal cash advantage” by Axios’ HANS NICHOLS and ALEX THOMPSON that might help ease the anxieties of the countless Democratic bedwetters. The president’s campaign announced Tuesday it has $130 million in the bank after raising $42 million in January, extending a cash advantage over the likely GOP nominee. Former President DONALD TRUMP has far less in the bank — and now appears to be asking donors to help defray $50 million in legal debts. Biden campaign aides KEVIN MUÑOZ and AMMAR MOUSSA, among others, tweeted the piece. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by POLITICO’s DUSTIN GARDINER and MIA MCCARTHY about how some Democrats running in competitive races have openly acknowledged concerns about Biden’s age. Just before winning a tight race last week in a New York special election, Rep. TOM SUOZZI said that “the bottom line is, he’s old.” And ahead of the March 5 primary for the California Senate seat, Rep. KATIE PORTER embraced age limits for elected officials. “This chink in the party armor on what was once a taboo subject could expand in the months leading up to November as Democrats try to distance themselves from an unpopular president or cast themselves as change agents in crowded races,” Dustin and Mia write. CAMPAIGN HQ $$$$$$: As Biden raises money this week on the West Coast (he’s scheduled to headline a reception at the Los Angeles home of HAIM and CHERYL SABAN tonight), other administration officials and Biden allies are also scheduled to host a handful of fundraising events this month. — Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO is attending a campaign fundraiser in Washington, D.C. tonight. — Sen. CORY BOOKER (D-N.J.) will host a virtual reception on Monday with Biden campaign finance chair RUFUS GIFFORD. — Second gentleman DOUG EMHOFF is keeping busy with events over the next two weeks in Boston, Washington, D.C. and Minneapolis. — CHASTEN BUTTIGIEG, Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG’s husband, is scheduled to headline a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. next Thursday with JUDY and DENNIS SHEPARD, the parents of MATTHEW SHEPARD, who was murdered in 1998 for being gay. ON THE TRAIL: Biden campaign manager JULIE CHÁVEZ RODRÍGUEZ is going to be in Richmond, Virginia, on Friday for what the campaign is calling a “Richmond Roadshow.” Chávez Rodríguez and other campaign officials have held meetings with community leaders and stakeholders in important battleground states around the country ahead of the election.   A message from American Clean Power:   THE BUREAUCRATS PERSONNEL MOVES: ELISE BOUSQUETTE now works on East Asia and Oceania at the National Security Council. She most recently worked on partnerships and global engagement at the NSC. — CHRISTOPHER THUMA is now special assistant to the president and principal deputy legal adviser to the NSC. He most recently was deputy general counsel at the ODNI and is a CIA alum. Agenda Setting ANOTHER PROBLEM IN MICHIGAN: When Biden signed the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act into law, he touted a central Michigan company as a sure beneficiary of the $25 billion in tax incentives aimed at spurring the domestic manufacturing of semiconductors. But under his administration’s initial proposal for how those incentives will be distributed, that company, Hemlock Semiconductor, won’t qualify because it only supplies the industry with a key material. Under the current proposal, only companies making finished chips would be eligible for federal tax breaks. As  POLITICO’s CHRISTINE MUI reports, elected Democrats in Michigan — from Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER, Sen. GARY PETERS and Rep. DAN KILDEE on down — have lobbied the administration to change its policy before issuing the final rule, which was expected in December but has been delayed. What We're Reading Documents reveal Abraham Lincoln pardoned Biden’s great-great-grandfather (David J. Gerleman for WaPo) NYT publisher: White House ‘extremely upset’ on Biden age coverage (POLITICO’s Kierra Frazier) The President at the Center of an Odd Biden-Trump Debate: Herbert Hoover (WSJ’s Catherine Lucey and Ken Thomas) The Tragedy of Navalny (Puck’s Julia Ioffe) POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER The Fair Deal. It was a set of proposals Truman originally proposed to Congress in 1945, but later included in his State of the Union address in 1949. Thanks to the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum for this question. A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it! Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.   A message from American Clean Power: America Can’t Afford a False Start on Green Hydrogen: Green hydrogen is key to winning the race for clean and secure energy. The path toward a clean energy economy is to electrify everything we can while eliminating emissions from electricity production. However, there are key parts of the economy like steel and cement production that can only be decarbonized with clean hydrogen. To encourage U.S. companies to commit resources to the nascent American green hydrogen industry, the federal government is considering tax credits for early entrants. Unfortunately, by applying the most stringent time-matching rules right out of the gate, the Biden Administration is setting up America’s green hydrogen industry to fail.  To realize green hydrogen’s environmental and job-creating economic promise, the Biden Administration should provide greater flexibility for the first wave of new, green hydrogen facilities or the U.S. will be left in the starting blocks. Learn more.     Follow us on Twitter Eli Stokols @EliStokols Lauren Egan @Lauren_V_Egan Ben Johansen @BenJohansen3   Follow us

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