| | | | |  | | By Eli Stokols, Lauren Egan and Ben Johansen | | Presented by |  | | | Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren That old saying about American politics — that Democrats fall in love while Republicans fall in line — may no longer be true. But not all that long ago, it was. Which is why Democrats might feel so disoriented as they dutifully resign themselves to President JOE BIDEN running a second time. That last political love affair — BARACK OBAMA’s historic 2008 campaign — is at the heart of a new novel by New Yorker writer VINSON CUNNINGHAM, based on his own experiences working on it. “Great Expectations,” as the novel is audaciously titled, is a bildungsroman. But the candidate himself is a minor character. The protagonist, DAVID HAMMOND, is a Black single father just out of college who, like Cunningham himself, serendipitously wound up taking a fundraising job on a historic campaign and learning, for better or worse, what it takes. We talked to him recently about his novel, how much American politics have shifted since Obama’s first run and why the story might resonate with Biden aides. This conversation has been edited for clarity. So you never name him, but it’s clear the candidate is Obama. And the main character seems a lot like you. So why did you write a novel instead of a memoir? I'm most interested in novels that sort of use real life as material and then sort of build outwards. Certain extreme experiences, like a campaign, can send you inward as well, and then you think about everything that brought you to this moment. Reading this, I was also struck by just how distant 2008 feels. There’s a scene in your book where someone at a fundraiser is gushing about how, when Obama wins, everyone will be able to talk to each other again. And, well … Absolutely. One thing novels can do is remind us what recent history felt like. I’m curious when you wrote this: What was going on in the background? I started, then scrapped everything and started over in 2016, and then finished in 2021. So I basically wrote it over the course of the Trump presidency. In fact, the day I sent this out to editors hoping they would buy it turned out to be Jan. 6, 2021. No way. Yeah, I sent it out and then turned on CNN hoping to watch the election certification and everyone knows the rest. What were you thinking about that confluence of events? It was a really interesting way to sort of bookend the experience of doing that kind of remembering, in the middle of a very vastly different circumstance that almost made a mockery of the hope of that earlier period.
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| There’s a section where David is talking about feeling detached from the Pentecostal church he grew up in: “I was raised in an atmosphere of magic.” And it feels like he’s also describing the political world he’s enmeshed in as he goes on: “The people I knew were and weren’t real, in the sense of authenticity. They did what they shouldn’t do without jettisoning the orthodoxies that should have made them ashamed.” Yeah, [the book] is kind of almost a study of the meaning of charisma when you're not looking at the person but you're looking at the effects that they create. Trump is sort of Obama's temperamental opposite, but he is also his twin in this one way, which is that it is absolutely fascinating to watch the results of his kind of charisma. How much time did you spend around Biden back then? And what struck you about him? My job after the campaign was at the DNC, and that’s where I saw more of him. My sense of him after watching Obama so closely was just the difference in their appetites for personal politics. He just had such a greater appetite for talking to people. If you were, you know, behind the stage with Obama, you could see him steeling himself for these encounters. Whereas you could see Joe Biden chomping at the bit. It’s one of the ironies of this campaign that his great political talent has on some level, because of his age, had to be curtailed. Your novel describes what it was like for Black staffers on the campaign of a man who became the first Black president. What do you make of Biden’s appeals to Black voters? There is definitely a way in which Biden is freer and less constrained in the overtness of his appeals to Black people. Obama sort of shied away from doing that a lot, and it was just more complicated. He really fought his way into a certain kind of Black community that he wasn't necessarily born into in Chicago. Did you send this to Obama? Do you know if he’s read it? I don’t know. I do get these Obama alumni emails and it was mentioned in one, so maybe? Why should people working in the current administration read your novel? The emotional circumstances [of 2008 and 2024] couldn’t be more different. If hope was the overweening emotion of many Democrats then, it seems to me that fear is now. Wasn’t Hillary Clinton just on a late night show telling people [who are frustrated at the Biden-Trump matchup] to just get over it? I would just remind them that politics is about the deep desires of people … and what their voters desire is a key part of what it means to run and campaign as well. MESSAGE US — Are you JESSE SENDROFF, associate director of presidential advance? 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!
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
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President Biden plays both sides, going to a Pittsburgh Sheetz on Wednesday (top) and a Philly Wawa the day after (bottom). | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images | | | | KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON: Early Friday, Israel launched a retaliatory strike against Iran. And the White House is hoping to stay quiet on it, our ALEXANDER WARD reports. The instruction within Washington has largely been to stay mum about the attack on Isfahan, multiple U.S. and Israeli officials said, noting that Israel has yet to comment on the response and that Iran has downplayed the strike. The administration is hoping that if “the chest-beating ends … so too might the latest Middle Eastern crisis,” Ward writes. And while most officials who talked with POLITICO said they were relieved the strike was limited in scope, one expressed frustration that Israel did not heed Biden’s warnings. “The U.S. begged [Israel] not to do it,” the official said. “At this point, it’s truly embarrassing how much Israel does not listen to us, but yet this doesn’t keep President Biden from blind fealty.” AND THEY WONDER WHY…. The Biden administration is weighing a $1 billion sale in new weapons for Israel, including tank ammunition, military vehicles and mortar rounds, WSJ’s JARED MALSIN and NANCY A. YOUSSEF report. The proposed deal, which would be in addition to the aid package currently before Congress, would be among the largest to Israel since the Oct. 7 attacks. The deal would include the transfer of $700 million in 120 mm tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and less than $100 million in 120 mm mortar rounds. It would also mark the first weapons sale to Israel since Iran launched its missile and drone attack last weekend. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by NYT’s LISA FRIEDMAN, who reports that after ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. saw over a dozen of his family members endorse Biden yesterday, dozens of his former colleagues at the Natural Resources Defense Council are now calling on him to withdraw from the race. Nearly 50 leaders and activists at the environmental nonprofit group are urging him to drop out in full-page advertisements that are expected to appear in newspapers across six battleground states Sunday. RFK has pledged he would be the “best environmental president in American history,” and now a dozen other national environmental organizations have issued an open letter to Kennedy calling him a “dangerous conspiracy theorist and a science denier.” DNC spokesperson MATT CORRIDONI shared the piece on X. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This op-ed from NYT’s NICHOLAS KRISTOF titled, “What Happened to the Joe Biden I Knew?” Kristof opens the piece by describing the war in Gaza as “his war,” calling it a stinging part of Biden’s legacy and an “element of his obituary.” Further down in the piece, Kristof writes that moral clarity toward the conflict has been selective. “The Biden administration called for moral clarity after the atrocities of Oct. 7, and that was appropriate. But moral clarity cannot be like a pair of glasses we put on and take off,” he writes. “If your heart breaks for victims on only one side of the Israel-Gaza border, then your failure is not of geopolitics but of humanity.” He expresses his disappointment with Biden, someone he describes as a “good man” with a “compassionate heart.” But he questions how Biden could have watched President LYNDON JOHNSON’s dream of being remembered for the “Great Society” fall apart in the midst of youth opposition to the Vietnam War — eventually leading to the election of RICHARD NIXON. “I hope Biden takes action to avoid repeat,” Kristof ends the piece.
| | | | A message from Center for Western Priorities: The most recent “Winning the West” poll found that 74% of voters in key Western states say doing more to protect and conserve public lands and designate national monuments would make them view the Biden administration more favorably. That view is held by 93% of Democrats, 76% of Independents, and 53% of Republicans. Overall, 87% of Western Voters prioritize a candidate’s support for conservation issues to determine how they cast their ballots. | | | | | | STOPPING BY THE SUNSHINE STATE: President Biden will travel to Florida on Tuesday, where he will deliver a speech denouncing the state’s new six-week abortion ban and other nationwide efforts to restrict reproductive rights, our ELENA SCHNEIDER reports. At the event, which will take place in Tampa a week before the law is set to go into effect, Biden is expected to tie the 2024 election to access to reproductive rights across the country. LEANING IN: First lady JILL BIDEN on Friday launched “Educators for Biden-Harris,” a national organizing program aimed at energizing teachers, school staff and parents to vote for the Biden ticket, ABC News’ LIBBY CATHEY, FRITZ FARROW and GABRIELLA ABDUL-HAKIM report. Biden kicked off the program in Minnesota Friday at the Education Minnesota Convention, where she described her husband as the “education president.” The campaign said it will build off the launch with digital and on-the-ground organizing efforts aimed at engaging educators and parents.
| | | | RAISE YOUR GLASS: The White House Correspondents’ Association is honoring two photojournalists with the Dunnigan-Payne Prize for Lifetime Career Achievement. WHCA will honor both RODNEY BATTEN, who is a five-decade veteran at NBC News, and EDWARD LEWIS, who has worked for 40 years at both C-SPAN and Fox News. “Their distinguished service has set a standard for excellence, dedication to their craft and leadership in the press corps,” said KELLY O’DONNELL, WHCA president. “Their work has delivered directly to the American people decades of images that captured pivotal moments in presidential history from the White House, across the country and around the globe.” VOA NEWS: The U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) has named MICHAEL ABRAMOWITZ as the new director of Voice of America (VOA). Abramowitz is currently president of Freedom House and will succeed VOA Acting Director JOHN LIPPMAN later this year.
| | | | A message from Center for Western Priorities:   | | | | | DRILLS OFF: The Biden administration announced a series of actions on Friday to protect millions of acres of Alaskan wilderness, our BEN LEFEBVRE reports. In a move that is being widely praised by environmentalist groups, the Interior Department finalized a rule to ban oil drilling and mineral mining on 13 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve. In a separate move, the administration announced it would block the building of a controversial 211-mile road that would have led to drilling in undeveloped parts of the state. “I am proud that my Administration is taking action to conserve more than 13 million acres in the Western Arctic and to honor the culture, history, and enduring wisdom of Alaska Natives who have lived on and stewarded these lands since time immemorial,” Biden said in a statement. FOLLOWING THROUGH: Education Secretary MIGUEL CARDONA announced a final rule on Friday cementing new protections for transgender students and realigning the Education Department’s interpretation of Title IX to ban “all forms of sex discrimination,” our BIANCA QUILANTAN reports. The new rule expands the interpretation to include discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy or related conditions. The move goes off a 2020 campaign promise from Biden to roll back much of Education Secretary BETSY DEVOS’ Title IX rule, which widely narrowed the definition of sexual harassment.
| | Iran and Israel’s War Comes Out of the Shadows (Afshon Ostovar for Foreign Affairs) Trump on Trial vs. Biden on the Trail: An Unusual 2024 Stretch Begins (NYT’s Lisa Lerer, Nicholas Nehamas and Michael Gold) Time for a Bipartisan Presidency (Lanny Davis for RCP) There Are Plenty of Power Publicists. But Only One Works for Taylor Swift. (WSJ’s Allie Jones) On ‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ Taylor Swift Could Use an Editor (NYT’s Lindsay Zoladz)
| | | | A message from Center for Western Priorities: Outdoor Voters want more national monuments in 2024. President Biden has an opportunity to inspire the 3 million active outdoor enthusiasts in the Mountain West region known as Outdoor Voters. Outdoor Voters consider public lands protections and conservation issues to be pivotal to their electoral choices. By designating new national monuments, President Biden can unify Americans across party lines and demonstrate his commitment to achieving his 30x30 promise. This strategic move can greatly influence candidates' ability to secure support and win the West. Find out more at outdoorvoter.org. | | | | | Dzimbo was a 440-pound baby elephant, a gift from the French territories in west central Africa, according to the White House Historical Association. Following the visit, Dzimbo made his permanent home at the National Zoo.
|  President Dwight D. Eisenhower, pictured with Dzimbo the elephant in 1959. | Courtesy of the White House Historical Association. | 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 Mike DeBonis.
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