In JFK's long shadow

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

Jun 29, 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 Lawrence Ukenye. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren Some 60 years ago this week, President JOHN F. KENNEDY wrapped up an emotion-soaked visit to Ireland by reciting a poem to an adoring crowd along the Shannon River told to him the night before by the wife of the country’s president. ’Tis it is the Shannon’s brightly glancing stream, Brightly gleaming, silent in the morning beam, Oh, the sight entrancing, Thus returns from travels long, Years of exile, years of pain, To see old Shannon’s face again, O’er the waters dancing. Clearly moved after four days traveling across his ancestral homeland, Kennedy parted with a promise that would go unfulfilled: “I am going to come back and see old Shannon again,” he said. “And I am taking, as I go back to America, all of you with me.” Kennedy would be assassinated five months later after 1,036 days in office. He's one of 23 American presidents with Irish roots and one of nine, including JOE BIDEN just two months ago, to visit Ireland. But his visit, which came just 15 years after the founding of the Irish Republic, was the first by a president who was fully Irish, and Roman Catholic to boot. “They saw him as one of their own, and the visit so soon after the Republic was founded was a significant moment” said STEWART MCLAURIN, president of the White House Historical Association, who is spending the week retracing Kennedy’s Ireland trip on its 60th anniversary, partly in conjunction with officials from the Kennedy Foundation. Former first lady JACQUELINE KENNEDY later said the four days her husband spent in Ireland were “the happiest days of his life.” And many Irish who saw the young president retain vivid memories of it. They consider the event a significant one in their nation’s history and individual lives. “I’ve been told so many times on this trip that people have grandparents still who have a picture of the pope and John Kennedy in their living room on their mantle,” McLaurin told West Wing Playbook on Thursday ahead of the culminating event of his trip, a ceremonial dinner with the U.S. Ambassador CLAIRE CRONIN. In recent days, McLaurin visited Leinster House, where Kennedy addressed the joint houses of the Oireachtas, the first time a foreign head of state had done so. One gift Kennedy bestowed to the Irish on his trip, an 1862 battle flag from an Irish regiment that fought for the Union in the Civil War, is housed there, treated, McLaurin said, “like we treat the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives.” McLaurin also traveled to New Ross, the Kennedy family’s home town in County Wexford, south of Dublin. At a commemoration of the former president’s visit were roughly a dozen people, now in their 70s, who were young students at Ballykelly National School when Kennedy came. Two men, who as boys ran into a field to greet Kennedy’s landing helicopter, showed McLaurin a photo of them as kids on that day, holding an American flag. “They were so proud of that,” McLaurin said. “The enthusiasm on their faces, it was as if someone from their hometown had gone off and become president of the United States. With their difficult times their great grandparents went through, they never thought they would come back to Ireland when they left. And they never imagined a grandchild would return as president of the United States.” Photos courtesy of Stewart McLaurin Kennedy’s assassination was deeply felt — and grieved — among the Irish people. And it is still. A decade ago, a member of the New Ross town council, EAMONN HORE, had the idea to erect a memorial in the former president’s ancestral home. After calling Arlington National Cemetery about his idea, and consulting with the International Olympic Committee about the logistics of transporting its iconic torch, Hore and others from the town’s JFK Trust flew to Washington with four miner’s lamps and lit them from the eternal flame beside Kennedy’s grave. They flew them home in Aer Lingus’ first class cabin, were met in Dublin by a military honor guard and ultimately created another perpetual flame on Irish soil. “They literally and figuratively keep the flame alive of President Kennedy and his memory,” McLaurin said. MESSAGE US — Are you BONO? 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!    LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today.     POTUS PUZZLER This one is from the Hoover Presidential Foundation: How many times had President HERBERT HOOVER circled the world by the time he was 40? (Answer at bottom.) The Oval “NOT A NORMAL COURT”: President Biden blasted the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on Thursday that found affirmative action to be unconstitutional. Vowing not to let the decision be “the last word,” Biden said it “cannot change what America stands for…. We’ve never fully lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it either. We will not walk away from it now.” As our KELLY GARRITY reports, Biden suggested that colleges might still consider the obstacles applicants have overcome and promised to task the Department of Education with examining college admissions policies, perhaps with an eye on eliminating legacy admissions. As he walked out of the White House’s Roosevelt Room, Biden was asked if the nation’s highest court was a rogue court. After pausing, he turned and responded: “This is not a normal court.” BIDEN GOES PEACOCKING: In the first live television interview of his presidency, Biden mostly repeated his remarks about the Supreme Court ruling. Speaking with MSNBC’s NICOLLE WALLACE at the top of her flagship 4 p.m. EDT broadcast, “Deadline: White House,” Biden said he feared dramatically reforming the court. Expanding it, he said, “doesn't make sense because it can become so politicized in the future." He and his interlocutor reminisced about the character of the late Sen. JOHN MCCAIN and agreed that, as Biden has repeatedly put it, “this is not your father’s Republican Party.” And then…. he told his most vicious lie, this one about the modern day press corps. "A number of reporters,” he told Wallace, “have indicated that there's no editors anymore." [Our editor demanded we note this portion of an otherwise staid interview.] After Wallace thanked the president for stopping by, Biden stood up and walked off the set behind the host as she read the tease for the next block. WHO DOESN’T LOVE NYC IN JUNE?: Members of the president’s inner circle rarely accompany him on trips. So it was noteworthy that presidential counselor STEVE RICCHETTI, senior adviser ANITA DUNN and deputy chief of staff BRUCE REED all flew Thursday with Biden to New York City, where he dropped by 30 Rock ahead of two campaign fundraisers. Both communications director BEN LABOLT and press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE also made the trip. Hot tip to the crew, check out the best pizzeria in the city. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by the Wall Street Journal’s CHRISTIAN ROBLES and SARAH CHANEY GAMBON about the economy showing signs of a strong first quarter labor market. Consumer spending grew at 4.2 percent and gross domestic product rose by 2 percent, a slightly higher version than initially projected. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by NBC News’ PETER NICHOLAS and KATHERINE DOYLE about how Biden may be hard-pressed to find a similar amount of Republican endorsements that played an instrumental role in his 2020 victory. Republicans who had grown exhausted by the Trump years and hoped Biden would help dial back the country’s partisan fever said they were disappointed they never received much engagement or follow-up from the president’s team after winning the White House. THAT BEING SAID: This is an all-time classic CHRIS SHAYS quote from the above piece. "Once the election was over, the Biden administration clearly had no interest in cultivating a relationship with former Republican members of Congress… I view this as a lost opportunity for someone we all respected. To this day, I wonder if Joe is fully aware of this.”' Yes, the president, famously full of free time, has dropped the ball on cultivating a relationship with the key voting bloc of [checks notes] former elected officials from the opposing party. THE BUREAUCRATS PERSONNEL MOVES: GIULIA SICCARDO is now director of the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains at the Department of Energy. She most recently was a partner at McKinsey. Agenda Setting SOFT LANDING: The Department of Education is preparing to implement a “safety net period” which will provide student loan borrowers with a three-month window for missed payments once loans are due in October, our MICHAEL STRATFORD reports. The administration agreed to restart student loan payments as part of the debt ceiling deal brokered with House Speaker KEVIN MCCARTHY earlier this month. The grace period comes as many borrowers are likely also bracing for the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of Biden’s student debt forgiveness program. What We're Reading State affirmative action bans helped White, Asian students, hurt others (WaPo's Janice Kai Chen and Daniel Wolfe) Republicans’ Problem in Attacking Biden: They Helped Pass His Economic Bills (NYT's Jonathan Weisman and Reid J. Epstein) Tens of thousands of Pa. mail ballots will be thrown out in the 2024 presidential election (The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Leo Cassel-Siskind) The Oppo Book Diplomacy can be tricky. Just ask KURT CAMPBELL, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for the Indo-Pacific. Campbell was left scrambling to smooth over relations with the Japanese government after they found out the U.S. was not planning to serve food at a summit due to Covid-19 protocols. According to BEN TERRIS’ book “The Big Break,” in an effort to save face, Campbell suggested the U.S. serve sandwiches. The Japanese came back with a counter-request: pancakes. Eventually they settled “on the biggest fucking hamburgers known to man,” Campbell said. In the end, no one even touched the burgers. Maybe give Tatte catering a try next time? POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER Hoover circled the world five times by age 40 — pretty impressive considering there were no overseas flights in those days! A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send it to us, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it! Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.   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.       Follow us on Twitter Eli Stokols @EliStokols Lauren Egan @Lauren_V_Egan Lawrence Ukenye @Lawrence_Ukenye   Follow us

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