Biden’s emoji czars

From: POLITICO West Wing Playbook - Tuesday Oct 26,2021 10:16 pm

Oct 26, 2021

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REEMA DODIN, a deputy director in Biden’s office of legislative affairs, has spent the past year negotiating bills worth trillions of dollars. CHARLIE ANDERSON, director of economic policy and budget for the Covid-19 response team, has been at the forefront of the White House’s attempts to move the economy past the pandemic.

But the two friends and former Senate staffers are also responsible for a recent decision that, for Democratic digital strategists at least, could be equally game changing: the international roll-out of the donkey emoji across computers, phones, websites, and more.

No, this is not a joke.

In 2019, Anderson and Dodin thought it was unfair that there was an elephant emoji — the symbol of the GOP — but not a donkey one that Democrats could type. With an eye on the 2020 elections, Anderson co-authored and submitted a proposal to the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit group made up of representatives from many of the world’s largest technology companies, which tightly regulates the universe of cartoon-like digital images that are now ubiquitous. Each year, the group considers submissions of potential new emojis.

Dodin’s name is not on the 2019 donkey proposal that Anderson submitted independent of their jobs in the Senate at the time. But she was involved in drafting it, according to people involved in the project.

Asked if Dodin or Anderson were available for an interview, the White House did not respond. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“As one of the most important animals in the history of mankind — they have, quite literally, borne us across the world — DONKEYS deserve an emoji of their own,” they wrote with unbridled enthusiasm. “In addition to being a political symbol for the Democratic Party in the United States, the DONKEY has a long and storied history from classical literature to recent pop culture to everyday use as a beast of burden in agrarian societies.”

As evidence of the animal’s importance, they cited Eeyore from Winnie The Pooh, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Egyptian tombs for mules, CLINT EASTWOOD’s 2018 movie “The Mule,” and more. :-o

Their pitch was rejected. :-(

They resubmitted the proposal. After a late September vote that was just made public, the donkey was added to the provisional list of emojis to be approved for next year (the provisional lists are usually adopted). Each operating system adds emojis on their own timetable so the donkey and other new emojis will be rolled out through 2022.

Dodin and Anderson’s guide through this journey was JENNIFER 8. LEE — the former New York Times journalist. A self-described “emoji activist” who produced a documentary about emojis, Lee co-authored the donkey proposal and is now a vice-chair of the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee. Through trips to the Sundance film festival, Lee, Anderson, and Dodin all became friends. And Lee’s emoji evangelism ultimately convinced Anderson and Dodin that emojis are powerful modes of communication that can cut through language and cultural divides in the digital era.

“Donkeys have been a humble and hardworking companion of humans for over five millennia all around the world, so I'd always thought they deserved emoji recognition — but you really need passion to bring an emoji proposal to fruition,” Lee told West Wing Playbook. “Then I mentioned it to Reema Dodin and Charlie Anderson, and they had that passion. So after a very long multi-year journey, the donkey emoji seems poised to cross the finish line onto the emoji keyboards in 2022.”

Democrats are already planning to take advantage of the new image in their email, social media, and texting communications.

“This is the mane emoji to help Democrats show their excitement about the Build Back Better agenda and electing Democrats up and down the ballot,” said LUCAS ACOSTA, senior spokesperson and coalitions director at the Democratic National Committee. “So don’t mule it over, use this emoji and hoof it over to the polls.”

Now we need an emoji for bad puns. (－‸ლ)

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PRESIDENTIAL TRIVIA

Courtesy of the White House Historical Association

Which president commissioned work for the White House from Italian-born artist CONSTANTINO BRUMIDI?

(Answer at the bottom.)

The Oval

SCOOP — The DNC has brought on American Bridge alum ZACH HUDSON on a contract to help out with rapid response, a DNC source familiar with the hire told West Wing Playbook. A notable connection: Hudson worked together with White House deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES while at American Bridge.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: On Twitter and behind the scenes, White House officials were very excited about this LAUREN HIRSCH story in The New York Times on Tyson Foods workers getting vaccinated. The point: mandates work.

“Less than half of Tyson’s work force was inoculated when it announced on Aug. 3 that it would require vaccines. Nearly 60,000 more Tyson employees got the shot following the announcement,” the company’s chief executive told the Times. The White House’s BEN WAKANA and KEVIN MUNOZ both tweeted out the story.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: No one from the White House shared JIM TANKERSLEY’s piece today in The New York Times with the ominous headline, “Rising Prices, Once Seen as Temporary, Threaten Biden’s Agenda.”

“An inflation surge is presenting a fresh challenge for Mr. Biden, who for months insisted that rising prices were a temporary hangover from the pandemic recession and would quickly recede. Instead, the president and his aides are now bracing for high inflation to persist into next year,” Tankersley wrote.

JASON FURMAN , the former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, gave a spicy quote that will catch the White House’s attention. “The original sin was an oversized American Rescue Plan. It contributed to both higher output but also higher prices,” he said.

The Biden take: JARED BERNSTEIN , a member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, told the Times: “It is a highly incomplete view to try to assess the economy, and even people’s views about the economy, by looking at inflation alone...You also have to appreciate the robustness of the expansion, and how it’s lifting job and earnings opportunities.”

WEST WING LOVE: “If you join the press team, you get married,” press secretary JEN PSAKI said at today’s briefing, a nod to assistant press secretary EMILIE SIMONS. Simons, a former aide to House Intelligence Committee Chairman ADAM SCHIFF, is getting married on Saturday and was presented with a bride-to-be sash and some fun Psaki quotes like, ”nobody can call or email Emilie while she’s gone on her honeymoon,” and “she can throw her phone in the river.”

Deputy press secretary CHRIS MEAGHER just got married in California, and was also given a groom-to-be sash and a button at a briefing earlier this month. And Bates got engaged to White House director of research MEGAN APPER last month. They also have a cute new rescue cat, so you know it’s serious.

MEA CULPA: Yesterday, we wrote that LARRY SUMMERS had deleted his Twitter thread criticizing the administration’s handling of inflation. He deleted one of the tweets in which he misspelled PAUL VOLCKER’s name as Volker. He didn’t delete the whole thread. He updated it earlier today, writing he had “inadvertently deleted.”

MEA CULPA, Part II: Monday’s edition said KARINE JEAN-PIERRE was the first openly gay spokesperson to lead a White House briefing, but it was, of course, ERIC SCHULTZ who made history there. Jean-Pierre is the first openly gay woman to lead a briefing.

JOIN WEDNESDAY FOR A PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW WITH SEN. MARK WARNER : President Joe Biden's ambitious domestic agenda is in political limbo as the White House tries to reach a deal among congressional Democrats to vote on a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Join Playbook co-author Ryan Lizza for a conversation with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who helped write the bipartisan infrastructure bill, to discuss the fate of Biden's legislative agenda, including the more comprehensive reconciliation package as well as Virginia's tight gubernatorial race and what its outcome could mean for the Democratic Party. REGISTER HERE.

Agenda Setting

TOKE UP DC?! Biden has long resisted the pro-cannabis wing of his party. In the 60’s, Biden was the sort of guy who wore a sports coat to his law school classes, as he wrote in his memoir. So it wasn’t a surprise that his first budget released earlier this year continued to prohibit Washington, D.C. from setting up a regulated cannabis industry. His White House was still not hiring some aides based on their prior drug use.

But the Democratic-controlled Senate and House have stripped that prohibition, known as the “Harris Rider,” out of their appropriations bills. And the White House is staying mum on it.

An administration official told West Wing Playbook that Biden “strongly” supports D.C. statehood, which would essentially render the Harris Rider useless. But the official did not answer follow-ups on whether the White House would push to have the rider added back in during the budget reconciliation process in Congress. — WITH NATALIE FERTIG (follow her here!)

Filling the Ranks

MEET THE BROADBAND VANGUARD — The president plans to tap acting Federal Communications Commission Chair JESSICA ROSENWORCEL as the agency's permanent chief, ending months of cliffhanger drama about the choice, writes JOHN HENDEL, who previewed the announcement last night.

Biden bundled the long-awaited announcement with his decisions to nominate veteran public interest heavyweights GIGI SOHN for the sole open FCC commissioner seat and ALAN DAVIDSON to head the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a key telecom policy role in the Commerce Department.

Advise and Consent

ICYMI — The Senate last night confirmed voting rights expert MYRNA PEREZ to be a judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals — where she’ll be the only Latino on the court. It was a party-line vote.

Senators also voted 50-41 to confirm DOUGLAS PARKER as an assistant secretary of Labor. Republican Sens. SUSAN COLLINS (Maine) and ROB PORTMAN (Ohio) joined all the Democrats present in voting “aye.”

What We're Reading

Immigration arrests fell to lowest levels in more than a decade (Washington Post’s Nick Miroff and Maria Sacchetti)

Tiny Nicaragua is becoming a big problem for Joe Biden (POLITICO’s Nahal Toosi)

AP Fact Check: Biden tale of Amtrak conductor doesn’t add up (AP’s Hope Yen and Calvin Woodward)

INTRODUCING CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. GET A FIRST LOOK AT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.

Where's Joe

The president participated virtually in the U.S.-ASEAN Summit. Afterward, he had lunch with Vice President KAMALA HARRIS.

This evening, he heads to Virginia Highlands Park in Arlington to campaign with Virginia gubernatorial candidate TERRY MCAULIFFE.

Where's Kamala

Aside from having lunch with the president, she has no public events scheduled.

The Oppo Book

Harris’ chief economic adviser, MICHAEL PYLE, said that career-wise he’s always looking for “the steepest hill” to climb — but he’s often a bit conflicted about his own ambitious instinct.

The former BlackRock investment strategist and Obama administration alum said in 2020 that he often regrets tough jobs after he accepts them.

“My wife says that whenever I take a new job I always say a couple of months in that ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake,’” he said. “It can be so uncomfortable running up hills in the early days of a big new challenge.” But from the dread comes “the growth and fun,” he said.

Asked if he felt a similar foreboding at the outset of his current job in the VP’s office, a spokesperson for Harris did not respond.

Trivia Answer

Former President ULYSSES S. GRANT commissioned two pieces from Brumidi for the renovated Entrance Hall of the White House.

Union by Constantino Brumidi

Union by Constantino Brumidi | Courtesy of the White House Historical Association

AND A CALL OUT — Do you have a harder trivia question about the presidency? Send us your best one and we may use it: westwingtips@politico.com.

We want your trivia, but we also want your feedback. What should we be covering in this newsletter that we’re not? What are we getting wrong? Please let us know.

Edited by Emily Cadei

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