Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina ERIC LANDER, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and a member of JOE BIDEN’s Cabinet, is getting on people’s nerves inside the West Wing. In the latest incident to cause a stir, Lander went around the White House’s Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) after the administration and Democratic congressional leaders cut down the $30 billion proposal for future pandemic planning that was originally included in the American Jobs Plan. Lander furiously lobbied senators to increase the funding, according to several officials familiar with the matter. As one of them put it, Lander was, “Not on the administration’s message and went rogue.” The breach of protocol — not working through OLA and trying to change the framework after a deal had been struck — further deteriorated what had already been a rocky dynamic with many in the building, according to six officials with knowledge of the matter. A White House official disputed that there was a rift, writing that “engagement with the Hill has been done in coordination with WH OLA.” Over the course of 2021, Lander has frustrated many colleagues by trying to insert himself into almost any science-related issue across the federal government, even if there’s only a tangential connection to his office. In meetings, he can be divisive and prompt eyerolls by frequently beginning sentences with “as the president’s science adviser.” He’s also had trouble walking the line between dumbing down scientific issues so non-experts can understand them and acting like the people he’s talking to are dumb, sources said. The concerns about Lander within the administration have grown to the point that there are ongoing discussions about how to constructively address them, said one person with knowledge of the dynamic. “He’s a disaster,” said another one of the people with knowledge of the dynamic, who described Lander as clashing with officials across several White House offices as well as within the Health and Human Services Department and at the Pentagon. Others conceded that while Lander has frustrated many people, the sentiment was not universal and many consider him a good guy and brilliant. A pioneering mathematician and geneticist, Lander is a former Rhodes scholar who won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant at age 30 and went on to become one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project in the 1990s. Importantly, he has a fan in the president. During the transition, it was clear from the beginning that Biden would pick Lander for the science adviser post, according to one official familiar with his consideration. When Biden launched the Biden Cancer Initiative in 2017, he named Lander to the board of directors (Covid czar JEFF ZIENTS was also on the board). But Lander has been a polarizing figure within the scientific community. Stat News wrote a piece in 2016 headlined: “Why Eric Lander morphed from science god to punching bag.” In January 2021, a progressive group called "500 Women Scientists" wrote an open letter in Scientific American arguing that Lander “is not the ideal choice for presidential science adviser.” Asked for comment regarding the internal complaints about Lander, a White House official sent a statement: “Director Lander’s background and expertise – including his important work before the administration on COVID-19 response issues — are a critical asset to the President’s work to help prepare the United States for future pandemics." Some officials also argued that Lander was set up for failure. Biden’s decision to elevate OSTP to a Cabinet-level agency — which was meant to emphasize the White House’s commitment to science — technically put Lander on par with the secretaries of major departments like Health and Human Services. But OSTP has few resources and little power, meaning Lander has been fighting turf battles from the beginning. That is partly what prompted his Hill lobbying on future pandemic planning. In September, Lander produced a proposal alongside the National Security Council for a $65 billion “Apollo”-style revamp of the government’s biodefense and pandemic readiness — and argued that Congress should allocate an initial $15 billion for it as part of its social spending package. But it’s yet to gain much traction on the Hill. When the House unveiled its final $1.75 trillion bill, it put roughly $10 billion toward pandemic preparedness-related issues — with most going instead toward shoring up the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as existing state and local public health departments. A person with knowledge of the process said it’s “very unclear if any” of Lander’s work with the NSC “will be funded.” INTRODUCING ‘POTUS PUZZLER’ — Regular readers of this newsletter know we try to keep our trivia questions fun, really difficult, and a little nerdy. Starting this week, we are partnering with the Miller Center of Public Affairs, a nonpartisan research center and preeminent authority on the American presidency based at the University of Virginia, to help us test your White House know-how. BUT, BUT, BUT: We have been pleasantly surprised by the stupendous reader-submitted trivia we’ve received, so we are going to keep featuring a POTUS Puzzler from a reader every Wednesday (which is today!). Keep sending us your toughest, most fun presidential questions. And thanks for reading. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you OSASUMWEN Z. DORSEY, ethics counsel? 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