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 President JOE BIDEN will be spending his 45th Thanksgiving on Nantucket this year — a tradition broken only by the pandemic and the death of his son BEAU BIDEN. The family has been spending Thanksgiving there since 1975, when Biden was a first-term senator and a single dad to two boys. It was there, Biden wrote in the first chapter of his 2017 memoir “Promise Me, Dad,” that he and JILL JACOBS, soon to be JILL BIDEN, “started to talk seriously about a future together.” It’s very clear that Biden loves the tradition, which he described as “splendid and enforced isolation” (probably a lot less true now that a Secret Service detail, comms staffers, and nosy reporters have joined them on the island). It’s also where Biden said Beau in November 2014 urged him to run for president. With its quaint New England charm, pristine beaches, and Hallmark-like settings, the small island off of Cape Cod has a reputation as a ritzy getaway. As they have in the past, the Bidens are renting the vacation home of billionaire DAVID RUBENSTEIN, the co-founder of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, and one of the richest, most well-connected men in Washington. Walk around town and you’ll see Rubenstein’s name adorned everywhere, including the David M. Rubenstein History Galleries at the National Museum of African American History and Culture and The David M. Rubenstein Family Giant Panda Habitat at the National Zoo. He’s also quietly fought to protect his immense wealth by pushing to keep "the so-called carried interest tax loophole,” as ProPublica reported in 2016. Biden has tried to take precautions to prevent the perception of a conflict of interest. He’s renting the house and as New York Times reporter ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS tweeted, Rubenstein will not be spending Thanksgiving with the Bidens. Still, the stay has provided fodder for critics, and not just because it’s coming at a time when Biden and congressional lawmakers are putting a final touch on a major bill that could impact the tax rates Rubenstein wanted to protect. Republicans were quick to criticize Biden’s posh retreat, casting it as out of touch with the “Scranton Joe” persona he has cultivated and off key at a time when families are struggling with higher prices for basic goods. Republicans in the House Judiciary Committee tweeted, “Joe Biden is enjoying his Thanksgiving at a billionaire’s home in Nantucket. Regular America? Enjoy the expensive gas and groceries!” And Fox News reporter PETER DOOCY grilled press secretary JEN PSAKI yesterday about the message Biden is sending by going to a billionaire’s home amid the “most expensive Thanksgiving ever.” “I don't know if you've ever cooked a turkey before, but a twenty-pound turkey is a pretty big turkey, I think we can all agree. They're about $1 more,” Psaki said. “So not to minimize that, any increase in prices is something the president is concerned about as is evidenced by his announcement today and his efforts to push forward on additional relief for the American people.” As for the specifics of Biden’s stay, the Nantucket Current has had the best coverage so far. ”Their Thanksgiving dinner will almost certainly be cooked by BILL PUDER at Faregrounds restaurant, who has prepared the holiday meal for the Bidens dozens of times over the years,” JASON GRAZIADEI writes. “Sources told the Current that Biden is also expected to once again attend the annual Christmas tree lighting event on Main Street this Friday, and potentially Catholic mass at the St. Mary church on Federal Street on Saturday.” This is all in line with Biden’s very detailed accounting of the tradition, which started as a way to deal with stressful competing holiday invitations. Back in 1975, Biden’s parents wanted him and Jill to join them in Wilmington, Del., Jill’s parents wanted them in Willow Grove, Penn. and the parents of his late first wife, Nelia, wanted Biden to bring their grandsons to upstate New York. It was Biden’s Senate chief of staff who suggested the then-senator have a “nuclear Thanksgiving,” or in his Boston-accent, a “nucle-aah Thanksgiving,” — meaning time for just the four of them on the island of Nantucket, Biden wrote. The family and their dog drove up in Biden’s jeep (he noted gas was 57 cents a gallon at the time, which we’re sure he wishes was the case now) to Hyannis, Mass., then loaded onto a ferry. HUNTER BIDEN and Beau passed the time by leafing through toy and clothing catalogs Jill had brought them to help compile their Christmas lists. The Bidens’ first Nantucket Thanksgiving dinner was at the Jared Coffin House, an inn built in 1846. And so a tradition was born. “The little trip in the Wagoneer grew into a caravan of two or three cars, with grandchildren shifting loyalties among the fleet in rest stops,” Biden wrote. “Then there was the final dash to catch the ferry, and hot chocolate or clam chowder for the ride across the water.” Upon arriving on the island, the family’s typical itinerary includes an annual 10-mile turkey trot (although Biden wrote that it was for “anyone who felt up to it” and he rode a bike); a visit to a saltbox house at Sconset Beach where the family took an annual photo on the porch by a carved wooden sign that read “FOREVER WILD”; the annual lighting of the Christmas tree; church at St. Mary’s and Christmas shopping at the town’s five blocks of shops. The annual photo of the saltbox home stopped in 2014, when the Bidens visited and found it “gone, a victim of rising ocean tides.” After dinner, “at whatever inn or house we were in,” the adults and children had to present their Christmas lists, with a maximum of ten items, although Biden himself would get in trouble for only writing two items sometimes, he wrote. “We had some great years in that span, and we had some lousy years, but whatever was happening, whatever bumps and bruises we were suffering, we put it all aside and celebrated Thanksgiving in Nantucket.” A NOTE OF THANKS — We are in a sentimental mood so we wanted to thank you, our readers. We started this as “Transition Playbook” just over a year ago, and it would have died after the transition if not for you continuing to read, giving us feedback, and sending us tips. Thank you. And thanks most of all to the people who leak to us. You know who you are. PROGRAMMING NOTE — We'll be off for Thanksgiving tomorrow and Friday but back to our normal schedule on Monday, Nov. 29. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you IAN J. MELLUL, associate director of presidential advance? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com . Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. Or you can text/Signal Alex at 8183240098. | 
