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 Max Even JENNIFER RUBIN thinks JOE BIDEN is in trouble. “Biden needs a reset. Here’s how he can do it,” read her headline on this morning’s Washington Post column , usually a reliable go-to for the Biden-sympathetic worldview. “Democrats need Biden to correct course — promptly,” Rubin wrote, describing Biden’s presidency as “rocky.” She’s not alone. Over the past several weeks many of the staunchest Biden defenders in the media have soured on the administration’s current direction. New York Times columnist DAVID BROOKS, who penned an August column with the headline “The Biden Approach is Working” and a November column with the headline “Biden is Succeeding,” tweeted last week that “Today is the day for Biden to begin revamping his presidency in a more centrist direction. There’s no path forward for a leftish agenda.” Fellow Times columnist TOM FRIEDMAN even thinks Biden should consider replacing KAMALA HARRIS with Rep. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wy.) in 2024. Former Hardball host CHRIS MATTHEWS, who declared Biden will be "a good president for our time," emerged from his relative silence to tweet in January that the country was heading “too far left.” Depending on who you ask, the critiques are either evidence that Biden does need to break with the left-wing activists who are overrepresented on Twitter; or the classic whinings of clueless Beltway pundits. Either way, Biden is losing the confidence of commentators he and his team have long valued. Brooks’ opinion doesn’t matter to many elected Democrats, but it matters to Biden himself. Brooks told West Wing Playbook that he identifies as a “conservative Democrat.” It’s been a journey though. He started off his career as an intern for WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. and has been one of the Times’ most well-known right-leaning voices for years. He’s also one of the only American political pundits Biden regularly quotes by name, and has the unlikely honor of being the only person from the New York Times to interview Biden on the record in his first year in office. The way Brooks sees it, Biden’s aggressive rhetoric on voting rights—in which he compared current opponents of Democratic legislation to old school segregationists from the 60s— represents how he has strayed from his roots as a moderate. Brooks believes the president risks alienating moderate voters with legislative pushes that are dead-on-arrival in the Senate, where he believes the White House mishandled relationships with Senators JOE MANCHIN (D-W.Va.) and KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.). “It's been revealed as a fact that starting with Bernie Sanders and moving toward the center hoping you could win over a browbeaten Manchin and Sinema — it strikes me that strategy has not worked,” Brooks said in a telephone interview. And then there’s JOSH BARRO. One of the most vocal early proponents of Biden’s 2020 candidacy, whom chief of staff RON KLAIN reads and occasionally retweets, Barro has recently been withering about Biden’s moves. “What Biden is doing here makes absolutely no goddamn sense,” he tweeted last week about Biden’s speech pushing a voting rights bill that faces bleak odds. “Is the messaging objective here to highlight an area where Democrats aren’t getting their agenda passed? To convince voters Democrats are bogged down in process issues instead of…resolving ongoing disruptions to life? To get Democratic officeholders mad at each other?” After briefly supporting Sen. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-Minn.) for president, Barro argued that Biden was not only the most palatable choice to 2020 primary voters, but was uniquely positioned to run as an alternative to DONALD TRUMP. He repeatedly wrote that the former vice president represented the desires of the Democratic base, and was the most electable candidate in swing states, even noting that Biden’s diet was more relatable to key swing voters. But these days, the columnist and author of the "Very Serious" newsletter has his doubts. While he thinks Biden has been effective in countering the supply chain crisis and addressing the recent Covid-19 testing shortage, he also believes the president has gravitated away from his message of restoring normalcy and addressing economic uncertainty. “The top issue for voters is the economy,” Barro said in an interview. “So every day that you’re talking about voting rights legislation, you do not appear to be focused on the economic problem that’s the number one issue for voters.” The Biden White House has long felt it hasn’t gotten a fair shake from the press, believing reporters are too focused on palace intrigue stories and not on items detailing how the administration’s policies are affecting people. But the most recent round of criticism is coming from the one corner of mainstream media the White House has openly embraced. As West Wing Playbook previously noted, Rubin is a favorite of the West Wing, regularly garnering retweets from Klain and eyerolls from some of her Washington Post peers. For now, Rubin, Brooks, and Barro, are holding out hope that Biden will approach the second year of his administration like he did the Democratic primary: By ignoring criticism from the left and focusing on economic policies with support among the moderate wing of the Democratic party. “I still like Joe Biden,” Barro said. “The reason I hate watching him fuck up so much is I don’t think he needs to.” SEND YOUR HAWT TAKE — We want to incorporate more of your feedback. Is there something we missed in today’s edition? Do you have a tip to share or a thought on our coverage? Send us an email or text and we will try to include your feedback in the next day’s edition. Can be anonymous, on background, etc. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? 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