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Presented by PatientRightsAdvocate.org: | | | | |  | | By Alex Thompson and Max Tani | Presented by PatientRightsAdvocate.org | Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Alex | Email Max The JOVANNI ORTIZ story is weirder than we previously knew. After we reported earlier this week about White House reporters getting barraged with anonymous tips floating Ortiz, the manager of community outreach and engagement for the Department of Public Safety at Hofstra University, for a senior role in Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ office, many people reached out to share their own odd interactions and anecdotes. Together they show modern methods of media manipulation in the digital and social media space that can trip up reporters and elected officials too. Here are some of the Ortiz-related stories people sent: 1. Last November, The New York Times reported a story on Democrats struggling in Nassau County on Long Island. To explain the recent setbacks, the reporters interviewed several local voices, including Ortiz, whom they identified as the founder of “South Shore Democrats.” He’s appeared under that title on local news panels as well. The only problem: “South Shore Democrats” doesn’t really exist. The organization has well-maintained social media pages on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook with the Democratic Party’s logo that often post statements from Ortiz with his title along with photos of New York Democrats. Local Democrats who have asked Ortiz about participating in the group’s meetings have been told that the group isn’t holding any, for now. And the state Democratic Party told West Wing Playbook that the group is not part of the Democratic party. “Yes we can confirm that the ‘South Shore Democrats’ are not affiliated in any way with the Nassau County Democratic Committee,” said CHRIS MELNYCZUK, the chief of staff to New York State Democratic Party and Nassau County party Chair, JAY JACOBS, whom Ortiz has criticized in the past. “We believe it to be a fabricated organization consisting of a single member,” Melnyczuk said. 2. One of the tipsters that floated Ortiz for the job in Harris’ office went by the name “Jon DiMasi.” It turns out that Messieurs Ortiz and DiMasi have a longer history. JEFF COLTIN, a senior reporter at City & State New York ( you can follow him here), wrote to us: “Here’s a tip from March 10, 2021 from ‘Jon DiMasi’ that Ortiz was being looked at for a city comptroller campaign….Jovanni (presumably?) was doing this with local reporters before he went national.”
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Email from Jon DiMasi | 3. Ortiz’s methods have scored him some victories. Beyond getting quoted in the Times and having The Hill report he was potentially joining Harris’ office, Ortiz also got a letter of recommendation from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus for a job in the Biden administration during the transition, according to a copy of the letter obtained by West Wing Playbook. “We respectfully request your thorough and full consideration of Jovanni Ortiz to serve in the administration,” wrote Rep. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-Tex), then the chair of the CHC. “We are eager to work with you to promote our shared goals of diversity and ensuring the most qualified individuals are afforded the same opportunity to serve all Americans.” A spokesperson for Castro told us that, “In his capacity as chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Congressman Castro wrote to the Biden-Harris Transition Team to highlight hundreds of Hispanic candidates who were eager to serve in the new administration, including Mr. Ortiz. These letters were part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s work to increase diversity within the federal government and the letter concerning Mr. Ortiz did not put forth a recommendation for a specific position.” Ortiz did not respond to requests for comment. BREAKING: CLOSE BUT NOT NYET — President JOE BIDEN gave brief remarks about the escalating tensions between Russia and Ukraine today, in which he offered definitively his belief that VLADIMIR PUTIN is intent on going to war within the next week, NAHAL TOOSI and MYAH WARD report. “As of this moment, I'm convinced he's made the decision. We have reason to believe that,” said Biden. “We believe they’re going to attack Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million people,” the president added. Pressed a bit more, Biden said that avenues for diplomacy remained open until any invasion took place. But, he added, those avenues would become firmly closed should an invasion actually happen. He strongly insinuated that a planned meeting between Secretary of State ANTHONY BLINKEN and Russian Foreign Minister SERGEY LAVROV, set for the 24th, would be called off under such conditions. “Russia can still choose diplomacy,” Biden added. “It is not too late to de-escalate and return to the negotiating table.” PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off this Monday for President’s Day — West Wing Playbook’s favorite holiday, obvi — but will be back in your inboxes on Tuesday, Feb. 25.
We know you will miss us.
xoxo, Alex & Max TEXT US — Are you MICHAEL FUCHS, deputy chief of staff for Vice President KAMALA HARRIS who’s with her in Germany right now? Send us an email or text and we will try to include your thoughts in the next day’s edition. Can be anonymous, on background, etc.Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal Alex at 8183240098 or Max at 7143455427. WHAT YOU TEXTED — Yesterday’s top on the family of PAUL RUSESABAGINA, the inspiration for the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” lobbying top Biden officials to get him released from prison, prompted a few responses, including from the Rwandan government itself. A spokesperson for the Rwandan government strongly pushed back on our piece, saying that by "presenting such a biased view of this case, told from the perspective of a convicted terrorist’s family member," West Wing Playbook "deprives your readers of the facts. It also shows a double standard, as we believe you wouldn’t run such a story about a man convicted of terrorism offences in, say, the United States or Europe." Freelance magazine journalist JOSHUA HAMMER also wrote in saying his piece in the New York Times Magazine last year offered reasons why the Biden administration might be approaching the case cautiously. MEA CULPA: Yesterday, we reported “Hotel Rwanda” was an Oscar-winning film. Actually, it was Oscar-nominated. But that’s only because DON CHEADLE was robbed!
| | A message from PatientRightsAdvocate.org: New PatientRightsAdvocate.org report shows that only 14% of hospitals are complying with the Price Transparency Rule that has been in place for more than a year. That means 86% are hiding their prices, not letting consumers compare and save. It’s time for hospitals to unleash the data and compete. Everyone benefits when we all can compare prices in advance of care. | | | | | | From the University of Virginia’s Miller Center Which president said he “spent hour after hour after hour studying the structure of the Federal Government in preparation of the budgets and really did a lot of detailed work on the budgets because I felt that this was one of the managerial weapons or tools that I had to exert my influence in a definitive way”? Sounds like a potential micromanager. (Answer at the bottom.)
| | | Every Friday, we’ll feature a cartoon of the week — this one is courtesy of ERIC ALLIE. Our very own MATT WUERKER also publishes a selection of cartoons from all over the country. View the cartoon carousel here.
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Cartoon | Eric Allie/Courtesy of Counterpoint | | | | WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: The White House was psyched about this profile of White House counsel DANA REMUS by NPR today. And who can blame them? The piece begins: “White House counsel Dana Remus is working around the clock to help President Biden make history — logging hours on the phones, meeting with Republicans and supervising background checks so he can fulfill his promise to nominate a Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.” WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary LARRY SUMMERS has been making his feelings known about the White House deliberations over a possible federal gas tax holiday to lower high prices at the pump as Democrats fret over the midterms. “We are plumbing the depths of new bad ideas with that one,” Summers told Bloomberg on Friday. “There needs to be a lesson learned about gimmicks that poll well. They’re like sugar highs, they make you feel good but they really often don’t redound to anybody’s substantial political benefit,” NEWEST ADDITIONS: The White House has added two White House regional communications directors to their comms shop — DHARA NAYYAR (@DharaNayyar46) and HARIS TALWAR (@HarisTalwar46). As we reported in November, the regional comms team has been short-staffed for several months.
| | | AMBASSADOR TAI — After a small business roundtable discussion yesterday hosted by Mastercard, a source tells us that U.S. Trade Representative KATHERINE TAI joined Mastercard’s chief inclusion officer for a private meeting with a group of Mastercard employees of Asian American descent. Tai is the only AAPI member of the Cabinet besides Vice President Harris and is co-chair of White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. THE DOCTOR IS OUT: Surgeon General VIVEK MURTHY announced today that he and many members of his family all have Covid. Read his thread here. EXIT: Treasury’s deputy chief of staff ALFRED JOHNSON is departing the administration and will be replaced by ADITI HARDIKAR, our friends at POLITICO’s Morning Money first reported.
| | | | BECOME A GLOBAL INSIDER: The world is more connected than ever. It has never been more essential to identify, unpack and analyze important news, trends and decisions shaping our future — and we’ve got you covered! Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Global Insider author Ryan Heath navigates the global news maze and connects you to power players and events changing our world. Don’t miss out on this influential global community. Subscribe now. | | | | | | | | BIPARTISAN SCOTUS FEELERS — The president’s team has been reaching out to Republican lawmakers for SCOTUS nominee support cautiously, wary of setting expectations that end in failure, MARIANNE LeVINE and CHRISTOPHER CADELAGO report. Officials are trying to handle conversations with GOP lawmakers delicately in a way that avoids unwanted attention.
Aides have already had to push back on Republican criticism over the president’s pledge to choose a Black woman to replace retiring Justice STEPHEN BREYER . Outside of that, the substantive discussions between the two parties are unfolding entirely behind closed doors and mostly between staffers.
SHERPA IN ACTION: White House SCOTUS nomination adviser for communications BEN LABOLT tweeted out a picture of former Alabama Democratic Sen. DOUG JONES , hard at work as the president’s Capitol Hill liaison for the Supreme Court nomination process, making calls to lawmakers.
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Former Sen. Doug Jones makes a phone call | Ben LaBolt/Twitter |
| | | | A message from PatientRightsAdvocate.org:   | | | | | | Biden admin tells Congress they need about $5B to continue fighting Covid overseas (POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein and Erin Banco) U.S. paves way for resumption of Mexico avocado exports (Associated Press) Russia planning post-invasion arrest and assassination campaign in Ukraine, U.S. officials say (Foreign Policy’s Robbie Gramer)
| | | Interior Secretary DEB HAALAND will be on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with JONATHAN CAPEHART this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET. Pentagon Press Secretary JOHN KIRBY will be on Fox News Sunday with guest host BILL HEMMER this Sunday at 9 a.m. ET (we wrote about Kirby’s rising star and Fox appearances earlier this week). Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN will sit for a virtual Q&A with Foreign Affairs on Thursday, February 24 at 10:30 a.m. ET.
| | | The president received the daily brief in the morning. He also held a phone call with foreign leaders to discuss the latest on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Leaders on the call included Canada Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU, European Commission President URSULA VON DER LEYEN, European Council President CHARLES MICHEL, French President EMMANUEL MACRON, German Chancellor OLAF SCHOLZ, Italian Prime Minister MARIO DRAGHI, NATO Secretary General JENS STOLTENBERG, Polish President ANDRZEJ DUDA, Romanian President KLAUS IOHANNIS and U.K. Prime Minister BORIS JOHNSON. Following that, he provided an update on the situation in the Ukraine in the Roosevelt Room.
| | | In Munich, Germany, where she held a bilateral meeting with NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg. She also held a multilateral meeting with Latvian President EGILS LEVITS, Lithuanian President GITANAS NAUSEDA and Estonian Prime Minister KAJA KALLAS. Harris aides attending the meeting included national security adviser NANCY MCELDOWNEY, deputy national security adviser PHIL GORDON, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs KAREN DONFRIED and deputy chief of staff MICHAEL FUCHS.
| | | | DON’T MISS 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. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | | | | MIGUEL CARDONA may now be leading Biden’s Education Department, but he wasn’t always a model student. On his first day of kindergarten, he confessed he threw a fit. “That day, I ended up in the nurse’s office crying, and I had to go home early,” he told EdWeek back in Jan. 2021 . “I never wanted to go back. Here I am, 40 years later, and I’m having mixed emotions about leaving the place I love,” referring to the Connecticut school he attended and used to work for.
| | | JIMMY CARTER said this in his November 1982 oral history interview with the Miller Center. For President Carter’s complete oral history, visit millercenter.org, visit millercenter.org. A CALL OUT — Do you have a better trivia question? Send us your hardest trivia question on the presidents and we may feature it on Wednesdays. Edited by Emily Cadei | | A message from PatientRightsAdvocate.org: It took scientists less than a year to create a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine.
Meanwhile, hospital execs have had more than a year to comply with the Hospital Price Transparency Rule and 86% of them are still hiding their prices from consumers.
This isn’t brain surgery. It’s a no-brainer. It’s time to enforce the rule and tell the rich hospital executives to show the American people their prices, unleash competition, and allow us to shop for the best quality of care at prices we can afford. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
