Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Max JOE BIDEN’s communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD made her first ever appearance at the White House briefing room lectern on Tuesday. It may not be her last. People inside and outside the administration were buzzing about whether Bedingfield’s appearance was as a one-off — given that KARINE JEAN-PIERRE and JEN PSAKI have Covid-19 — or a dress rehearsal to be Psaki’s successor. According to three people familiar with previous discussions, Bedingfield expressed interest in the past about the press secretary job, and discussed the possibility of taking it during the transition. She received plenty of television exposure during the 2020 campaign (occasionally booking her own appearances on cable news). In response, a White House source didn’t dispute that Bedingfield had been interested in the gig before Biden assumed office but had “not been positioning for that or expressing interest in it during the administration.” Bedingfield’s debut comes as Psaki has been having discussions with cable networks about potential post-administration moves, as Puck first reported. MSNBC is still seen as the likely network landing spot for Psaki when she departs the White House. Bedingfield quipped at the top of the briefing today that she was “not the redhead you’re accustomed to seeing here.” And she was careful not to make news when she didn’t want to — “I don’t have more to add from this podium,” being her preferred deflection tactic. She also called on a wide range of reporters from different outlets who can ask unpredictable questions. Bedingfield’s advantage in potentially replacing Psaki is that she is often referred to as a “Biden person.” She worked with him in 2015 when he was vice president and was communications director during the 2020 primary campaign, which senior associate communications director MATT HILL pointed out today on Twitter. Technically, communications director is a higher position than press secretary but being the face of the administration comes with an extra stature. Psaki, for one, had already been a White House communications director when she took her current role. When she was passed over for press secretary in 2014, Psaki said she was “devastated.” Other contenders to be Psaki’s replacement, like Jean-Pierre or Pentagon press secretary JOHN KIRBY, are well-liked but don’t have that same long-standing relationship with Biden. Across the administration and among some Democrats outside it, Kirby is seen as a reliable communicator who makes few errors; someone who could be a natural choice if the war in Ukraine drags on. Jean-Pierre is the principal deputy press secretary, has experience at the podium, and would be a history-making choice as the first openly gay, Black woman to formally occupy the role. Other White House sources note that Biden as vice president often surprised people with the communications hires he made, such as bringing in reporter-turned-flack JAY CARNEY. Bedingfield’s loyalty to Biden, while an asset, has sometimes led to clashes with others who joined his orbit later. She recently was featured in an excerpt of the forthcoming book by The New York Times’ JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEX BURNS, casting doubt on Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ ability to run a tight political ship. In the summer of 2020, when JEN O’MALLEY DILLON (often referred to as JOD) cooperated on a Washington Post profile with the headline “How Jennifer O’Malley Dillon Transformed Joe Biden’s Campaign,” Bedingfield complained directly to Biden about the story and gave an “earful” to O’Malley Dillon, according to the book “Lucky” by JONATHAN ALLEN and AMIE PARNES. The piece had cast the Biden primary team as an “undisciplined and dysfunctional Democratic primary operation” before O’Malley Dillon arrived, despite the fact that she didn’t take over until after they had essentially won the primary. “The communications director was upset about what she saw as the diminishment of her own role,” Allen and Parnes wrote. “Now, O’Malley Dillon had done a profile with a major newspaper — one that Biden didn’t like — without looping in Bedingfield and the rest of the communications team. It was hard for O’Malley Dillon to separate Bedingfield’s proximate complaint about the story from the broader sense that Bedingfield had always viewed her as an interloper in Bidenworld.” As for the current state of JOD-Bedingfield affairs, a White House official told West Wing Playbook: “They have a good relationship and obviously work very closely.” One resume line that Bedingfield does have, should she formally push for the press secretary gig, is that she comes from a journalism family. Her father, SID BEDINGFIELD, was a longtime CNN executive who became executive editor of CNN News Group and the deputy to WALTER ISAACSON, the network’s then-chairman and chief executive. He is now an associate professor of journalism at the University of Minnesota. He did not respond to an email. TEXT US — Are you SID BEDINGFIELD? We want to hear from you (we’ll keep you anonymous). Or if you think we missed something in today’s edition, let us know and we may include it tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com or you can text/Signal/Wickr/WhatsApp Alex at 8183240098 or Max at 7143455427.
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