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 JEFF ZIENTS, the Biden administration’s outgoing “Covid czar,” gathered current and former members of his team at his home last Thursday night to say so long and toast them: it featured an open bar with a special Mezcal drink. His planned remarks saying goodbye to the team were so long he carried them in a binder, according to people there. Zients, whose departure dismayed some members of his team who had stayed on at his urging, is handing the reins this month to Brown University School of Public Health dean and Covid Twitter influencer ASHISH JHA. The transition comes amidst a lull in daily cases but before the country has fully beaten back the pandemic. Zients and other senior Covid officials have met with individual staffers since Jha’s hiring went public to gauge their plans and urge them to stay, multiple people familiar with the discussions said. And others on the team expect to stick around, seeing a chance at promotion amidst the shake-up. Zients has told people he will take a few months to chill out and rest. But there is widespread speculation within the administration that it’s only temporary and that the former director of the National Economic Council during the Obama administration will return at some point in a different role. Handicappers within the administration often guess White House chief of staff or Treasury secretary if either spot opens up after the midterm elections. Zients’ high standing in the West Wing has surprised some colleagues across the administration given what they see as stumbles with combatting Covid-19. They point to the premature “Independence from Covid-19” party on the White House lawn last July and the lack of available testing as the Omicron variant hit. But others in the administration say that Zients has maintained a good reputation because his team largely likes him and the president trusts him and his operational know-how. His defenders also point to his team’s oversight of rapid vaccine distribution last spring and the swift set-up of CovidTests.gov after the initial weeks of shortages. Those are just two elements of a sprawling pandemic response infrastructure that largely didn't exist before Zients' arrival. On Thursday, Zients and his deputy NATALIE QUILLIAN, who is also leaving, went around the room for over 30 minutes to say something about each member of the team, according to multiple sources who attended and told West Wing Playbook about the remarks. TIM MANNING, the team’s response supply coordinator, got a shout-out for his DJ skills — the team’s Shazam, Zients said. HILLARY MARSTON , the director for global Covid response and a doctor, got plaudits for treating Quillian’s ankle sprain and not even charging her a co-pay. Zients said Quillian was the only person he’d ever worked with whose work ethic tired him out. And Quillian noted that she learned from Zients about the importance of incorporating music into group meetings. Asked what’s Zients’ favorite song to include, the White House didn’t say. Zients acknowledged there wouldn’t be any grand signing ceremony for the team, but called them the "GOAT" (greatest of all time). He also quoted the famous line from the late Democratic fixer VERNON JORDAN: “It is amazing what you can get done in this town if you don’t care who gets the credit.” What the team gets done next is unclear. At the very least, the new leadership is expected to focus more on communications than Zients, who people commonly refer to as an “ops guy.” Jha did an Obama-era stint at the Veterans Affairs Department and more recently was among Zients’ close outside advisers, but he’s never worked in the White House before — much less led such a high-profile and sprawling operation. Aides prepared reams of material for Jha to study up on ahead of his official start. With an eye on ensuring a smooth transition, Jha and Zients are set to overlap for several days — with Jha officially taking over on Monday and Zients there to assist for the next couple of days, according to the White House. Still, few have a sense yet of what the Jha era will look like. The prominent health scholar — perhaps most widely recognized for his Twitter commentary and ubiquitous television presence — has gone almost completely dark, with almost no tweets the past two weeks. As for those at the White House, Jha has personally called aides on the Covid team to introduce himself and held meetings on various parts of the response, but he’s offered few clues as to what specific changes are on the way, people familiar with those conversations said. Some staffers, for example, only learned about Jha’s plan to bring on a deputy after reading it in POLITICO. TEXT US — ASHISH JHA if you’re reading this, 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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