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 Soon after JOE BIDEN selected KAMALA HARRIS to be his running mate in August 2020, the two met at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington. His sister VALERIE BIDEN OWENS came along, she recounts in her book “Growing Up Biden,” which comes out next Tuesday and was obtained by West Wing Playbook. Biden repeated his usual introduction, that “she’s been my best friend all my life, since I was three years old.” He then added a warning: “If you ever cross me or come after me, she’ll come after you.” Harris said she understood. “I have a sister, too,” she said, referencing MAYA HARRIS . A grinning Biden quipped: “Not like this one, you don’t.” It’s true that Joe and Valerie have a unique sibling relationship, both personally and professionally. She was campaign manager for all of Biden’s campaigns until the 2020 one. She also moved into Joe’s home and helped raise his two sons after the sudden death of his wife and daughter in 1972. That bond carries through in Valerie’s new book, which praises her brother as a man of integrity and empathy. But it also has some interesting and fun revelations about Biden’s inner circle and her relationship to them. Here are our favorite tidbits: KLAIN’S POTTY MOUTH Valerie recounts that during the 2020 campaign, she couldn’t stand being in the audience for debates and instead watched them on television with RON KLAIN and longtime top Biden advisor MIKE DONILON (and sometimes STEVE RICCHETTI, now a top adviser in the White House). “The worst person to watch one of Joe’s debates with — by far — is Ron,” she writes. “By the time he’s finished with his expletives, I have become absolutely sure of two things: (1) we are going to lose, and (2) the entire world is going to implode.” Klain's spokesperson declined to comment. TENSIONS WITH JILL Valerie also opens up about occasional tensions with the now-First Lady, especially early on in their relationship. Valerie had moved into Joe’s house to help raise HUNTER and BEAU, but then had to make way for JILL. “Transitioning from my full-time parenting role so that Jill could take over was hard — a fine line between easing the grip and dropping the reins altogether,” she writes. “It took deft hands for the handoff to work, but we did it. I had to step back to let Jill fill the space.” She also noted that some of the tensions came from distinct upbringings. “Jill and I came from different worlds. She was younger than I, from Hammonton, New Jersey, and she had four younger sisters to my three brothers. As I told her once, ‘Jill, you speak girl and I speak boy.’ I am more direct, sometimes to a fault; Jill had learned to speak in a circuitous way that I sometimes had to decode.” She added: “Some of the ribbons that bind us are made of satin, some of twine, which could cause brush burns, but we made a commitment to always be honest. We made a deal at the beginning of our friendship: If we had a problem with each other, we would spit it out, not let it fester. LEAD UP TO 2020 Valerie also writes about the internal deliberations in the lead up to Biden’s decision to enter the 2020 presidential race. She says that while most of the family was on board, she was nervous given how ugly she expected the race to get. “But Jill, Hunter, Ashley, and the grandchildren all wanted him to run,” she writes, noting her husband JACK OWENS also said “Joe, you’ve got to do this.” She also recounts that former Republican Speaker of the House JOHN BOEHNER told her to advise Joe not to run. “He’s a good man and he has served his country well,” Boehner said of Biden, according to Valerie. Boehner continued: “‘He should just enjoy his life. They will eat him alive. Politics now is a blood sport.” Valerie added: “Part of me wanted to say to those urging him on, 'Look, he’s done enough. Leave him alone.'" She also noted how the memory of Biden’s son, Beau, propelled him to run again. “That’s why Beau made his dad promise him that he would not turn inward, that he would not quit,” she writes. “Beau knew if his dad gave him his word, he would keep it. Joe gave him his word, and despite the pain of his loss, or perhaps because of it, Joe kept moving forward.” OBAMA v. JOE Valerie writes that Joe and BARACK OBAMA’s relationship deepened over time. Still, she notes that the distinct coverage of the two could frustrate her brother. “There was sometimes a tendency in the press or the pundit class to compare the two — the cerebral Obama and ‘working-class Joe.’ Sometimes it made Joe feel as though they thought he just fell off a turnip truck carrying a lunch pail,” she writes. MEMORY OF BEAU Beau’s death in 2015 was traumatizing for the entire Biden family. Valerie writes that her Mom used to say something good can be found in every tragedy, but Beau’s death challenged that. “What good could possibly come from Beau being diagnosed with the deadly cancer glioblastoma in the prime of his life?” she writes in a searing passage. “None that I have found. No words gave comfort, and the grief in those early days was so overwhelming that it seemed to blot out every good thing in my vision. It stripped me bare and harrowed my soul. I had never before been so horribly angry at God.” She also writes of multiple instances during the campaign when she felt Beau was there to guide and steer. As she puts it: “I was convinced Beau had his hand on his father’s shoulder throughout the entire campaign.” TEXT US — Are you VALERIE BIDEN OWENS? 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. WHAT YOU TEXTED — In yesterday’s edition, we noted that outgoing Covid czar JEFF ZIENTS quoted a famous line from the late VERNON JORDAN: “It is amazing what you can get done in this town if you don’t care who gets the credit.” As several of our readers pointed out, it appears various presidents — including RONALD REAGAN and HARRY TRUMAN — have also said similar statements, but Zients attributed it to Jordan. | 
