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 Labor Secretary BERNIE SANDERS. The country came closer than you think. During the presidential transition, JOE BIDEN said he had considered nominating the Vermont Democratic socialist and longtime labor champion to the cabinet post but decided against it because the balance of the Senate was at stake. But in his new book looking back at the 2020 campaign, top Sanders’ aide ARI RABIN-HAVT writes that Biden told Sanders he’d nominate him to the post as long as Democrats didn’t win both Senate seats in Georgia. “[I]f Democrats did not win both seats in Georgia, which seemed the likely outcome, Biden would appoint Bernie secretary of labor,” he wrote. As Rabin-Havt recounts, the first entreaty to Sanders came in the spring of 2020, as the Democratic primary was winding down, when the senator and Biden discussed the “possibility of becoming secretary of labor.” “Instead of sitting in Washington, he would go back out on the road, to support strikes and expand the labor movement,” Rabin-Havt writes in “The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders.” Following the election, Sanders had a follow up conversation with RON KLAIN, who at the time was the incoming White House chief of staff. Klain said that the labor secretary post was still very much on the table and that Biden would call back around Thanksgiving to discuss. The call ended up coming the week of Christmas. During it, Sanders laid out his vision for the role and Biden offered his support for it, which surprised Sanders. The only hurdle: the two undecided Senate seats in Georgia. If Democrats won them both, they’d enjoy a 50-50 Senate majority. And since Bernie hailed from a state run by a Republican governor (albeit one who had pledged to appoint someone ideologically similar should Sanders leave his post) it would have been a risk to yank him from the seat. According to Rabin-Havt, that’s when the arrangement was stuck: The post would be the Senator’s if Georgia didn’t go the party’s way. The offer was serious enough that Sanders’ staff “researched and briefed Bernie on programs he could implement as secretary of labor,” after which “his eyes lit up as he realized the sheer power of the department.” The visions of power were for naught. Democrats won both seats, grabbed control of the Senate, Sanders stayed in the chamber, and Biden nominated MARTY WALSH to the labor secretary role instead. Rabin-Havt said Sanders wasn’t disappointed. The conditional job offer previewed the type of influence he’d come to have during the early months of the Biden White House. From his perch in the Senate, Sanders would end up shaping the size and scope of the Covid relief bill. And had a notable impact on the debates over the Build Back Better plan too, before those efforts were scuttled. What Rabin-Havt hints at in his book is that Sanders and Biden, while operating on different philosophical planes, share a similar disposition: chips on their shoulders, underestimated in D.C., and longtime politicians. Some former Biden campaign officials noted that there was a bond in both being snubbed by the New York Times editorial board — who didn’t have Sanders or Biden in their top four candidates — only to be the top two candidates among the voters. But the ties may be even stronger one level below the principals. Elsewhere, Rabin-Havt recounts the run up to Election Day in 2020 when Sanders was publicly warning that DONALD TRUMP would use confusion about the counting of mail-in ballots to raise doubts about the election and hold on to power. “Some Democratic officials and Biden campaign aides called, perturbed by Bernie’s remarks,” wrote Rabin-Havt. But there was one person who seemed to give Sanders the implicit ok to keep talking. “Throughout the fall, our team, led by [campaign manager] Faiz [Shakir], was in touch with the Biden team, and Bernie had developed a good rapport with Biden campaign senior advisor and future White House chief of staff Ron Klain,” wrote Rabin-Havt. “And while other establishment Democrats grimaced at Bernie’s stark warnings, Klain did nothing to dissuade him.” TEXT US — Are you JOSH ORTON, the former Sanders campaign aide now a senior policy adviser at the Labor Department? 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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