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 One of the more frequent visitors to the Biden White House is a well-traveled messaging guru who has prepared some of the president’s most memorable campaign lines and commiserated with him about their mutual stutters. Democratic communications strategist MICHAEL SHEEHAN has repeatedly advised President JOE BIDEN and his administration on messaging around major addresses, West Wing Playbook has confirmed. According to the visitor logs released by the White House and reviewed by POLITICO, Sheehan clocked at least 10 visits during the president’s first year, specifically meeting with Biden in March, April, and November in preparation for major speeches. He also made several trips next door to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to meet with other administration officials. In all, he was one of the most frequent guests at the White House in 2021 who didn’t work for the administration or play in the U.S. Marine Band. A communications expert who works exclusively with Democrats, Sheehan has served as an advisor to past presidents, most famously before presidential debates. BILL CLINTON worked with Sheehan before his 1996 debate, and he reportedly taught HILLARY CLINTON how to use a teleprompter. Sheehan also advised then-Sen. BARACK OBAMA before the 2004 speech to the Democratic National Convention that immediately turned him into a rising star. Later he assisted Obama ahead of the presidential debates and when he was in the Oval Office. In an email, Sheehan did not get into specifics about his White House role. He described his work with the Biden administration as “pretty much the same as it was for both the Obama and Clinton White Houses,” noting he was “part of the team effort to edit and rehearse major speeches, addresses, and events.” A White House official echoed Sheehan’s comments, saying he “made similar visits during the Obama and Clinton administration” to work on speeches and events. Sheehan’s relationship with the 46th president stretches back decades. After he began consulting Biden during his Senate days, Sheehan became a trusted confidante. Then-Sen. Biden relied on him for debate prep in 2007 during his second presidential campaign. After a widely-panned performance during the Democratic primaries in 2019, the former vice president’s campaign hired Sheehan for strategic consulting advice. According to one source, he was responsible for one of Biden’s most memorable rhetorical moments as Obama’s vice president, encouraging him to use the line, “Osama Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive” during his speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention and on the campaign trail. Sheehan did not respond to a request for comment about his role in crafting the line. The speech and debate coach can also relate to Biden on a personal level. In Atlantic editor JOHN HENDRICKSON’s 2020 profile of Biden and his long history of managing his stutter, Sheehan discussed his time observing Biden’s speech patterns during his VP years. He recalled how Biden called him after seeing the movie, “The King’s Speech,” because the film, which documents King George VI’s efforts to overcome his own speech impediment, made him think of Sheehan, who also has a stutter. And when BRAYDEN HARRINGTON was preparing for his speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2020, the teenage author and orator turned to Sheehan to help him craft a speech about his personal experience with stuttering and relationship with Biden. Additional reporting by Taylor Miller Thomas and Madi Alexander. TEXT US — Are you Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous if you’d like. 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 Alex at 8183240098.
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