The trials of being an ex-Biden

From: POLITICO West Wing Playbook - Thursday Jun 02,2022 10:09 pm

Jun 02, 2022

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

She was married for more than two decades to a leading Republican punching bag, but KATHLEEN BUHLE does not want her book to be political.

The ex-wife of HUNTER BIDEN has a softer-focus media tour planned for the June 14 release of her memoir, “If We Break: A Memoir of Marriage, Addiction, and Healing.”

ABC’s “Good Morning America” won out on the sweepstakes for the first morning television interview, multiple sources with knowledge told West Wing Playbook. The book’s blurbs, so far, come from actors like CONNIE BRITTON, LESLIE JORDAN, and RITA WILSON, along with author KIM BROOKS, not politicians.

Buhle’s two pre-release interviews so far have been with People magazine. The publication also published the book’s first excerpts on Wednesday, detailing Hunter’s substance abuse and infidelity and the toll his lies and gaslighting to hide them took on her and their family.

“I found a credit card charge for $10,000 at a hot tub store in Los Angeles,” she wrote. “I found hundreds at liquor stores and strip clubs. The whole time, he told me he was healthy and sober — and I was crazy. I continually told him that I was the one person actually trying to get him sober. It became my own kind of addiction.” She also details her suspicions about Hunter spending so much time with HALLIE BIDEN, BEAU’s widow, and the moment she discovered they were having an affair after her daughters saw their text messages on his phone.

But it’s hard to avoid politics when publicizing a book about the president’s family. Buhle’s book, and the audio edition she is narrating, has put the White House in an awkward position. The Biden team regularly downplays stories about Hunter by referring questions to his personal attorney, GEORGE MESIRES, who did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Still, the personal life of the president’s son’s has become daily fodder for The New York Post, the Daily Mail and other right-leaning tabloids, all while his overseas business relationships remain a focus of major mainstream news outlets. Already, the White House is bringing on staff and gearing up for investigations into Hunter Biden if Republicans take back the House this fall.

Asked if the White House was able to review the book before it was sent to publishers, an official responded simply: “No.”

The non-political book tour for the president’s former daughter-in-law is also being partly orchestrated by the PR firm Original Strategies, founded by three longtime Democratic operatives, according to people familiar with the matter.

One of those operatives is KELLEY McCORMICK , a former managing partner at SKDK, the firm with extensive ties to the Biden administration including senior adviser ANITA DUNN (the ‘D’ in SKDK). The two other founding partners, DEBRA ESCHMEYER and JOANNA ROSHOLM, are former aides to MICHELLE OBAMA. Buhle enjoys a friendship with the former first lady.

Buhle also shares a publisher with the Obamas. Crown published the post-presidency memoirs for both Michelle and BARACK OBAMA. A spokesperson for Obama did not comment on the connections. Original Strategies and ABC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

DYANA MESSINA , publicity director at Penguin RandomHouse, which includes Crown, told us, “we’re not sharing particulars of the rollout.” She did not respond when asked if Buhle was available for an interview.

It all makes for a delicate dance for both Buhle and the White House. The latter is sensitive to any media about the president’s family and this book will prompt more of that. The former is trying to keep the politics out of it but is selling a memoir about a political family.

One source familiar with the book’s contents said it is not a takedown of her ex-husband although it does include some embarrassing details and stories.

“Hunter tried to tell me that he came from a middle-class family,” she writes. “Months later, when I went to his house for the first time, I explained to him: ‘Hunt, a kid from a middle class family does not have a ballroom.’”

TEXT US — Are you A WHITE HOUSE INTERN who will be earning a salary for the first time ever? 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.

DON’T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE.

POTUS PUZZLER

This question is courtesy of reader ALEX PENLER: Which first lady was sometimes referred to as “Mrs. President” because of her influence over the president?

(Answer at the bottom.)

The Oval

FOR THE PEOPLE: Over the past several years, the Biden team has regularly turned to People magazine when it wanted to dole out exclusives. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden and KAMALA HARRIS gave their first joint interview as a campaign ticket to the magazine. And Biden and the first lady sat down with People for their first White House interview.

On Thursday, the vice president’s office gave what they called an “exclusive” to People of a pre-recorded video of Harris discussing the consequences of the Supreme Court possibly overturning Roe v. Wade . Since POLITICO published the draft decision overturning the landmark court case, Harris has forcefully defended abortion rights, delivering an impassioned address on the subject and meeting with abortion providers.

GWINING TIME: Rapid response director MIKE GWIN will soon depart the White House for the Treasury, CNN’s PHIL MATTINGLY reports. He is the third person in the press shop this week to go to another department after assistant press secretary VEDANT PATEL went to the State Department and chief of staff AMANDA FINNEY went to the Energy Department.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: Unemployment claims have been an economic bright spot for the Biden White House. As Bloomberg noted Thursday, state jobless benefits fell to 1.31 million in the week ending May 21, the lowest number since 1969, and initial unemployment claims decreased by 11,000 to 200,000 in the week ending May 28.

White House chief of staff RON KLAIN retweeted a post by National Economic Council senior advisor for communications JESSE LEE, in which Lee argued that Biden “inherited one of the worst unemployment crises in history and we’re now at historic low levels of unemployment in a year and a half. That’s never happened, and reporting on the economy without acknowledging that is kind of absurd.”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This CNN story by EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE about the White House’s struggles to break through to the public.

A detail that stood out to us: “ In a January memo, White House chief of staff Ron Klain offered a compromise plan, to have Biden do one town hall each month to at least grab some unscripted moments and media exposure. That got sucked into the maw of blaming and dysfunction like so much else…. In the end, not a single town hall was scheduled. A White House aide said Wednesday that now more town halls are expected in the near future.”

Dovere wrote about a messaging divide between staffers and aides “who have been around Biden for longer than most of the rest of that staff has been alive.” After the story published, CNN updated the story: “In an email to CNN, White House spokesman ANDREW BATES said, ‘That is not the dynamic in the White House.’”

THE BUREAUCRATS

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: MIGUEL L'HEUREUX is now White House liaison at the Department of Commerce, DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. He most recently was the national campaign manager for All Voting is Local, a project of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and is an Obama White House and SBA alum.

— CYNTHIA ARAGON, who previously held the White House liaison role, is now executive director of the Advocacy Center at Commerce's International Trade Administration.

Agenda Setting

NO, SERIOUSLY, FOLLOW THE MONEY: The Pentagon was already struggling to keep up with lawmakers’ oversight demands over how Ukraine’s military aid was being doled out, and now that an additional $40 billion has been approved, lawmakers’ concerns are growing louder, our ANDREW DESIDERIO, LARA SELIGMAN and CONNOR O’BRIEN report.

Some are even warning the Biden administration that the Pentagon’s handling and complete accounting of the funds could dictate the fate of the next aid package.

AMERICAS SUMMIT DEETS: Biden is set to announce a new climate and energy partnership with Caribbean nations during next week’s Summit of the Americas, an effort to be led by Harris, according to a statement from JUAN GONZALEZ, Biden’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere.

LOSING RUBIN: Washington Post columnist JENNIFER RUBIN, who is normally sympathetic to Biden, urged the White House to acknowledge it made a mistake on forecasting inflation to be transitory. “Yellen wisely admitted error on inflation. The White House should follow her example” is the headline of her column today.

What We're Reading

White House to begin paying interns (CNN’s Betsy Klein)

There Is Way More Biden Can Do to Lower Prices (Rep. Ro Khana guest essay in the New York Times)

Biden to Travel to Saudi Arabia, Ending Its ‘Pariah’ Status (NYT’s Peter Baker)

White House says coronavirus shots for kids under 5 could begin June 21 (WaPo's Carolyn Y. Johnson)

What We're Watching

Biden’s 7:30 p.m. ET address on gun violence.

Where's Joe

Biden received the president’s daily brief in the morning.

He met with NATO Secretary-General JENS STOLTENBERG and National Security Adviser JAKE SULLIVAN and discussed preparations for the NATO Summit in Madrid at the end of June.

After his aforementioned address on the recent mass shootings,he is heading to Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Where's Kamala

She joined the president for the daily brief.

She also announced the Education Department’s plan to cancel all remaining federal student loans for borrowers who attended Corinthian Colleges.

The Oppo Book

JOHN KIRBY’s mom may be his toughest critic.

Biden’s new National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications told the Tampa Bay Times in 2015 that his mom is “candid about my performance at the podium. She watches them live online and usually within an hour or so, I'd get an email or text from her with a very detailed critique.”

When he and his State Department colleague at the time, JEN PSAKI, did a briefing together, Kirby said he “got some tough questions from an [Associated Press] reporter, and I suppose it came across as a rather spirited discussion. My mother sent me an email afterward saying, ‘You know, you really should try to be more calm, like Jennifer Psaki. She had much more composure at the podium than you did.’”

Moms!

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

ABIGAIL ADAMS, the wife of JOHN ADAMS, was sometimes referred to as “Mrs. President.”

A CALL OUT — Thanks again to Alex for this question. Do you think you have a more difficult one? Send us your best question on the presidents with a citation and we may feature it.

Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein

INTRODUCING DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED: Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today.