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 President JOE BIDEN is driving officials across his administration a little nuts with what they say is a pattern of indecisiveness, according to several people familiar with the matter. On several consequential issues — potential student loan forgiveness and the repeal of tariffs against China, among others — the decision-making process has dragged on for over a year, to the frustration of many Democratic officials inside and outside the administration. People familiar with the dynamic say the process gets drawn out in part because in meetings Biden pushes for every last possible detail – his own version of the Socratic method, or Socratic badgering depending on who you ask. Biden dislikes vague answers and prefers officials to just say they don’t know but will find out. That often results, however, in scheduling another meeting — and more delays. Not everyone in the administration is frustrated by the president’s style, which he honed during his decades in the Senate. Many characterize it as Biden being thoughtful rather than indecisive and argued he moves quickly when the moment calls for it. “For the majority of his career, Joe Biden has had success at moving cautiously and deliberately,” said one administration official. Biden’s history of indecisiveness has extended to his own political ambitions as well. He engaged in an extended Hamlet act before deciding whether or not to run for president in 2016, and again in 2020, to the frustration of some on his team. But putting off a decision while holding the presidential levers of power can bring consequences. As the president and his team have debated over which China tariffs to repeal — if any — labor unions, members of the business community and other stakeholders have further dug in on their positions, making it more difficult to make a decision without blowback. "We think it's the wrong time to relax tariffs on China," LIZ SHULER, the AFL-CIO president told CNN in June just after Biden spoke at the union’s convention. Biden’s indecisiveness also has led administration officials like KATHERINE TAI and JANET YELLEN to publicly take opposite sides of the debate, with Yellen arguing a repeal would help with inflation and Tai countering that the tariffs give the administration leverage with China. On student loan forgiveness, Biden has repeatedly delayed a decision, imposing a new deadline of Aug. 31 before loan collection resumes. Pro-student loan relief groups have long been disappointed and frustrated with the White House. And even if Biden decides to provide some relief based on income, it would be almost impossible to grant the relief before the November elections because the Education Department doesn’t have access to a lot of the income data, as POLITICO’s MICHAEL STRATFORD previously reported. White House and Education Department officials are trying to prepare for how to implement debt cancellation, but they’re operating based on hypotheticals since they lack a final decision, people familiar with the moves told Stratford. A former official who worked in both the Trump and Biden White House said “the bias in the Biden administration… is for inaction. The way you enable that is you say, ‘We should look into that further. We should get some more data. We should do some more studies.’ So you get a lot of that.” For Biden’s defenders, this is a refreshing departure from his predecessor, whose impulsiveness often led to legislative missteps and setbacks in the courts. Biden’s been able to build some political consensus on issues, in part, through patient negotiations. But there is some irony to the approach. In Biden’s memoir Promise Me, Dad, one of the few things he criticized President BARACK OBAMA for was being indecisive. “[S]ometimes I thought he was deliberate to a fault,” he wrote. “‘Just trust your instincts, Mr. President,’ I would say to him. On major decisions that had to be made fast, I had learned over the years, a president was never going to have more than about 70 percent of the information needed.” He added: “So once you have checked the experts, statistics, data, and intelligence, you have to be willing to rely on your gut.” MESSAGE US — Are you KRYSTAL LAYMON, senior policy advisor for Climate Resilience and Adaptation? 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 . WHAT YOU WROTE: Yesterday’s newsletter about the parking and car service hierarchy at the White House elicited a large number of responses from former employees of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. who remember the coveted service well. MICHAEL MCKENNA, a former Bush administration OFFICIAL , emailed West Wing Playbook saying members of that White House described the door-to-door pickup service as “from portal to portal, as if an immortal.” JALEN DRUMMOND, who served under DONALD TRUMP, said he found it interesting that press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE didn’t receive the service, as it was granted to her predecessors during the previous administration: “Kayleigh got it. Sarah Sanders. The press sec is one of the most visible reps of the Admin. Odd in my opinion.” Others noted the shorthand for the service internally is CARPET.
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