Breaks, Biden can’t catch ‘em.

From: POLITICO West Wing Playbook - Thursday Jul 21,2022 09:22 pm

Jul 21, 2022

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Nearly two years ago, a sense of abject panic and overall insanity gripped Washington D.C. when President DONALD TRUMP announced he’d come down with Covid.

Since then, vaccines have come online, therapies have been developed, and the general consensus has shifted to Covid being a nuisance rather than a political nuclear bomb.

That at least, was the prevailing sentiment inside the White House in the hours after it was announced that JOE BIDEN — having dodged the virus for more than two-and-a-half years — had come down with Covid, too.

West Wing Playbook reached out to several White House officials and people in regular contact with those who work at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building to gauge their immediate reactions to the diagnosis and to inquire about their level of concern about the president’s health.

They told West Wing Playbook the mood inside the White House was relatively calm, and that many figured it was only a matter of time before the president (like numerous White House staff) contracted the virus. Asked what people thought, one official succinctly said it was “fine.” Another described internal concern about Biden’s health as “mild to low.” One person close to the White House who spoke to officials Thursday pointed out that Biden was one of the last high-ranking officials in government who had not contracted the virus, which has infected Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, Speaker NANCY PELOSI, and Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER, among others.

If anything, Biden’s Covid diagnosis was at least a setback the White House had planned for, even if it derailed a busy schedule of domestic travel the president had scheduled for the next week.

The Covid diagnosis comes as Biden’s team continues to be frustrated by stubbornly high inflation and gas prices that are creeping down slower than many would like, a Supreme Court that has overturned abortion rights and blocked his executive actions, and a legislative agenda stalled largely by one senator from his own party.

During a recent fundraiser, first lady JILL BIDEN noted the president has “just had some many things thrown his way.”

She added: “He had so many hopes and plans for things he wanted to do, but every time you turned around, he had to address the problems of the moment.”

Inside the White House, Biden’s diagnosis was seen as the latest break they couldn't catch. There were concerns about optics but also, more acutely, about another wave of infections inside their place of work.

Quietly, aides expressed some worry over how many people Biden may have exposed. The first lady and vice president both tested negative Thursday but were still in the window when that could change. The White House residence staff was pared back.

But those concerns weren’t always dictating action. After testing positive, Biden appeared to violate the CDC’s Covid guidance that “anyone sick or infected should separate from others, or wear a well-fitting mask when they need to be around others." In a photo released on social media and taken by a staffer, Biden was inside not wearing a mask. Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE said Biden "took off his mask so that the American people could see him and see directly that work he is doing."

A spokesperson for the administration said the White House would not comment beyond what Jean-Pierre and White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator ASHISH JHA said during a press conference Thursday.

Some rank-and-file staff were also slightly irritated that they didn’t receive any advanced notice before the news was announced to the general public. White House chief of staff RON KLAIN emailed White House staff a little less than 30 minutes after Biden’s diagnosis was public, according to a copy of the email shared with West Wing Playbook. In it, he noted top officials would be reaching out to close contacts, and that they knew there was a “substantial possibility that the president — like anyone else — could get Covid, and we have prepared for him to work seamlessly from the residence.”

With reporting by Jonathan Lemire

White House announcement of Biden's positive coronavirus diagnosis

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A message from Demand Justice:

President Biden set records on judges in his first year, but with new judicial retirements, there are now 120 vacancies, and the clock is ticking. Democrats are on track to leave more than 60 seats open at the end of this Congress, so we need more nominations and more hearings, to lead to more confirmations. 30+ organizations are calling on Biden and the Senate to do whatever it takes to fill every seat. Join us.

POTUS PUZZLER

This one is a two-parter from Allie. Under which presidency was the White House bowling alley built, and why was it added?

(Answer at bottom.)

The Oval

UPENDING PLANS: The president’s positive coronavirus diagnosis postponed the administration’s plan to “propose a steep funding increase for police, hoping to show that Democrats are serious about combating violent crime,” AP’s CHRIS MEGERIAN and WILL WEISSERT report. He was set to urge Congress to pass the proposal in Pennsylvania ahead of the news.

For more on the Biden Covid diagnosis, Playbook PM has a good rundown of the Who?, What?, When?, and Where? of it all including pictures of who Biden was with yesterday. You can read that here.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: The White House wants to reassure Americans that despite Biden’s age, managing Covid shouldn’t be an issue. After Biden’s diagnosis was announced early Thursday, White House chief of staff RON KLAIN quickly retweeted a number of posts about the mild nature of the president’s condition, and his low risk of serious illness.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: Anything about the latest BA.5 coronavirus variant taking over the number of total cases in the U.S. CNN’s BRENDA GOODMAN writes that the variant “ is now causing about 80 percent of new Covid-19 infections in the U.S. … Out of nearly 300,000 infections since March 2021, the share that are reinfections almost doubled from 3.6 percent during the BA.2 wave in May to 6.4 percent during the BA.5 wave in July.”

PSAKI SPEAKS: Former White House press secretary JEN PSAKI offered some communications advice to administration officials following the news of Biden’s positive diagnosis: “What they need to do over the next couple of days is show him working and show him still active and serving as president and I'm certain they’ll likely do that,” she said on MSNBC, her post-White House employer.

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THE BUREAUCRATS

HI. I’M IN DELAWARE: RUFUS GIFFORD, U.S. chief of protocol, announced in a tweet Thursday that more than 40 ambassadors were in Wilmington, Del., to partake in the American experience — doing things like taking the Amtrak train. The group didn’t just ride the train, Gifford wrote that they also heard “how innovation and advances in Delaware power the world — and built relationships to promote commerce, investment, and dialogue.”

Wilmington, a world of wonder. Hope they at least got a milkshake from the Charcoal Pit.

Agenda Setting

MORE LIKE AGENDA PRE-SETTING: The White House is pre-framing the second quarter GDP numbers set to come next week, noting that if a negative growth number comes out it doesn’t constitute a recession, even after the first quarter’s negative growth. The Council of Economic Advisers put out a blog post titled : “How Do Economists Determine Whether the Economy Is in a Recession?” The answer, they write is that “both official determinations of recessions and economists’ assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data.”

One of the White House’s top economic spokesmen, JESSE LEE, also tweeted : “No serious economist would look at 2 quarters averaging 375,000 jobs per month and call it a ‘recession.’ Reporting and punditry claiming otherwise are just looking for clicks.”

A message from Demand Justice:

What We're Reading

Biden’s continued — and marked — decline with Democrats (WaPo’s Aaron Blake)

Meet The Black Women Lawyers Behind Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's Historic Confirmation (Essence's Malaika Jabali)

Iowa Poll: Most think Joe Biden should not run again in 2024 as approval rating falls (Des Moines Register’s Brianne Pfannenstiel)

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POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

The White House bowling alley was built during HARRY TRUMAN’s presidency, officially opening on April 25, 1947.

According to History.com , “a group of Truman’s fellow Missourians funded the construction of the bowling alley in honor of the president. They had intended to open the alley as part of Truman’s 63rd birthday celebration on May 8, but construction was completed ahead of schedule.”

A CALL OUT — Do you think you have a more difficult trivia question? Send us your best on the presidents with a citation and we may feature it.

Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.

A message from Demand Justice:

If Republicans take the Senate in the midterms, Mitch McConnell will not hesitate to blockade President Biden’s judicial nominees –– just as he did President Obama's. So President Biden and Senate Democrats need to do whatever it takes to fill all judicial vacancies before this Congress ends. We need the White House to nominate more judges, and then we need to ensure the Senate Judiciary Committee does not serve as a bottleneck. The Committee must hold more hearings and add more nominees to each hearing, so that all of Biden’s nominees can be confirmed. This starts with holding hearings in August. Leaving 60 vacancies at the end of this Congress is not an option.

Join more than 30 organizations calling on Biden and the Senate to redouble their efforts to quickly fill every judicial vacancy with outstanding and diverse judges.