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| | | | |  | | By Sabrina Rodriguez and Alex Thompson | 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 and the White House have been trumpeting a series of legislative victories they’ve scored in recent weeks, from gas prices falling to a climate and health bill moving through Congress. But there’s another notch in the president’s win column that he has been quiet about: He can finally end the Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policy, fulfilling a long-time campaign promise. Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security announced an end to the policy that forced thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their hearings before U.S. immigration judges. It comes after a lengthy back-and-forth in the courts that ended with the Supreme Court ruling the administration has the discretion to end the program. Democrats and immigrant advocates have widely welcomed the news, which comes more than a year after Biden first tried to end the program. The White House, so far, has not touted the win, but DHS said it welcomed the decision. The victory is a reminder of a larger pattern Biden continues to face on immigration: GOP-led states using the courts — often in districts with Trump-appointed judges — to shoot down his policies. And several major immigration challenges remain for the administration. “The frustrating thing is that [Texas Attorney General] KEN PAXTON and other Republican state attorney generals are abusing the court system to thwart this administration from doing what they were elected to do, which is to implement administrative policy,” said FRANK SHARRY, founder and executive director of immigration reform group America's Voice. “It’s a breakthrough on 'Remain in Mexico' but comes with a lot of frustration at what we call the anti-immigrant judicial pipeline.” Advocates are now urging Biden and Congress to gear up for another immigration battle — the decision on the future of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The future of DACA has long been stuck in legal limbo, affecting the status of more than 800,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Many of them are now adults with kids of their own. The Trump administration had tried to end the program for years, but was blocked by the Supreme Court. Ultimately, a federal judge in Texas struck down the program, finding it to be unlawful, just months after Biden took office last year. Since then, the Biden administration has been blocked from approving new applications for DACA, which has granted work permits and deportation protection for its recipients, often called “Dreamers.” The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals could rule on the program’s legality any day now. “The administration really will have to do everything in its power to protect these individuals,” said SERGIO GONZALES, executive director of the Immigration Hub and former senior policy adviser to then-Sen. KAMALA HARRIS . “That means really prioritizing a legislative effort to ensure a path to citizenship for Dreamers, while at the same time doing everything in its power both legally through the Department of Justice and through executive power to provide protections for DACA recipients.” Gonzales said it was clear from his conversations with White House officials that “they understand the gravity of this,” but it remains to be seen what exact actions they will take in the event of a decision striking down DACA. A White House spokesperson said the administration is “committed to preserving and fortifying DACA” and continues to call for Congress to secure a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers. It’s not just the future of DACA stuck in the courts. The Biden administration has also been blocked from lifting Title 42, border restrictions put in place by DONALD TRUMP at the start of the pandemic. And the Supreme Court recently denied the Biden administration’s request to reinstate its immigration enforcement priorities but agreed to hear the case in December. The White House spokesperson said the administration has made progress in securing the border and building a “fair, orderly, and humane” immigration processing system with efforts such as launching an anti-smuggling operation that has led to more than 3,000 arrests and bringing world leaders together to manage increased migration flows. “We’ve seen it time and again: Congressional Republicans refuse to support badly needed legislation and then their counterparts in the states attempt to block nearly every administrative step we take to rebuild the immigration system that the prior Administration gutted,” the spokesperson said. “Their deliberate obstruction wreaks havoc on the system, which they then try to blame on us.” MESSAGE US — Are you LISA HANSMANN , senior policy adviser? 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.
| | | | STAY UP TO DATE WITH CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO’s 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. | | | | | | | | This one’s from Allie. What was the name given to ULYSSES S. GRANT before he changed it? (Answer at the bottom.) | | | | 
Cartoon by Jack Ohman | Courtesy | It’s Friday and you know what that means: Cartoon feature time. This one’s by JACK OHMAN. Our very own MATT WUERKER also publishes a selection of cartoons from all over the country. View the cartoon carousel here.
| | | BBB LIVES (SORRY, THE “INFLATION REDUCTION ACT”): The House, this afternoon, passed the massive climate and health care bill that was formerly known as the Build Back Better Act. It was a party-line vote. The measure is a crowning achievement for Democrats, investing nearly $370 billion into fighting climate change and allowing Medicare to negotiate certain prescription drug prices. It was near dead a few times, only to be revived and quickly passed over a few weeks this summer. Biden, not surprisingly, said he’ll sign the bill next week. Read more from our bad-ass Congress team: here.
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Tweet by Jordan Finkelstein | Twitter | WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This analysis by Reuters’ AHMED ABOULENEIN about how Democrats beat back Big Pharma by including a provision allowing the government to negotiate prices on select drugs in their health care and climate bill. Kaiser Health News’ ARTHUR ALLEN has more details, too. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: The price of gas may be going down, but the price of housing nationwide isn’t looking so hot. This WSJ piece by NICOLE FRIEDMAN notes that “it was more expensive to buy a U.S. home in June than it has been for any month in more than three decades, as record-high home prices collided with a surge in mortgage rates.” And rent is getting pricier too. As Bloomberg reported this week : “Rental costs in the U.S. are soaring at the fastest pace in more than three decades, surpassing a median of $2,000 a month for the first time ever.” BACKCHANNELING TO TWITTER: Covid vaccine skeptic ALEX BERENSON has released what he said were documents showing Twitter’s internal Slack conversations following a meeting with the Biden Covid team in the spring of 2021. Berenson dubs himself an independent journalist. But he's also repeatedly peddled disinformation about vaccines, which prompted Twitter to ban him last summer, although it recently reinstated him. The documents he posted, nevertheless, are real and give insight into how focused the White House was on prodding social media companies to crack down on Covid disinformation. In one document, a Twitter employee wrote that during a White House meeting, officials “had one really tough question about why Alex Berenson hasn’t been kicked off from the platform.” Berenson framed this as the White House “demanding” he be de-platformed. But ANDY SLAVITT, the former member of the White House Covid team who was involved in the meetings, told West Wing Playbook such a description "would of course not be accurate or even close.” He said the White House asked questions about how Twitter's policies work. "We wanted to understand nuances like do their posts get marked when questionable, etc etc," said Slavitt. The White House declined to comment. A Twitter spokesperson told us that the company engages "outside organizations, including subject matter experts, civil society, public health authorities, and government, to inform our work." But, they added, “Twitter’s enforcement decisions... are based solely on an independent assessment and application of our rules and policies.” – With help from POLITICO’s ADAM CANCRYN.
| | | SOS TO HHS: Health and Human Services Secretary XAVIER BECERRA is under renewed criticism from the White House for his management and messaging regarding the monkeypox, Adam also writes. When the White House was weighing what to do to defuse anger over its sluggish response to the outbreak, Becerra floated making clear the states bear some responsibility. Though administration officials didn’t agree with that method, Becerra went ahead anyway. People told Adam there’s no chance the president will fire his Health secretary, but some are expecting Becerra to resign from the post to run for Senate in 2024. His spokesperson denied it. And in a comms tactic that has become familiar by now, the White House rejected the broader scope of Adam’s reporting, insisting that there aren’t tensions with Becerra and that his suggestion about states bearing more blame didn’t cause an internal stir. DUNN’S DIVEST: ANITA DUNN, who returned to the White House as a senior adviser to the president after a brief stint away, is set to divest her investment portfolio, estimated to be valued somewhere between $16.8 million to $48.2 million, CNBC’s BRIAN SCHWARTZ reports. Dunn will also recuse herself from issues that could potentially affect the clients at her consulting firm SKDK — which include AT&T, Lyft, Pfizer, Salesforce and Reddit. CNBC uploaded the doc here. FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: ELVIR KLEMPIC is now senior associate director for candidate recruitment in the Presidential Personnel Office, DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. Klempic most recently was a special assistant at the State Department. KAROUN TCHOLAKIAN is now deputy White House liaison at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Lippman has also learned. She most recently was special assistant to the assistant secretary for global affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. SO LONG, FAREWELL: A farewell happy hour last night was held for Dr. LYNNE PARKER , the director of the National AI Initiative Office and deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer at the White House for the last four years. The event was held at the Eaton Hotel rooftop in Washington, D.C. and attended by a combo of alumni from both the Trump and Biden administrations, including, MICHAEL KRATSIOS, GRACE DIANA, LINDA LOURIE, WINTER CASEY, ERIK JACOBS, TONY STAMP, LLOYD WHITMAN, HELENA FU, TESS DEBLANC-KNOWLES, COLE DONOVAN, KYLE DAVIS, HILA LEVY, NIK MARIA, STEWART BARBER and RAMA ELLURU.
| | | WATER POLITICS: Drought and chronic overuse have driven water levels on the Colorado River so low that the Biden administration may be forced to impose massive cuts to water deliveries in seven Western states — a politically perilous move certain to inflame tensions with farmers, tribes and cities, POLITICO’s ANNIE SNIDER reports ( follow her here! )
| | | Joe Biden’s Best Week Ever (The Intelligencer’s Jonathan Chait) Fire Xavier Becerra (Very Serious’s Josh Barro) China’s Xi Jinping Plans to Meet With Biden in First Foreign Trip in Nearly Three Years (WSJ’s Keith Zhai) Biden Administration Response to Monkeypox Outbreak Was Slow, Officials Say (WSJ's Liz Essley Whyte and Stephanie Armour)
| | | Communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD will be on MSNBC’S The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart at 10 a.m. ET on Sunday.
| | | Back when USAID administrator SAMANTHA POWER worked for BARACK OBAMA’s presidential campaign, she infamously was quoted as calling his challenger at the time, HILLARY CLINTON, a “monster.” "It was a reality check for me," Power said in an interview with People Magazine in Feb. 2021. "I had such admiration for her and she'd always been nothing but kind to me. And yet in the context of a cutthroat American political campaign, we were so competitive — I mean, [the campaigns] were just at each other, and you can really just lose sight of all you have in common and get blinded by the competition." Less known is that the moment brough Power closer to the man she now calls her husband, CASS SUNSTEIN , who helped her navigate the backlash. "Out of that experience, I ended up with a husband and two children,” she said. “So the greatest parts of my life are rooted in that great professional implosion."
| | | Grant was named HIRAM ULYSSES GRANT and didn’t exactly voluntarily change his name, either. According to the Miller Center , “when his congressman applied for Grant's appointment to West Point, he incorrectly wrote the name as Ulysses Simpson (his mother's family name) Grant instead of Hiram Ulysses Grant. Although Ulysses tried to correct the mistake when he arrived at West Point, it was too late, and thereafter he signed his name as Ulysses S. Grant.” A CALL OUT — Do you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents with a citation and we may feature it. Edited by Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.
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