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 ANDY SLAVITT has worn many hats: businessman, health care wonk, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and a senior adviser to JOE BIDEN’s Covid task force. These days, he’s a podcaster, too. And in that role he’s scoring tons of Biden world interviews. Nearly a dozen top Biden administration officials have appeared on Slavitt’s show, including chief of staff RON KLAIN, ANTHONY FAUCI, Covid response coordinator ASHISH JHA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief ROCHELLE WALENSKY , and Surgeon General VIVEK MURTHY. The White House has come to view Slavitt’s “In the Bubble” podcast — which started as a Covid-specific show in April 2020 but increasingly covers other topics — as a favorable destination to promote a major new health initiative, or present counter-narratives when certain storylines aren't going their way. It’s also the latest instance of the White House trying to circumvent more mainstream outlets by taking advantage of sympathetic voices across a variety of mediums. Last week, Jha went on Slavitt’s podcast to talk up the latest Covid booster campaign the administration was rolling out. In August, Walensky dropped in to expand on her admission weeks earlier that the CDC needed a revamp after making too many mistakes in combating the pandemic. After the White House came under fire for its sluggish monkeypox response, it dispatched its newly appointed monkeypox czars to appear on the pod. In the subsequent interview, Slavitt pushed ROBERT FENTON and DEMETRE DASKALAKIS to address various shortcomings. But he also allowed them to defend themselves at length and with little immediate pushback — a luxury not often afforded in more traditional outlets. “I’ll give you guys a chance to talk about some of that progress, because some of it I think is recent and I think will be good news to people,” Slavitt said early on. The Klain interview largely focused on Biden’s recent legislative victories. “Some of us have been working for decades on defeating the pharma lobby, not to mention the oil and gas lobby and the gun lobby just to get some commonsense things done,” Slavitt said to open the episode . Still, Slavitt said he also felt obligated to ask Klain about inflation, pressing him — albeit gently — on the administration’s struggle to slow rising prices. Slavitt doesn’t pretend to be a traditional journalist. His podcast follows in the recent tradition of Pod Save America — the media venture launched by a group of ex-BARACK OBAMA aides who used their platforms to, among other things, interview one-time colleagues and Obama himself . But Slavitt has strived to establish his podcast as a credible destination for listeners who want to learn something through substantive conversations — not just hear the latest Dem talking points. At the same time, the White House sees him as a friendly face. They insist his interviews are not softballs but, rather, nuanced. He’s someone who’s been on the inside and is more interested in delving into policy plans than extracting a soundbite. “It’s been a very open conversation where a question is asked and the entire answer is included in the podcast,” one administration official said. Within Washington’s tight-knit community of health care officials and policy wonks, there’s been a fair bit of marveling — and some annoyance — at Slavitt’s ability to parlay his government stints into media prominence. Among reporters, a common complaint is that Slavitt — like other officials-turned-media members — reinforces tropes about the “liberal media” by hopping between government and something resembling the Fourth Estate. For his part, Slavitt maintains he can be many things at once — but is particularly sensitive to the suggestion he’s just a mouthpiece. "The thing I live in fear of is the response afterward that's like, ‘Slavitt didn't ask the question that needed to be asked,’" he told West Wing Playbook. Despite his personal ties, Slavitt still has to submit requests to the administration for every guest, just like the rest of us media hacks. And he says he’s been turned down for some of his attempts to interview top officials. He’s yet to formally request a sitdown with Biden or Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, concluding he has nothing distinctive to ask them… yet. But in the meantime, Slavitt said he’s set his sights farther afield. While the pope is the ultimate dream guest, he so far has tried, and failed, to book the interview he thinks would be the most interesting: Wyoming Republican Rep. LIZ CHENEY. MESSAGE US — Are you TRACY DUNCAN, a White House information services operator? We want to hear from you and we may publish your response tomorrow. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. WHAT YOU WROTE IN: In response to last night’s top about Fox News’ BILL MELUGIN, a Democratic source wrote in to tell us we “left out the best part”: Melugin’s past part-time job at an Abercrombie & Fitch store, which was known for hiring men with a particular physique. In 2011, Melugin, who went by Billy then, told Arizona State University’s student paper that Abercrombie was “always going out into the public trying to find people that fit their look." He explained he was outside, studying for a test, when “two of their recruiters came up to me, said I had a great look and offered me a part-time job."
| 
