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 When federal law enforcement agents raided DONALD TRUMP’s Mar-a-Lago home earlier this year, they found framed copies of Time magazine covers featuring the former president. If his successor holds the magazine cover in similar esteem, he’s not showing it. President JOE BIDEN 's team has turned down interview requests from Time since he was inaugurated, one person familiar with said request told West Wing Playbook. It was not an isolated rejection. Since taking office, Biden has also ignored similar requests from legacy magazines, which often serve as agenda setters for Democratic politicians. Last month, West Wing Playbook wrote about the Biden team’s victory lap at the Atlantic Festival. Top administration officials including White House chief of staff RON KLAIN and Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN filled the ranks of the festival’s panels and celebrated accomplishments such as the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the infrastructure bill. But the boss himself was absent from the festival and he’s shunned the publication elsewhere too. People familiar with the requests told West Wing Playbook that Atlantic editor-in-chief JEFFREY GOLDBERG has sought interviews with Biden, but to no avail. The president also turned down a request from the New Yorker’s ADAM ENTOUS, whose now-abandoned Biden book was turned into a lengthy magazine piece. It’s an about-face from the media strategy of Biden’s predecessor, who was both an avid consumer of legacy magazine content and helped create it by sitting for seemingly annual profiles by Goldberg and others, such as the New Yorker’s top editor DAVID REMNICK. BARACK OBAMA’s own byline even appeared in the New Yorker after he left office. The current White House hasn’t ruled out participating in a glossy magazine interview. Biden’s team had expressed some interest in working with longform political journalist RUBY CRAMER, who was at the time potentially freelancing for the New York Times magazine. The piece would have been about Cramer's dad, the famed reporter RICHARD BEN CRAMER , and his chronicles of Biden for the classic campaign tome, What It Takes. But neither the interview nor the piece came to fruition (Cramer, who formerly wrote for Politico, is now a national reporter at the Washington Post). The president and his team overwhelmingly prefer short television news interviews to other formats. In the past year, he has sat for major evening network anchors and classic programs like “60 Minutes,” while shunning The Washington Post, The New York Times and other newspapers, which have not scored an interview with Biden since he took office. Some major mags have had better luck with members of the Biden family. Entous secured access to several Biden siblings, who spoke at length about how their family shaped the president. JILL BIDEN, meanwhile, remains personal friends with ANNA WINTOUR , the iconic Conde Nast editor who is a power player in Democratic political circles. During the 2020 campaign, Wintour hosted Jill Biden for a virtual discussion, and put the first lady on the cover of Vogue in August 2021, infuriating former first lady MELANIA TRUMP, who did not score a cover during her husband’s time in office. Earlier this year, Jill Biden also appeared alongside Wintour at the opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s annual Costume Institute exhibition. Her husband was not there. MESSAGE US — Are you a disgruntled magazine writer who has been trying to interview POTUS? Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.
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