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 Eli The dunking will continue until morale improves. Many Biden officials spent today not just celebrating the better-than-expected midterm results but relishing in calling out the national press and pundits who cast doubt on their strategy. President JOE BIDEN has long had a chip on his shoulder — a deep-seeded frustration with those who have underestimated or slighted him. It’s a mentality his White House staff has inherited. Many of them still fume about, what they saw as, the condescending coverage and punditry during the Democratic primary. Fellow Democrats describe the White House as hyper-defensive. But given that Biden won the nomination and the White House, and now presided over one of the most successful midterms for his party in modern political history, Biden and his team feel more confident and vindicated than ever. They spent a significant portion of Wednesday essentially saying “told ya so.” White House deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES liberally posted excerpts from recent stories in Bloomberg, CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, and Fox News that had indicated the White House was leading congressional Democrats to slaughter. White House deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES liberally posted excerpts from recent stories in Bloomberg, CNN, The New York Times, Reuters, and Fox News that indicated the White House had led congressional Democrats to slaughter. ANITA DUNN’s chief of staff, JORDAN FINKELSTEIN, tweeted that “If only the pundits had looked at what the American people think of the Biden-Harris agenda (in polls often conducted recently by their own publications).” Assistant press secretary ROBYN PATTERSON wrote that she was “pouring one out for the pundits who slammed @POTUS for defending our democracy 5 days before the midterms elections.” Top Biden economic advisers privately boasted to colleagues Wednesday that the media had overblown the impact inflation was having on voters’ perception of the economy and Biden himself. Even chief of staff RON KLAIN got in on the action, tweeting a post-election story suggesting “warning signs for Biden” despite the better than expected midterm results with the caption: “It’s almost self-parody at this point.” [For the record, West Wing Playbook’s punditry is never in doubt, and rarely questioned. If we ever step in it, blame SAM STEIN.] All the crowing came as Republicans, despite failing to meet their own electoral expectations, remained well positioned to seize control of the House and with the fight for the Senate up in the air. It also masked the White House’s own long-standing doubts about the election beforehand, as evidenced by the refusal to commit to a post-election press conference before knowing the results. Biden himself was more restrained during his afternoon press conference. But even he gloated. "While the press and the pundits are predicting a giant red wave, it didn't happen," Biden said. "We lost fewer seats in the house of representatives than any Democratic president in his first midterm election in the last 40 years.” As the White House beat their chests, other Democrats were more circumspect in how much credit the White House deserved. POLITICO’s HOLLY OTTERBEIN and NATALIE ALLISON reported that JOHN FETTERMAN’s team didn’t want Biden to campaign with them the final weekend of the election because of his low approval ratings and the White House pushed them to anyway. “There were times it was very frustrating that they would not let us be,” said a senior Fetterman aide of the White House. Still, others felt the picture was more nuanced. "Does he get all the credit? No," one Democratic operative told West Wing Playbook. "But it's complicated. There's something to be said for the guy who said he'd be a return to normalcy and get stuff done and he's delivered on that." One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday: "I don't think we in the administration did anything particularly helpful for [Democratic] candidates to win their races, but there's something to be said for the lack of chaos and politicization coming out of this White House." In other words, Biden's less polarizing personal brand gave candidates the space to run their own races and not get dragged down by his low approval numbers. "You can't make the narrative, 'thank you, Joe Biden,’ the senior administration official said. “Democrats mostly ran past him, beating his [2020] margins in these states. But he also didn't tie them down like Obama did in 2010."
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