Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Myah Ward. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Eli When President JOE BIDEN traveled Tuesday to Phoenix to highlight a huge new semiconductor manufacturing facility, he invited every Democratic lawmaker from Arizona to fly with him aboard Air Force One, an administration official said. Many took him up on the offer, including Sen. MARK KELLY, his wife, former Rep. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS , and Rep. RUBEN GALLEGO, who tweeted a few photos. But one person notably didn’t. Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA’s absence wasn’t perceived as a major slight inside the White House. But no one there had any idea what was coming next. The Senator announced on Friday she was switching party affiliation from Democrat to Independent. That came as a surprise to the White House — though not a shock to its staffers who have grown familiar with her mercurial and unpredictable nature. In their book “This Will Not Pass,” POLITICO’s JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEX BURNS detailed numerous instances over the last two years where Sinema befuddled Biden and his aides. She has threatened to walk out of meetings with the president, argued about having to mask up in his presence and requested he not travel to her home state. “One person close to the president likened Biden’s perplexity at Sinema to his difficulty grasping his grandchildren’s use of the viral-video app TikTok,” Martin and Burns wrote. “He wanted to relate, but he just didn’t quite get it.” In the wake of Sinema’s defection, the White House has chosen to play nice. Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE called her a “key partner” on Biden’s agenda and insisted the move “does not change the new Democratic majority control of the Senate.” Though other Democrats, including Galleo, who is exploring a run for her seat in 2024, issued fiery statements, party leaders in Washington refrained from the barbs, concluding — for now, at least — that Sinema’s move was more about salvaging a path to reelection than upsetting the balance in what is now a 51-49 Democratic Senate. Because Sinema and Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER appear to have agreed that she will keep her committee assignments, Democrats will still hold a one-seat edge on Senate panels. And although Jean-Pierre expressed optimism about continuing to work with Sinema on legislation, there’s concern that she might drift even further away. “She has voted with the president 93 percent of the time,” Jean-Pierre noted several times, delivering what seemed like a subtle shiv to a politician seeking distance from the president. Sinema’s shift throws a new wrinkle into an already difficult legislative dynamic for the White House. Her need to demonstrate independence could make her more inclined to lead on bipartisan legislation. Or it could lead her to try to block Biden’s nominees or other legislative priorities. Or both. Biden, for his part, has experience with these dynamics. He played an instrumental role in convincing ARLEN SPECTER to defect from the Republican Party and become a Democrat in 2009 — a project he spent years pursuing over numerous Amtrak rides with the late Pennsylvania senator. “It was a continuing conversation over decades,” recalled a former Specter aide. “It was not a one-and-done conversation by any means.” But Biden also was on the other side of the party defection coin. Before Specter switched to the Democrats, Sen. JOE LIEBERMAN had drifted further away from the party, punctuated by his decision to speak at the 2008 Republican convention on behalf of its nominee, JOHN MCCAIN. When Democrats emerged from that election controlling the White House and healthy majorities in the House and the Senate, the party’s progressive wing wanted Lieberman, by then officially an Independent, stripped of his committee assignments. Then-Sen. Majority Leader HARRY REID (D-Nev.) said no. And Reid’s aides recalled that Biden echoed his position: It was better to have Lieberman inside the tent than pissing on it. They expect Biden to adopt the same philosophy now. “You’re gonna have to grin and bear it. You may not like it but you’re gonna have to suck it up,” said longtime Reid aide JIM MANLEY. Lieberman ended up being a thorn in the side of the Obama administration. Biden never badmouthed him, but there were subtle signs he found the entire exercise annoying. When he traveled to Munich in February 2009 to give remarks at the security conference there, Biden offered regrets that McCain was not in attendance. As Forbes noted at the time : “Noticeably absent in this condolence was any mention of Joe Lieberman, who for years has been the co-leader of the congressional delegation to the Munich conference alongside McCain.” MESSAGE US — Are you JOE LIEBERMAN? We want to hear from you! And we’ll keep you anonymous. Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.
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