The O'Biden Chronicles

By Alex Thompson, Eli Stokols and Lauren Egan

Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice.  

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off next week for the holidays but back to our normal schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 3. We hope absence makes the heart grow fonder.

BARACK OBAMA and JOE BIDEN are friends, but as their legacies are compared against each other’s, many Democrats inside and outside the administration have felt a rising tension.

In recent months, Biden aides have started boasting that he has become a more consequential president than his former boss. Biden has the “most significant legislative accomplishments since Lyndon Johnson,” as spokesperson ANDREW BATES put it to The New York Times last month. A senior White House adviser told the Washington Post in October that they got “more legislation passed in two years than any administration in modern times.”

And some Biden advisers contend he did so with harsher media coverage than Obama, who they think was coddled by the elite press corps. As one senior White House adviser sarcastically told author CHRIS WHIPPLE in his upcoming book: “[Biden] doesn’t expect to win the Nobel Peace Prize his first year as president.”

Obama has been publicly very supportive of Biden’s presidency. He joined him at the White House in April to mark the 10th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and again in September for his portrait unveiling, where they praised one another. But their public bromance belies a deeper tension, which occasionally has surfaced during Biden’s presidency.

The rivalry doesn’t come from a place of malice but from the fact both men are hypercompetitive, allies and people familiar with the relationship told West Wing Playbook.

“Presidents are competitive and I think it rankled Obama when he kept hearing the Biden White House staffers saying that Obama's stimulus back in 2009 was small potatoes and we're going big,” Whipple said in an interview about his book, “The Fight of his Life,” set to come out next month.

The competition began the moment Biden entered the 2020 presidential race. Did Biden win more because of his association with Obama or because of his unique political strengths? Both sides continue to have their own spin.

Tensions lingered after Biden won. Some of the original Biden team from the primary campaign resented the former Obama staffers who took jobs above them in the White House, especially since many of them had supported other candidates or been dismissive of Biden in the past.

"Any new Democratic administration is likely to have natural overlap in staff with the previous Democratic administration,” said a former White House official. “That said, the extent to which Obama administration people got good jobs, early, without Biden people feeling like they had the chance to compete for those jobs in many instances, was pronounced.”

The two sides also began jousting over the scope of their respective agendas. Biden said in March 2021 that Democrats had “paid a price” in 2010 because Obama had rebuffed his pleas to sell the administration’s stimulus package. Biden claimed he wasn’t going to repeat that mistake, to which DAVID AXELROD shot back: “If the Obama economic record were deficient, I’m pretty sure Joe Biden wouldn’t have run on it.”

“According to my sources who know them both well, that got under Obama's skin a little bit,” said Whipple. “I'm not saying that it spoiled the friendship, but I'm just saying there's a little bit of friction there over that kind of thing.”

JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEX BURNS reported in their book, “This Will Not Pass,” that Speaker NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.) told a friend that “Obama is jealous of Biden” because of the early coverage of him as a historic president.

Biden also remarked to an adviser, “I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his,” according to the book.

Obama also caught the attention of some Biden allies when he told The New York Times in June 2021 that Biden was “essentially finishing the job” he had started.

Biden aides are also notably defensive of criticism from former Obama aides like Axelrod, JASON FURMAN, LARRY SUMMERS, and LEON PANETTA. 

Some of the chippiness is a consequence of 2015, when Obama and his top aides nudged Biden not to run and defer to HILLARY CLINTON. That experience bruised both Biden and some in his inner circle who felt Obama never truly appreciated Biden’s talents.

The tensions have even hit at the family level, at times. In HUNTER BIDEN ’s memoir “Beautiful Things,” he wrote that he “took it personally – maybe too personally – whenever I learned that some aide in the administration had tried to undercut [my dad].” He said he sometimes avoided the White House because “I didn’t want to be in the position of walking into a barbecue on a Sunday with the president and the White House staff after reading about someone throwing my dad under the bus. I knew I couldn’t control my temper and keep my mouth shut.”

PROGRAMMING NOTE PART 2: This is Alex. I’m leaving to write a book about Biden and this White House. West Wing Playbook will continue on with Eli, Lauren, Allie, and the team. Thank you for reading these past two years. If you want to get updates about my Biden book, enter your email address here. And if you are a Biden administration official who is potentially interested in sharing their experience, you can text/call/Signal/WhatsApp me at 8183240098. And, as always, I’ll keep you anonymous. 

MESSAGE US — Are you associate staff secretary JOSHUA SCHENK ? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com.

WHAT YOU MESSAGED: We received some responses to last night’s newsletter about some Democratic staffers not wanting to move to Wilmington to work on a potential Biden reelect, if it’s stationed there.

Former Delaware Deputy AG DIRK DURSTEIN: “Hardly know where to start, in dealing with your misconceptions of my fair city. The Philly Airport is south of the city, just twenty miles away.  We [can] get there quicker than those who live north and west of Philly. It’s closer in time to downtown Wilmington than JFK is to Manhattan (travel time). Not a problem.

Wilmington is also on the main Amtrak line, which should matter to those finding both DC and NYC less than two hours away.  Center-city Philadelphia is an easy hop, too. You can literally go to DC for the day, or NYC for the evening, or Philly, and be home in Delaware by midnight.

The cost of living here is less than DC or NYC, and renting a flat could be half or a third as much. A small city obviously lacks the volume of restaurants and bars that DC and NYC have. But we make up for quantity with quality. 

Another interesting reaction from PATRICK DILLON, the husband of deputy White House chief of staff, and Biden’s 2020 campaign manager, JEN O’MALLEY DILLON, who tweeted: “Hard to think of a more obvious, greater disqualification for being entrusted with a meaningful role on a presidential campaign than ‘anonymously whines about nightlife and fine dining in potential HQ cities to tip sheet newsletters’”

True enough! But, Patrick, how would you disqualify potential staffers if they’re whining anonymously?

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This one is from Allie. What year was a Christmas tree placed in the White House for the first time?

(Answer at the bottom.)

Cartoon by Michael Ramirez | Courtesy

Twas the Friday before Christmas — which also means it’s cartoon feature time! This one’s by MICHAEL RAMIREZ. Our very own MATT WUERKER publishes a selection of cartoons from all over the country. View the cartoon carousel here.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This NYT opinion column by DAVID BROOKS praising Biden’s handling of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, in light of the White House visit this week by Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY. Biden “has swung the Western alliance fervently behind Ukraine. But he has done it with prudence and calibration. Ukraine will get this weapons system, but not that one. It can dream of total victory, but it also has to think seriously about negotiations. Biden has shown that America can responsibly lead. He has shown you can have moral clarity without being blinded by it.”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This PAVEL K. BAEV piece for NBC News. He argues that the administration’s delivery of a Patriot missile system to Ukraine, while important, won’t be enough to turn the tide of the war with Russia. Given the tens of billions in defense aid the U.S. is providing, it no longer makes sense to deny Ukraine drones and other more “offensive” weapons systems, he writes, as it becomes clearer that Russia’s willingness to retaliate against the West appears to be less than initially believed.

@NEERA’S TAKE: Senior adviser to the president NEERA TANDEN on Friday morning retweeted Bloomberg’s MATTHEW YGLESIAS’ sentiment about Biden’s recent legislative wins — including the $1.7 trillion spending bill passed this week.

“Joe Biden’s mission to create a calmer, more functional politics is mostly working with MAGA candidates doing badly in the midterms, serious legislators making compromises, and Twitter drama increasingly focused on Twitter itself and easy to ignore,” Yglesias wrote, to which Tanden retweeted with a finger point emoji.

@MEENA ON XMAS: The niece of Vice President KAMALA HARRIS, MEENA HARRIS, penned an essay for the New Yorker with the headline: “Questions Reporters Ask Mrs. Claus That They Would Never Ask Mr. Claus.”

JOE’S ON THE LINE: NBC’s RYAN NOBLES tweeted that he was in the middle of interviewing Rep. JAMIE RASKIN (D-Md.) about the Jan. 6 select committee’s work, when the congressman received a phone call from the president.

IN THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT: Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO said in an interview with Axios that the U.S. can avoid a recession — and that the CEOs she speaks with are echoing that message. “By and large, people are reasonably optimistic,” Raimondo said. "I talk to CEOs every week, across industries, across sizes ... little, big industrials, retail, banks. … “I talk to airline CEOs, and they will say: If I just did my business every day — and didn't read the newspaper — I would never be using the word 'recession.'"

CONSIDER IT DONE: The president on Friday signed the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress’s annual defense policy and spending bill, reversing his own administration's mandate for troops to receive the Covid vaccine, our CONNOR O’BRIEN reports for Pro s. The Pentagon's vaccine mandate, issued back in August 2021 by Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN, will be repealed within 30 days of becoming law.

BACK TO NORMAL: Supply chain problems caused by the coronavirus pandemic have largely gone away, WSJ’s ESTHER FUNG, COSTAS PARIS and SHARON TERLEP report: “Goods are moving around the world again and reaching companies and consumers, despite some production snarls and Covid outbreaks inside China. Gone are the weekslong backlogs of cargo ships at large ports. Ocean shipping rates have plunged below prepandemic levels.”

POLITICO AT CES 2023 : We are bringing a special edition of our Digital Future Daily newsletter to Las Vegas to cover CES 2023. The newsletter will take you inside the largest and most influential technology event on the planet, featuring every major and emerging industry in the technology ecosystem gathered in one place. The newsletter runs from Jan. 5-7 and will focus on the public policy related aspects of the event. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of CES 2023.

Presidential transition process changes head to Biden’s desk (Roll Call's By Niels Lesniewski)

As Ukraine Prepares for a Second Year at War, the Prospect of a Stalemate Looms (NYT’s Julian Barnes, Helene Cooper & Eric Schmitt)

The devastating new history of the January 6 insurrection (The New Yorker’s David Remnick)

This week in Bidenomics: Too much holiday cheer (Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman)

Today is bittersweet. It's Alex's last on the newsletter (unless, as we predict, he misses West Wing Playbook so much he simply can't stop writing tops for it). As is customary when one leaves the newsletter, the oppo section becomes devoted to you. And so, for your viewing pleasure, we give you this story.

Alex actually first applied for a job at POLITICO after graduating from college in 2011. Like most ambitious but uncertain college grads, he was anxious about interviewing for the role. So, as one does, he discussed it with his mother. She told him to bring a copy of his thesis.

He agreed. And after sitting down with DANIELLE JONES , then a top editor here, to lay out his merits for the post, Alex gamely offered her a 120-page, bounded work on how Mormons had drifted rightward politically. He suggested it might provide insight into his skills as a writer.

He described her reaction as "puzzled." He did not get the job.

"We were simply waiting for a Mormon beat reporting spot to open," Jones recalled, with affection.

Alex was once again passed over for a job at POLITICO in 2016. But, as they say, the third time's a charm. After coming here to cover the 2020 campaign, he helped launch a newsletter that the higher-ups called “Transition Playbook,” designed, as its name clearly suggests, to last a matter of months. It's been more than two years.

“Alex and I never imagined when we created Transition Playbook that it would still exist,” said THEODORIC MEYER, Alex’s first WWPB collaborator. “And still be breaking news!”

This newsletter’s longevity is owed predominantly to Alex's dedication, craft, and care for the product. He has produced invaluable insights into the Biden White House, the people there, and the real world impact of its decision making. He also wrote the definitive guide to the hierarchy of White House goodbye parties. “That,” as Theo noted, is “truly the spirit of West Wing Playbook.”

We are incredibly grateful that Alex screwed up earlier potential job paths by deciding to show off his thesis. We hope he’s proud of what he helped build.

According to the White House Historical Association, “the first known Christmas tree in the White House was placed upstairs in the Second Floor Oval Room (then used as a family parlor and library) in 1889 (during the BENJAMIN HARRISON administration). It was decorated with candles for the Harrison grandchildren.”

A CALL OUT — Do you think 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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Alex Thompson @AlexThomp Eli Stokols @EliStokols Lauren Egan @Lauren_V_Egan Allie Bice @alliebice

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