It’s confetti for Garcetti

By Christopher Cadelago, Marianne LeVine and Lauren Egan

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ERIC GARCETTI’s painful and, at times, embarrassing 614-day nomination process to become ambassador to India came to an end after the Senate confirmed him Wednesday.

By that point, the former Los Angeles mayor and aides around him had come to view it as a fight for his very reputation and political viability. President JOE BIDEN did so, too.

That’s because it was. Garcetti’s future in big-league elected politics would have dimmed considerably had he failed to get to New Delhi. The 52-year-old Democrat spent months trying to beat back accusations that he knew about allegations that a top aide had sexually harassed and assaulted fellow office members and others. On Wednesday, Garcetti was able to advance with the help of seven Republicans, winning Senate confirmation in a 52-42 vote.

Much of the public posturing around the vote focused on seating a top diplomat in a key geopolitical nation.

For Garcetti and his team — but also to an extent the White House — it was also about survival. Get Eric to India so he can try to put this behind him. It’s why Garcetti returned time and again to Washington, privately ducking into Senate offices and spending so many days in the Capitol while he was still mayor that people close to him started referring to it as a satellite City Hall. (West Wing Playbook spotted Garcetti at the White House between meetings with senior officials twice in the last 20 months).

It’s why Garcetti’s parents, Gil and Suki, spent $90,000 of their own money on lobbyists for him through the end of last year. It’s also why he enlisted scores of staffers to sign petitions, letters and make calls to senators attesting to his character. And it’s why Biden’s top legislative affairs staffers, LOUISA TERRELL and REEMA DODIN, along with Garcetti, scrambled into the final hours to secure a few more votes.

“I've had the best job one could ever imagine in politics and if I never had a political job tomorrow, I would die happy,” Garcetti told West Wing Playbook after the vote. At one point, he fielded a congratulatory call from Sen. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO (D-Nev.). “What hurts is untruths and attacks against your reputation… Your reputation is everything. That's all you have. And you better defend it. And people who believe in you better defend it. And they did.”

The issue that nearly tanked his nomination should have been obvious to Garcetti, but its radioactivity wasn’t at first. At his initial Senate hearing, Garcetti fielded just one throw-away question on whether he knew at the time about sexual harassment allegations against a top confidant, RICK JACOBS. Garcetti testified under oath that he did not and would have acted swiftly if he had.

But the campaign against him was so relentless and formidable that it surprised even Garcetti. Former aides, led by NAOMI SELIGMAN, worked around the clock for much of the past 20 months. They pointed to court testimony and their own experiences with Jacobs and Garcetti to contend there was no way the mayor didn’t know, and that he oversaw an office culture that silenced victims. They met with nearly a third of the Senate, winning conservative allies like Sen. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa), but ultimately being disappointed by others, namely Democrats who have spoken out over their careers about harassment and sexual assault.

“Yes, we need an ambassador to India,” Seligman said after the vote. “But having the right person is more important than having a person right now. We all knew who Eric Garcetti is. This vote didn’t change that.”

Garcetti maintained his lack of knowledge about Jacobs and pointed to the people from his office staff and around him who for years have said the same. “There were so many things that were so easy to rebut once people spend the time and don't just listen to me, but listen to the first-hand witnesses that were there,” Garcetti said. He suggested that his detractors used the Jacobs controversy to humiliate him.

“Other accusations or beefs that people have, I've never closed off that those should be adjudicated someplace else,” he said. “But don't try to pull me in just because I have a public name or title.”

A loyal and early ally for the president, Garcetti was diplomatic about how long senators took to hold their floor vote. Once the nomination stalled, he was fine with waiting till after the midterms. He had influential allies willing to be patient too, including Sen. CORY BOOKER (D-N.J.) and Commerce Secretary GINA RAIMONDO, longtime friends who made calls and whipped votes.

“I can't tell you how many senators said I talked to X, Y and Z who went to college with you, the person who married you, the person who heads up an organization who's known you for 20 years, who's traveled with you for two or three weeks. Those sorts of things meant a lot to people,” Garcetti said.

As for his political future, he doesn’t deny rumors about eyeing a possible statewide run in California, perhaps for governor when GAVIN NEWSOM steps down. Possibilities like that, after all, may now be there when he returns.

“I know every politician has secret plans. My only focus is on this job. I want to serve this country and do the best that I can at this moment,” he said. “I'll always come back to L.A., but I have no idea whether I'll ever run for anything or not.”

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This one’s from Allie. Who was the first president to attend the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York?

(Answer at the bottom.)

UNRELENTING: On Wednesday, Biden was in Nevada, where he hit on a topic familiar to the close of the 2020 midterm elections: the cost of prescription drugs. The White House has been heartened by recent news that two major pharmaceutical companies have decided to lower the cost of insulin. But the president also wanted to take a pound of political flesh while speaking in Las Vegas.

“MAGA Republicans in Congress don’t think any of this is a good idea,” Biden said. “They think Big Pharma should be able to make the exorbitant profits at the expense of the American people”

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by Morning Consult’s AMANDA JACOBSON SNYDER, RICKY ZIPP, JULIA MARTINEZ and AJ DELLINGER about how the president’s proposed 2024 fiscal year budget received “majority approval among voters for nearly every provision.” The survey “suggests that Democrats would be wise to highlight Biden’s health care proposals — and call attention to the deficit-reduction elements.” White House deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES  tweeted out the news Wednesday.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: Anything about persisting anxiety over the health of the banking industry following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The AP’s STAN CHOE writes: “Worries about a spreading banking crisis and how badly it will hit the economy sent shudders through markets Wednesday, with stocks and bond yields tumbling on both sides of the Atlantic.”

AN OVEN-MITT TYPE HOT TAKE: MARK HANNAH writes in a piece for POLITICO Magazine that Biden should consider getting behind the “efforts by China to promote its peace deal for the war in Ukraine.” Hannah writes the administration should embrace the move “as an opportunity to work collaboratively with China, to combine the clout each has with one of the combatants to, say, co-host negotiations which ultimately reaffirm Ukraine’s sovereignty and assure its future security.”

YEAH, WE’RE CONCERNED TOO: Transportation Secretary PETE BUTTIGIEG said Wednesday he’s “concerned” about the recent airline close calls, following a series of near misses — like one last month in Austin, Texas, when a FedEx cargo plane came within 100 feet of landing on top of a Southwest Airlines plane that was taking off, our ALEX DAUGHERTY reports. Speaking at a safety summit, Buttigieg said that “while the data remains clear that aviation remains an exceptionally safe form of travel, we take nothing for granted.”

DRONE ON: Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN said that the U.S. will continue to “fly and to operate wherever international law allows” after Russia struck down a U.S. drone over the Black Sea, CNN’s HALEY BRITZKY, NATASHA BERTRAND and OREN LIEBERMANN report.

Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart about the incident — their first call since October, per the AP. “We take any potential for escalation very seriously. And that’s why I believe it’s important to keep the lines of communication open,” Austin said.

PILL POPPING: A Texas judge’s ruling on the FDA’s approval of abortion pill mifepristone could also alter the agency’s drug-approval process more broadly, WaPo’s RACHEL ROUBEIN, LAURIE MCGINLEY and DAVID OVALLE report.

The ruling “could lead to a highly politicized regulatory environment, with approvals for controversial treatments facing court challenges and being thrust into the middle of culture wars,” they write. “Coronavirus vaccines or hormone treatments for transgender people, [legal experts] said, could be endangered by judges with no scientific background.”

WORKIN’ ON THE RAILROAD: The U.S. Surface Transportation Board on Wednesday approved Canadian Pacific’s $31 billion acquisition of Kansas City Southern, green lighting “the first major railroad merger in more than two decades,” AP’s JOSH FUNK reports.

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Warnock’s campaign chief sees lessons from Dems in Georgia (AP’s Bill Barrow)

Michigan Senate repeals right-to-work law in historic victory for organized labor (WaPo’s Lauren Kaori Gurley)

Before KARINE JEAN PIERRE became White House press secretary, she worked as a phone canvasser for Citizens Campaign for the Environment. But she wrote in her memoir, “Moving Forward,” that she wasn’t “good at phone canvassing.”

“In fact, I was terrible,” she wrote. “I was a shy nineteen year old college student. I wanted to do a good job, but I detested asking people for money.”

Not to worry though, because Jean-Pierre was able to do more for the organization, too, like helping the group monitor piping plover bird nests on beaches.

“My job was to check each morning on these magical, endangered birds,” she wrote. “I never touched the birds or the eggs, but I would carefully monitor them.”

HARRY TRUMAN attended the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York in 1948, becoming the first president to do so.

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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