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 Eli | Email Lauren President JOE BIDEN was preparing to give remarks on the economy recently when a staffer handed him an update on his new favorite target: The House Freedom Caucus. Biden read over the papers, clasping his hands and leaning on the lectern. Freedom Caucus members would be willing to raise the debt ceiling “contingent upon the enactment of legislation” filled with their demands, the president told reporters at the March 10 event. “You know what the essence of the enacting legislation is? Cut all spending other than defense by 25 percent,” he said. “Twenty-five percent across the board.” For the White House, that moment was another volley in what has become a building war over raising the debt limit. But more broadly, it underscored efforts they have made to turn the roughly 30-member group of ultraconservative House Republicans into a villain writ large, particularly when it comes to its spending priorities. This week, Biden’s aides commenced with a veritable carpet bombing of the caucus, unsubtly describing the group’s plans in successive emails as a “FIVE-ALARM FIRE.” “This is a conversation we think we owe people,” is how one Biden aide put it to West Wing Playbook. The White House and Democrats believe they can make the Freedom Caucus an anchor around Republicans all the way through 2024. While Washington (yes, that sometimes includes us) remains focused on Biden’s age and malaprops, the president and his advisers are betting the Beltway chatter about him will amount to little more than inside baseball compared with the threat they can portray Republicans as representing. The more Biden can disqualify his opponents, the thinking goes, the more reasonable the president appears. For the past few weeks, Biden has called on House Speaker KEVIN MCCARTHY and other Republican leaders to release their budget. That hasn’t happened — yet. So, Biden and White House officials have, instead, honed in on the Freedom Caucus’ spending priorities. In a one-pager, caucus members described their proposal as a way to curtail the “wasteful, woke and weaponized federal bureaucracy,” while swiping the White House for presiding over a crisis at the southern border. Biden’s advisers wasted little time characterizing the plan quite differently. On March 11, a day after the Freedom Caucus unveiled its demands, White House communications director BEN LABOLT sent a two-page memo to Sunday show producers citing an analysis that found it would, among other things: “defund the police,” allow the richest Americans to lawfully cheat on their taxes; and take Medicaid coverage away from millions of people. “In combination with other recent MAGA Republican proposals, the document shows us exactly what extreme MAGA House Republicans value: tax breaks for the super wealthy and wasteful spending for special interests,” LaBolt wrote. A spokesman for Freedom Caucus Chairman SCOTT PERRY (R-Pa.) didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Perry previously charged Biden with misrepresenting the plan and criticized the White House for trying to stoke fear. Biden’s tactics to center on the group have similarities to the strategy his team deployed during the midterms, when they made mincemeat out of plans pitched by Republican Sens. RICK SCOTT of Florida and RON JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Biden has repeatedly cited Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-Ga.) when he accuses her faction of the Republican Party of being unmoored from reality. But key to the administration’s evolving strategy is demonstrating that the Freedom Caucus is no strawman—to convince voters that its members are central to running the GOP House. “We’re dealing with a different brand of Republican. And there’s no reason to discount what they are saying given what they put McCarthy through in the speaker’s race,” said SIMON ROSENBERG, a Democratic strategist and a leading 2022 “red wave” skeptic. “This is a serious budget proposal by a powerful group of Republicans who have said this is what they support. You have to treat it seriously like the White House is.” On Tuesday afternoon, Biden sent a tweet attempting to put Republicans on the defensive over the border and immigration, issues they’d regularly attacked the president. And not surprisingly, he used the Freedom Caucus as his opening. “MAGA House Republicans put out extreme budget proposals that would eliminate funding for over 2,000 border patrol agents – undermining our ability to combat drug trafficking,” Biden said. “My budget keeps our borders secure while expanding legal pathways for migrants seeking asylum.” MESSAGE US — Are you REP. SCOTT PERRY, chair of the Freedom Caucus? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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