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The power players, latest policy developments, and intriguing whispers percolating inside the West Wing. | | | | |  | | By Adam Wren, 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. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren PETE BUTTIGIEG is hitting the road this summer to tout the Biden administration's infrastructure accomplishments as part of the Investing in America Blitz tour announced this week. But he’s also going to be hitting the road in a more literal sense: the Transportation secretary is training and has registered for his first ever half triathlon later this year. The 41-year-old Buttigieg has signed up for an Ironman in his new home state of Michigan. The race will consist of a 1.2-mile open water swim in Lake Michigan, a 56-mile bike course, and a 13.1-mile run. Politico confirmed the location of the race and his participation in it, but is withholding specific details due to security concerns. Buttigieg is no stranger to endurance sports (such as running in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary). He’s finished a number of half marathons, notching a personal best of 1:42 in Bagram, Afghanistan, when he was deployed as a Navy counterintelligence officer — nailing an average pace of 7:46 per mile. In D.C., he has been spotted at open-water swim classes, and training at the William H. Rumsey Aquatic Center in Eastern Market. Buttigieg has called Washington “a great city for running and biking, even swimming.” Buttigieg has dabbled in sports while serving in the Biden administration. He traveled to the Invictus Games, which caused a bit of a stir back home because he took a military aircraft to get there and brought his husband CHASTEN along. He also called college football “problematic” while a candidate for president, citing the exploited nature of the student athlete. But it is the half triathlon that has been a long time bucket list item for the Transportation secretary. He had originally hoped to complete one to mark his 40th birthday last year. But then came the arrival of his adopted twins, which tends to disrupt any plans to compete in high-endurance sports. “Physical exercise is extremely important to me. Although I have to say my exercise habits took a nosedive when the kids were born. I was in the best shape in my life last year. I was training for a half Ironman,” Buttigieg told People magazine last March. He added: “About a month before the race was when the kids arrived and everything changed. So I'm just now starting to get back into it." This West Wing Playbook reporter is among the few, perhaps only, reporters to have run with Buttigieg back in South Bend, doing so in October of 2018 as part of a running tour of the Indiana city. We can attest, there are worse — or easier, depending on your perspective — ways to give the nation’s infrastructure a close inspection than a 70.3-mile tour of roadways and waterways of a pivotal 2024 swing state. MESSAGE US — Are you World Triathlon Corporation CEO ANDREW MESSICK? 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!
| | | | LISTEN TO POLITICO'S ENERGY PODCAST: Check out our daily five-minute brief on the latest energy and environmental politics and policy news. Don't miss out on the must-know stories, candid insights, and analysis from POLITICO's energy team. Listen today. | | | | | | | | | This one is from Allie. Which president was featured on the $100,000 bill? (Answer at bottom.)
| | ABORTION ACCESS TAKES CENTER STAGE: President JOE BIDEN rarely uses the word “abortion” and remains somewhat conflicted personally about the issue, but his reelection campaign is “poised to run the most overtly abortion rights platform of any general election candidate in political history,” our HOLLY OTTERBEIN and MYAH WARD report. One year after the Supreme Court’s decision reversing Roe v. Wade, campaign officials and advisers are aiming to keep the issue top of mind for voters. The DNC just launched a new six-figure ad campaign, including digital ads and billboards in Washington, D.C., Times Square in New York City and the battleground states of Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida and North Carolina. “I think it’ll continue to be a really galvanizing issue, and we’ll continue to find ways to make it front and center,” Biden campaign manager JULIE CHÁVEZ RODRÍGUEZ told POLITICO. She said abortion rights will increase in salience as more Republican-led states pass anti-abortion laws and news headlines showcase problems arising from the restrictions. AND SPEAKING OF…: The nation’s top abortion rights groups are expected to endorse Biden’s reelection bid at an event Friday in Washington, four people familiar with the plans tell our EUGENE DANIELS. MODI OPERANDI: Biden’s East Room press conference with Indian Prime Minister NARENDRA MODI, which came ahead of Thursday night’s lavish (and mostly vegetarian) state dinner, was drama-free and fairly brief. The president emphasized India’s growing strategic importance and mostly glossed over its democratic backsliding, our JONATHAN LEMIRE and JENNIFER HABERKORN report. Rather than upbraiding Modi publicly about his country’s human rights problems, Biden spoke broadly of democratic values the two countries supposedly share. When asked by WSJ’s SABRINA SIDDIQUI about his description earlier this week of Chinese President XI JINPING as a “dictator,” Biden offered no walkback and said he didn’t think the comment would set back efforts to stabilize relations with Beijing. “I expect to be meeting with President Xi sometime in the future, the near term, and I don’t think it’s had any real consequence,” the president said. Our LUCY HODGMAN has more. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: Chief of staff JEFF ZIENTS was among the many administration officials who tweeted a clip of STEVEN RATTNER on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” describing the recent manufacturing boom as a result of legislation enacted in Biden’s first two years in office. Rattner spoke standing in front of a graph showing the huge spike in new investments — $189 billion just for this year — in new plants and factories, a clear response by the private sector to billions in incentives particularly for green energy projects, microchips and semiconductors. “Manufacturing is back,” Zients commented. Anyone with additional questions about this sea change in American industrial policy, please submit them in writing to the New York Times’ JIM TANKERSLEY. WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This WaPo piece by NICK MIROFF about how a Department of Homeland Security medical team investigating the recent death of an 8-year-old girl in South Texas “told U.S. border officials that their system of care for migrants is unsafe and needs a major overhaul.” In a DHS memo obtained by WaPo, the agency said that the facility where ANADITH REYES ÁLVAREZ was held “lacked sufficient medical engagement and accountability to ensure safe, effective, humane and well-documented medical care.” A TIKTOK-LESS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Biden’s reelection campaign isn’t planning on making a TikTok account. The campaign instead plans to lean on influencers and other users to get its message across, similar to the White House’s current dynamic with the app, NBC News’ MONICA ALBA, MIKE MEMOLI and CAROL E. LEE report. Despite the U.S.’s tumultuous relationship with TikTok, Biden’s campaign is expected to use “surrogates to maintain a presence on the social media site without having to maintain an account.” AN EXPERT OPINION: Our BETSY WOODRUFF SWAN spoke to legal experts about the implications of HUNTER BIDEN’s plea deal — and whether or not it was a good move to make. We won’t spoil their takes for you, though! Read the piece here.
| | DAMN, GINA: Seven months after leaving the White House, former Biden climate adviser GINA MCCARTHY is keeping busy up in Boston, our E&E News colleague ROBIN BRAVENDER reports. Continuing her work in the climate space, McCarthy is advising private equity firms on climate focused investments, doing a climate fellowship at Tufts University, her alma mater, working with former New York City Mayor MICHAEL BLOOMBERG on climate initiatives and co-chairing a group coordinating climate policies between the U.S. and India. PERSONNEL MOVES: Biden will tap DHS chief of staff KRISTIE CANEGALLO as the agency’s acting deputy secretary, replacing JOHN TIEN as Homeland Security Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS’ No. 2, the agency said Thursday. She’ll start next month. Canegallo served in the Bush and Obama administrations, including as deputy chief of staff under former President BARACK OBAMA.
| | A WHOLE LOTTA MONEY: The Energy Department announced Thursday it plans to issue a “loan up to $9.2 billion for the construction of three manufacturing plants to support Ford Motor Company's electric vehicle product line — marking the largest single conditional loan commitment from the office,” our KELSEY TAMBORRINO reports for Pro s. MAYBE TENSIONS AREN’T THAWING AFTER ALL: XIE FENG, the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., “made serious representations and strong protests to senior officials of the White House and the U.S. Department of State on June 21,” following Biden’s labeling of Chinese President Xi Jinping a dictator, CNN’s JENNIFER HANSLER reports. The embassy said in a statement Thursday that it “strongly rebukes the comments made by Biden, calling it a ‘smear’ that ‘seriously contradicts basic facts, breaches diplomatic etiquette, infringes on China’s political dignity, runs counter to the commitments made by the U.S. side, and undermines mutual trust.’” IMPEACHMENT KICKED DOWN THE ROAD: House Republicans’ vote to impeach the president Thursday were curtailed, after House Speaker KEVIN MCCARTHY negotiated with the efforts leader, Colorado Republican Rep. LAUREN BOEBERT, to get the resolution reviewed through Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, AP’s LISA MASCARO reports.
| | | | SUBSCRIBE TO POWER SWITCH: The energy landscape is profoundly transforming. Power Switch is a daily newsletter that unlocks the most important stories driving the energy sector and the political forces shaping critical decisions about your energy future, from production to storage, distribution to consumption. Don’t miss out on Power Switch, your guide to the politics of energy transformation in America and around the world. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | | | | | Dobbs Turned Abortion Into A Huge Liability For Republicans (538’s Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux) U.S. Offers India Drones, Jet Engines to Lure It From Russia (WSJ’s Gordon Lubold, Michael R. Gordon and Sabrina Siddiqui) Why Not Whitmer? (The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich)
| | A portrait of WOODROW WILSON was featured on the $100,000 bill, which was “the highest denomination ever issued by the U.S. Federal Government,” according to the Smithsonian Institution. 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. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
