Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Lawrence Ukenye and producer Raymond Rapada. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren Two years ago on the verdant lakeside grounds of Geneva’s Parc la Grange, a few press aides tasked with wrangling reporters covering President JOE BIDEN’s trip joked about starring in a reality show documenting their jobs. They settled on a cheeky title: “Thank you, press” — the refrain they routinely employ when clearing journalists from a room after the president is finished speaking. Of course, no such show exists. And few White House reporters or wranglers are in much of a mood to joke about it anymore. For months now, that particular refrain — specifically the frequency and volume of its deployment — has been a point of growing agitation for the press corps, which believes the shouting of aides makes it near impossible for the president, and sometimes his counterparts, to hear and respond to their questions. The frustrations boiled over Wednesday in Vilnius, Lithuania, when wranglers and other aides shouted at reporters in an effort to clear the room following Biden’s meeting with Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY. The issue wasn’t that the aides were trying to get reporters out. It was that they persisted even after one of the principals began to engage with the pool — drowning out Zelenskyy’s response to a question from our JONATHAN LEMIRE about whether he was satisfied with NATO’s support for Ukraine. By the time Zelenskyy spoke, all three reporters from the news wires had already been cleared from the room and missed the exchange entirely. Biden and Zelenskyy, deputy press secretary EMILIE SIMONS told West Wing Playbook, had already spoken “at length.” Moreover, Biden “politely asked reporters to leave so that the private meeting could begin,” she noted. (Indeed, Biden did say: "We got a lot to talk about, so somebody's going to have to say the press has to leave.”) The pool reporter for foreign press, MAREK WALKUSKI, wrote in his own dispatch, “it was really hard to hear what he said over staff asking us to leave.” And the AP’s SEUNG MIN KIM tweeted about “White House staff” shooing them out of the room early and how they “shouted over the leaders as they answered us.” In an audio recording of the entire 10-minute spray that the print pooler, MERYL KORNFIELD of The Washington Post, sent in her report, the shouting is audible — as was Lemire trying to quiet the wranglers. “The president is talking,” he chided. Later in the day, Biden delivered a speech and took seven questions from pool reporters before flying on to Helsinki, Finland. “Our team ensured this overseas trip would have robust press coverage at every available opportunity,” Simons said. “We look forward to the president’s press conference tomorrow.” Still, after today’s incident, members of the pool reconvened outside the meeting and shared their frustration, including with administration officials. Some who spoke with West Wing Playbook described themselves as “livid” and described the yelling over Zelenskyy as “unacceptable.” “It’s a mess in there almost every time,” one experienced White House reporter from a print outlet told West Wing Playbook last month after a particularly contentious exit from the Oval. “It makes the press look unhinged but so much of the noise is them yelling and us just trying to get a question in.” In reporting this story, we heard similar complaints from more than a dozen White House correspondents who are frequently part of the pool. It’s become enough of a sore point that the White House Correspondents’ Association raised the issue with administration officials in recent months. Combative wrangling has predated the current White House. DONALD TRUMP’s aides were often aggressive in trying to get press out of the room, deploying the same TALK LOUDLY strategy — although staffers were also keenly aware of Trump’s eagerness to hold sway with the press and grew accustomed to quieting down when he continued to talk. Some reporters who spoke to West Wing Playbook credited the Biden White House for taking their feedback seriously and, in several recent sprays, trying to ensure that the principals weren’t going to engage before trying to clear a room. They also sought to make clear they did not fault the wranglers themselves, young staffers who they believed were likely just following guidance. According to two individuals familiar with White House operations, they’re right — while there are no formal guidelines, wranglers have at times received verbal instructions from higher ups on how they’re supposed to shoo reporters and photographers away. While one administration official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the topic, said the efforts were about clearing the room so private meetings can begin, Biden can be somewhat unpredictable as to when he will engage the media. Longtime aides say the tell will be if he waves his hand to quiet the cacophony of shouts or begins to speak. MESSAGE US — Are you ONE OF THE WRANGLERS? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. FOR THE RECORD: In Tuesday’s edition, we mistakenly referred to REMA DODIN using her past job title at the White House. We appreciate all of you who wrote to let us know she’s now on the Hill serving as chief of staff to Sen. BRIAN SCHATZ (D-Hawaii). We regret the mistake. And, Rema, we’d still love to hear from you. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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