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 Everyone noticed the lack of socks. When President JOE BIDEN stepped off Marine One on a recent Sunday morning at Dover Air Force Base, he had just wrapped up a Delaware beach weekend. With his bare feet tucked inside his sneakers, he walked slowly across the tarmac to board Air Force One, which was headed to London for the start of a four-day European swing. The informality of the president’s wardrobe distracted from something else — something reporters who travel with him have been noticing for some time. Biden boarded using the shorter set of retractable stairs that fold into the belly of the plane. The routine began a few months ago, the president increasingly avoiding the grander, more traditional doorway near the front of the aircraft on the main passenger level, higher above the tarmac. The new routine looks to be another subtle accommodation to the president’s age. It is hiding in plain sight, although the White House won’t concede that interpretation. Three weeks ago when the president traveled to New York, again using the lower stairs to board, Bloomberg’s JUSTIN SINK pressed press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE about it during her in-flight gaggle. Was Biden having “mobility problems,” Sink asked, or was it “to address — you know, he’s had a couple incidents falling on the stairs getting up and you guys just decided that it would be better for him?” “I don’t have any decision process to walk through,” Jean-Pierre replied. “I'm sure there's a protocol that's used for the – for Air Force One. I just don't have one.” Traditionally, presidents have used the lower stairs when heavy rain or wind makes the taller steps unusable or in rare cases — like, famously, during a diplomatic spat after President BARACK OBAMA landed in China in 2016 — when a portable set of stairs is not available to place next to the main door. Last week, Biden used the small steps to board Air Force One for every flight on his European trip: to London, Vilnius, Helsinki and back to Washington. None of those arrivals or departures — all of which are public and witnessed by the traveling press pool — were marked by inclement weather. He used the large stairs to descend from the plane upon arrival in London, Vilnius and Helsinki, when his hosts arranged more formal greeting ceremonies, but not to climb back aboard. And the overseas trip came on the heels of several recent domestic ones where Biden predominantly used the lower stairs on visits to and from Rocky Mount, N.C., Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. “There are a series of factors that go into the logistical decision-making on this, including weather, what kind of airport we’re landing at and whether there is a formal greeting planned for the tarmac where we expect that press will want an official photo at the bottom of the tall stairs,” a White House official said. “There’s not one hard and fast rule — it is a decision made on a variety of factors in a wide range of settings and circumstances.” While many Biden advisers we contacted would not comment publicly on the change, two privately acknowledged an intentional shift to steer the 80-year-old president to the lower stairs more often to make his travel easier and limit the possibility for missteps. Why climb 26 sometimes wobbly steps at Joint Base Andrews, raised off the back of a pick-up truck that drives up beside Air Force One, when you have the option of stepping up or down just 14? Especially when few outside the press corps are likely to even notice. The age factor is arguably the president’s biggest political problem as he embarks on a reelection campaign. Biden has addressed the issue head-on, with the occasional levity on the stump and, in interviews, by emphasizing the “wisdom” gained over his years in politics. But Democrats concede that there is no great way to paper over it. “Satchel Paige famously said about age: ‘It’s mind over matter — if you don’t mind, it don’t matter.’ But this does matter to voters,” said RICK RIDDER, a longtime Democratic strategist in the West with experience on several presidential campaigns. “And Biden’s physical fragility complicates his effort to convince voters that reelecting him is a vote for stability. Because it’s hard for anyone to embody stability at 80 years old.” That’s largely why aides are also trying to limit situations where any signs of physical frailty might be on heightened display — and to ease the burdens of travel where possible. For instance, last week’s leaders’ dinner at the NATO summit was the third such gathering Biden either skipped or left early in the past year. Ultimately, the White House wants to keep the focus on the president’s record of historic legislative accomplishments, a surprisingly resilient economy and a foreign policy that, even Republicans concede, has restored America’s alliances. Read the full version of this story here. MESSAGE US — Are you MORGAN MOHR, senior adviser to the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs? 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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