With help from Allie Bice and Daniel Payne Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe here! Have a tip? Email us at transitiontips@politico.com. White House press secretary JEN PSAKI and communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD have a lot of history. “We were just talking about how we hate each other,” Psaki said drily with Bedingfield next to her on Tuesday, ahead of President JOE BIDEN’s address at a Ford plant outside Detroit. Knowing that West Wing Playbook was working on a profile of the two of them and that we admittedly are suckers for staff intrigue, Psaki added that she and Bedingfield “fist fight on the plane” and that there is “boiling drama.” Yes, Bedingfield deadpanned, “boiling drama all the time.” While the duo say they are drama-free, White House press and communications teams often have tension. The overlapping responsibilities and high-stress nature of the gigs can prompt turf wars and finger pointing. There’s no outward sign of that. But there are some quiet divisions within the Biden comms team. They break down, roughly, between so-called “Bedingfield people” — mostly those who staffed Biden’s 2020 primary — and “Psaki people” — a camp of those who weren’t particularly close to Bedingfield during the campaign and/or served with the current press secretary during the Obama era. Psaki also faces the extra challenge of not having worked on Biden’s campaign, the first time that’s been true of been true of a new president’s press secretary since 1989, when GEORGE H.W. BUSH kept on RONALD REAGAN’s press secretary, MARLIN FITZWATER. While there have been tensions inside the White House comms team — including some early behind-the-scenes jockeying to succeed Psaki — the divides haven’t descended into serious sniping. And aides credit that, in part, to Bedingfield and Psaki’s professional and personal relationship. “I think she was a validator for me within the Biden family,” Psaki said in an interview. “I could never be a person who had the same war wounds from the campaign. I didn’t, right … I could have been treated differently, and I would have understood it. I was ready for that. And that’s a reflection largely on her to set the tone with the team of people who worked for her on the campaign.” The Bedingfield-Psaki relationship goes back much further than even many of their colleagues realize. Fifteen years before they had adjoining West Wing offices, the two had neighboring cubicles as regional press secretaries at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2006 cycle. Along with fellow redhead BEN HERBERT, DCCC colleagues referred to them as “Red Row.” Some people separated them as “big ginger” (Ben), “medium ginger” (Kate), and “little ginger” (Jen, the shortest of the three), although fellow regional press secretary ADRIENNE ELROD recalls just calling them “the gingers.” She added: “We didn't really distinguish between big, little, and miniature.” Psaki and Bedingfield bonded over the small things in the way overworked campaign aides often do. Everyone had to get up and dance whenever Usher’s “Yeah!” came on — the “unofficial theme song” of the election cycle, as one colleague dubbed it. “I had forgotten that, but now this is a reason to bring it back,” Psaki said. And after a junior researcher quit and left her pink jacket behind, people had to take turns donning what was dubbed “the quitters jacket.” RAHM EMANUEL, who some credit with coining “Red Row” while leading the DCCC in 2006, told West Wing Playbook we could include the following quote as long as we truthfully noted he said it with “lightheartedness.” “I'm not so sure I was their boss as much as they bossed me around,” he said with a laugh. “I may have had the title but I don't think that was definitive of the relationship.” After Democrats took back the House in 2006, Psaki joined DCCC communications director BILL BURTON and other DCCC aides in jumping on BARACK OBAMA’s nascent presidential campaign. Bedingfield, meanwhile, followed fellow Southerner CHRISTINA REYNOLDS to JOHN EDWARDS’ presidential campaign. Elrod recalled that Rahm, who was close to many Obama aides given their shared Chicago ties, teased her: “‘Why are you going to John Edwards’ campaign?’” After Obama became the party’s nominee and Edwards’ career went up in self-ignited flames, Psaki and Bedingfield’s careers kept intersecting. They both joined the Obama White House at the start of his administration — Psaki as deputy communications director and Bedingfield as rapid response director — and then reunited at the end, with Bedingfield joining Biden’s office in 2015 and Psaki becoming White House communications director the same year. Over the years, the two have become personally close, with each serving as a bridesmaid in the other’s wedding. Bedingfield calls Psaki “a rock in my life for 15 years” and one of her best friends. “It makes the job, you know, that much more interesting, fun,” agreed Psaki. Asked if she had any favorite Psaki stories, Bedingfield intriguingly said: “I don't know if any of them are fit to print, as they say … I'm gonna get in trouble.” They both have high praise for the other’s skills. Bedingfield marveled at Psaki’s ability to move quickly but “doing so in a way that isn't impulsive.” And Psaki said one of Bedingfield’s “superpowers” was not being blown off course by tweets or random stories. The end of the Obama administration could have been the end of their professional relationship. Bedingfield joined the Biden campaign in the lead up to 2020 while Psaki stayed in the private sector and opined on the race as a CNN contributor. She later admitted that she had been skeptical of Biden’s chances. When she joined the Biden transition in the fall of 2020, Psaki insisted that she wouldn’t be returning to the White House. She had been passed over for the press secretary job in the Obama White House twice, and being runner-up in 2014 had left her “devastated,” she recently divulged to DAVID AXELROD on his podcast. “I'm sort of like always the bridesmaid and, like, finally the bride,” she said. Asked if she would have any interest in succeeding Psaki, Bedingfield said, “nothing I have to say on the record on that.” Their friends say the relationship is completely genuine. Is there any friendly rivalry between them? “Oh, God, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” said Elrod. “Quite the opposite. If anything, I would say, mutual support.” One person who could be key to bridging any divisions is deputy press secretary ANDREW BATES, who worked for Psaki and Bedingfield in the early years of the Obama administration, then Bedingfield again during the Biden campaign, and now Psaki again. “I know, Bates can't quit us,” said Psaki. “We’re like his moms, his momma bears for life here.” | 
