Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from producer Raymond Rapada. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren In 2020, Rep. JIM CLYBURN’s endorsement of then-Vice President JOE BIDEN breathed life back into a nearly dead campaign. But the congressman said it didn’t happen “in a vacuum.” He taped radio ads. He cut robocalls. He aimed to talk to every Black radio station in South Carolina within hours of his endorsement to explain why he was backing Biden. In 2024, Clyburn believes the same strategy applies to Biden’s reelection campaign. While many in the nation are affixed on New Hampshire’s primary tomorrow, Clyburn is looking ahead to the contest in his state next week and, in particular, reaching out to Black voters, with whom Biden has been underperforming. “I’m concerned when I see these obvious accomplishments being left out of all the stories,” Clyburn said. “We’ve got to flood the zone.” West Wing Playbook sat down with Clyburn to discuss that and much more. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. What does a strong showing look like for Joe Biden in South Carolina on Feb. 3? I don’t expect we’ll have turnout like we’ve had over the last several years because those were open, contested primaries. I suspect — a good strong 65 percent of the electorate [for Biden]. On CNN, you recently said you were “very concerned” about the Biden campaign reaching Black voters and “breaking through the MAGA wall.” What are you specifically concerned about? The best example I know is student loan debt relief. Joe Biden made a big commitment to student loan debt relief. I pushed him, publicly, for a long time. I carried a bill over here for $50,000 a year in debt relief. Joe Biden would never go there (to the Senate). Quite frankly, looking back at what he did, and the way he did it, I am absolutely ecstatic that he didn't because that is the part of the effort now determined to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. [But] $57 billion dollars was eliminated under the public service category. I didn't see one word about that. That's the wall that concerns me. I didn't talk to a single Black person who did not say, ‘I am not going to vote for Joe Biden because he didn't keep his promise.’ But he had! How do people know? It wasn’t being reported. What, very specifically, do you think the campaign should be doing to break down that wall? We just have to do less esoteric stuff. You’ve got to be pointed. I'm reading all these stories now about Black men, and Trump getting about 15 percent of them. Every time a Black man says to me that he's looking at Trump, I look him in the face and ask him, ‘Do you have a sister? I know you’ve got a mother. Would you vote for a person who looks in a TV camera and refers to a Black woman as a dog? Would you do that?’ The Biden campaign did spend $25 million on positive ads in battleground states to explain what it's done. It didn’t move the numbers. I didn’t see a single ad on student loan debt. I talked to a statewide candidate last week. He said, ‘The biggest problem Joe Biden’s got in my statewide poll is student loan debt.’ That's what he said. Are there any other issues they need to focus on to help them break through? Oh, yeah! Take the insulin stuff. My wife was a four-shot-a-day diabetic. Now, she got taken care of, but when Biden proposed a $35 cap for everybody, the Senate would not go along. When the bill got to the Senate, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put up an amendment to strike that out of the bill. … We tried to do it for juvenile [diabetes]. How many children are being born with diabetes every day? Some of them, their families got insurance, but if they live in South Carolina and you don't have insurance, and the state has not expanded Medicaid, then how much are they going to pay? That’s the way you talk to people. What about third-party candidates? Do you worry about someone like Cornel West appealing to these voters? I’m not worried about that. My job is to make the case. If I don’t make it, if I fail, then I fail. If I sit around worrying, then I won’t make the case. OK, not worry — concerned? I’m concerned about my ability to break through that wall. Because I used to be in this business. If I'm not getting help from the media, then how am I gonna do it? We’re going to break through it. I’m concerned when I see these obvious accomplishments being left out of all the stories. I need to ask about one of your colleagues. Dean Phillips stripped “diversity, equity and inclusion” from his website, after one of his top donors Bill Ackman publicly criticized the position. What’s your reaction to it? You know, I think that what voters look for more than anything else are two things: honesty and authenticity. And that's lacking in both. What advice do you have for the Biden campaign right now? My whole thing is, I think we’ve got to rely less on TV ads and more on validators. We’ve got to flood the zone because this is not going to be an ordinary election. MESSAGE US — Are you BRENDA JONES, senior presidential speechwriter? 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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