Ladies night at Kamala's

By Theodoric Meyer and Alex Thompson

Presented by NextEra Energy

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Sen. TAMMY BALDWIN was ready to party.

The low-key Wisconsin Democrat didn’t arrive empty-handed at the Naval Observatory on Tuesday evening for Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ dinner party with women senators. She brought beer. And not just any beer — Kamala-themed, nearly 10-percent alcohol content beer.

Baldwin brought Harris a four-pack of “,la” (as in “comma-la”) from Wisconsin’s Minocqua Brewing Company. The beer pays homage to Harris, featuring a stylized image of her on the can. “It’s the strongest beer we could make, a 9.7% alcohol by volume imperial (we prefer Vice Presidential) stout,” the brewery boasts on its website.

(The brewery also sells an “inoffensive,” comparatively weaker “Biden Beer” that’s just 5.5 percent alcohol and a “Bernie Brew” that’s 6.5 percent. The company donates 5 percent of its profits to the Minocqua Brewing Company SuperPAC, which is working to defeat Sen. RON JOHNSON and other Republicans up for reelection next year.)

Harris and the 21 senators who showed up — Sen. CYNTHIA LUMMIS (R-Wyo.) wasn’t feeling well, Sen. KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-Ariz.) recently broke her foot and Sen. CINDY HYDE-SMITH (R-Miss.) had an unspecified prior engagement, according to their offices — didn’t crack open the beer at the dinner. They appear to have drunk rosé and sauvignon blanc, according to a menu tweeted out by Nebraska Republican DEB FISCHER.

Whether it was the wine or something else, the attendees seem to have had a good time.

“It would be nice if it became regular,” Sen. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO (R-W.Va.) told Forbes’ ANDREW SOLENDER today. “I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think everybody did.”

Harris gave her guests candles. Her office declined to say where she bought them..

The dinner was a true first, reflecting Harris’ role as the first woman to be vice president.

Harris, who served four years in the Senate before she became vice president, didn’t use the occasion to pitch Republicans on the merits of infrastructure investment or the voting rights bills that President JOE BIDEN has assigned her to take the lead on.

Instead, she and her dinner guests talked about their kids, their grandchildren and the fact that Harris was probably the first vice president in history to cook a dinner she was hosting. She made cheese puffs, which were apparently delicious. (Asked for the recipe, her office declined). Sen. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-Alaska) shared her rhubarb crisp recipe.

“We talked about the flowers and the china, and we laughed about how if the men had been there we wouldn’t have been talking about the china,” Sen. TINA SMITH (D-Minn.) said in an interview.

They also celebrated Harris for accomplishing something no other woman senator ever has: ascending to higher office. Sens. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-Calif.), KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D-N.Y.), Murkowski and Smith gave toasts, according to Smith.

“We were all very aware of it being a first,” Smith said. “We all signed one another’s menu cards and passed them around so we would each have a memento of the day.” (Sharp-eyed readers can spot the signed cards in a photo that Sen. DEBBIE STABENOW (D-Mich.) tweeted.)

“I think everyone was feeling really proud of her,” she added. “That was expressed by Republicans and Democrats.”

It’s an open question whether drinking and chumming it up with lawmakers actually helps presidents move their agendas. Biden doesn’t drink, but he’s a big believer in schmoozing, as evidenced by the many Oval Office meetings he’s held with lawmakers.

Obama was often criticized for not wining and dining Republican lawmakers enough, but he repeatedly argued that more cocktail parties wouldn’t have done him any good. “We would invite them to everything: movie nights, state dinners, Camp David, you name it,” he told The Atlantic last year. “The issue was not a lack of schmoozing.”

But Smith said she thought having dinner with members of the opposition — women senators have organized their own bipartisan dinners for decades — is important. “There are lots of times in the Senate where you’re just moving from one thing to the next,” she said, without a chance to unwind.

“I think it honestly shapes the way we respond to one another.”

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With the Partnership for Public Service

Which president once said “strive for production as BABE RUTH strives for home runs,” to inspire Americans to do their best work?

(Answer at the bottom.)

JOE BIDEN, MEDIA CRITIC — Biden apologized to CNN’s KAITLAN COLLINS on the airport tarmac in Geneva, Switzerland for being a “wise guy” after he snapped at her pretty normal question: “Why are you so confident [Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN will] change his behavior, Mr. President?"

He replied: “I'm not confident I'm going to change his behavior. What the hell? What do you do all the time? When did I say I was confident?”

Hat in hand, he later came over to the reporters near Air Force One and apologized. But when The New York Times’ MICHAEL SHEAR pressed Biden on Collins’ original question, it didn’t seem that Biden was completely sorry.

"Look, to be a good reporter, you've gotta be negative. You've gotta have a negative view of life, it seems to me. The way you all — you never ask a positive question,” he said.

THE BIDEN DOCTRINE? There are endless think-pieces trying to identify the so-called “Biden doctrine.” Most of the discussion is dumb, as NAHAL TOOSI recently reported out.

But Biden did give some interesting insight into how he sees diplomacy and world affairs in his press conference following his meeting with Putin. Responding to a question from the AP’s JONATHAN LEMIRE , Biden said: “Look, guys, I know we make foreign policy out to be this great, great skill that somehow is, sort of, like a secret code. All foreign policy is, is a logical extension of personal relationships. It’s the way human nature functions."

WHAT TO GIVE THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING: Biden gifted Putin “a crystal sculpture of an American Bison by Steuben Glass of New York” and “a pair of custom Aviators made by Randolph USA.”

Want your own glass bison? This appears to be the same one — the White House did not respond to an inquiry about it — and Steuben is currently selling it on their website for $3,200.

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK — Biden spent much of his European tour raising red flags about China, but it seems the public on both sides of the Atlantic already got the message. According to a new poll conducted by Ipsos in partnership with The American Edge Project, 82% of voters in the U.S. and 70% in Europe agree that “the way that the Chinese and Russian governments approach the rules governing technology is a threat to the U.S./EU.”

The American Edge Project is a political advocacy group backed by Facebook and others focused on trying to persuade lawmakers that Silicon Valley is essential to the U.S., as the Washington Post reported last year.

TWO CONFIRMED — The Senate confirmed RADHIKA FOX to be an assistant administrator of the EPA, 55-43, and LYDIA GRIGGSBY to be U.S. district judge for the District of Maryland, 59-39.

GRIDLOCK AHEAD: The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved three nominations Wednesday, but Sen. RICK SCOTT (R-Fla.) said he would block a full Senate vote on them until Biden visits the southern border.

Scott said he wanted to hear how the administration would handle the surge of migrants from Central America and elsewhere before moving forward with nominees — ROBIN CARNAHAN to be administrator of general services, JEN EASTERLY to be director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the Department of Homeland Security and CHRIS INGLIS to be national cyber director.

NEXT STOP, THE FLOOR: The HELP Committee approved several nominations to be assistant secretaries: GWEN GRAHAM at the Education Department, and RAJESH NAYAK, TARYN WILLIAMS and DOUGLAS PARKER at the Labor Department.

The HELP Committee also approved two nominations to be Health and Human Services assistant secretaries: DAWN O'CONNELL and MIRIAM DELPHIN-RITTMON.

The Commerce, Science and Transportation committee approved three nominees: PAMELA MELROY to be deputy administrator of NASA, CARLOS MONJE JR. to be under secretary of Transportation for policy, and RICHARD SPINRAD to be under secretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere — as well as routine lists in the Coast Guard.

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee approved the nomination of DILAWAR SYED to be deputy administrator of the Small Business Administration.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS — DAVID CHIPMAN, the nominee to be Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives director, will finally get a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee after being held over by the minority last week.

The committee will also vote on judicial nominees TIFFANY CUNNINGHAM and MARGARET STRICKLAND; UR JADDOU to be director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services at the Department of Homeland Security; ANNE MILGRAM to be administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency and KENNETH POLITE JR. to be an assistant attorney general.

The Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee will also hold a hearing with two Treasury Department nominees: BRIAN NELSON to be undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes and ELIZABETH ROSENBERG to be assistant secretary for terrorist financing.

Global tax deal holdouts face squeeze under Biden administration plan (The Wall Street Journal’s Richard Rubin)

Sen. Tom Carper is trading in his beloved minivan (in which Biden sometimes rode shotgun) for a Tesla (The News Journal’s Meredith Newman)

U.S. reopens asylum access for victims of domestic, gang violence (Reuters’ Ted Hesson)

Fed signals first rate rise will come in 2023 (Financial Times’ James Politi and Colby Smith)

Biden met with Swiss President GUY PARMELIN again, then held a bilateral meeting with Putin in Geneva.

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

The president held a press conference after the meeting, and headed back to Washington in the evening.

Harris met with Democratic members of the Texas legislature who walked out to block a bill restricting voting last month.

There’s been an unlikely bromance between former congressman and Biden senior adviser CEDRIC RICHMOND and Louisiana Republican Rep. STEVE SCALISE, the House minority whip.

Before they dueled in Congress, they clashed in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

But they did find at least one area of agreement: sports.

“We would fight during the day in the Legislature, and then in the evening, we would go play basketball and we would have drinks together,” Richmond told the New Orleans Advocate in 2017.

Once they both arrived in D.C., that dynamic naturally carried over to the annual congressional baseball game.

They even sat for a joint interview with Face the Nation’s MARGARET BRENNAN back in 2018, nearly a year after Scalise was shot during a Congressional baseball practice. Scalise showed off a picture of the two running to home base in one of the games, which pit Democrats versus Republicans with the proceeds going to charity.

“He wanted to get to home plate to try and catch the ball and stop me,” Scalise explained. “The good news is, I got to home plate before he did and I scored the run.”

But Richmond said he let Scalise off easy — he was the Democrats’ ace pitcher, after all.

“My mother taught me when I was a kid, that when you’re beating another team really bad, you do acts of kindness and gestures of friendship.”

Baseball-loving president WARREN G. HARDING said the phrase, and apparently, he was good friends with Ruth, too.

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Edited by Emily Cadei

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NextEra Energy supports policies that make green hydrogen one of the nation’s top priorities. Learn more at NextEraEnergy.com

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