Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Tina Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. JOE BIDEN has caught people inside his own administration off-guard with slight moves he’s made toward the center recently, according to several people familiar with the internal dynamic. In recent weeks, the White House has increasingly bent to Republican critics. And not just in the pursuit of bipartisanship on an infrastructure deal it’s negotiating with Congress. The president and his team have tried to address inflation concerns after initially dismissing them, and urged people who are capable of working to stop collecting unemployment after earlier resisting doing just that. “The posture around states making it hard [to collect unemployment insurance] was not what we thought was going to be the posture,” said an administration official familiar with the deliberations. It’s been a marked shift from just several weeks ago, when the White House bypassed Republicans to pass a huge Covid relief bill with only Democratic votes, dismissed inflation concerns, and signed into law the enhanced unemployment insurance benefits they are now messaging around. While Biden continues to please the left-wing of his party with moves like appointing LINA KHAN chair of the Federal Trade Commission, his recent policy shifts underscore the constant tug-of-war in the administration between the new class of progressive thinkers and the more experienced advisers like BRUCE REED and STEVE RICCHETTI , who have known Biden for many years and share his concerns of left-wing excess alienating voters (which was part of his winning campaign). Some of that old-guard believes that while “Twitter” wants a fight, voters want unity and will ultimately reward a consensus-oriented, bipartisan approach. Many Democrats, however, disagree. They had been agitating to pass the American Jobs Plan, Biden’s infrastructure spending proposal, on a party line vote, but the president left no doubt this past week that bipartisan input was critical to his agenda even if it meant ultimately sacrificing other progressive priorities. After initially signaling he would veto a bipartisan infrastructure package unless he could also sign a multi-trillion American Families Plan to create universal pre-K, free community college and other liberal priorities, Biden backtracked in order to get Republican senators back on board. “So to be clear: our bipartisan agreement does not preclude Republicans from attempting to defeat my Families Plan,” he said in a statement Saturday. But that’s only the latest instance of Biden’s recent shift to the center. Many people in the White House were caught by surprise earlier this month when press secretary JEN PSAKI said Republican governors had “every right” to cut off the extra unemployment insurance benefits Biden had touted just a few months earlier. In early May, Biden also raised eyebrows internally with some tough love rhetoric on unemployment. “We’re going to make it clear that anyone collecting unemployment who is offered a suitable job must take the job or lose their unemployment,” he said. The next potential fight is over the future of Biden’s original American Jobs Plan, which included $2.65 trillion in new spending, more than four times the $579 billion in new spending in the bipartisan proposal Biden signed onto. It’s unclear what happens to that $2 trillion gap in new spending. Inflation concerns may lead the Biden administration to accept a significantly lower number than they proposed just a few months ago, while progressives want the Biden administration to fold the leftover parts from that package into the Families Plan. Does the White House believe Congress should put at least part of that nearly $2 trillion gap into the Families Plan headed toward reconciliation? The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you HANNAH BRISTOL? We want to hear from you — and we’ll keep you anonymous: westwingtips@politico.com. Or if you want to stay really anonymous send us a tip through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram, or Whatsapp here. | 
