BIDEN WANTS NICE QUESTIONS — For the second time in about two weeks, Biden complained about aggressive questions from the media. After the president delivered remarks on the positive June jobs report, reporters began peppering him with questions about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden answered a couple, before growing impatient. “I’m not gonna answer any more questions about Afghanistan. Look. It’s 4th of July.…I’ll answer all your negative questions,” he said before catching himself and saying, “not negative, legitimate questions.” The impatience echoed Biden’s lament from the tail end of his trip to Europe last month, when he said that, “To be a reporter you have to have a negative view on life...You never ask the positive questions.” What reporters were asking about this morning, from the New York Times’ THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF in Kabul: “American troops and their Western allies have departed Bagram, the last active air base used by the U.S. military in Afghanistan, officials said on Friday, effectively ending major U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. “With little fanfare and no public ceremony, American troops left the base on Thursday night, U.S. and Afghan officials said, even as the Taliban sweeps through the country’s northern provinces, capturing large swathes of territory.” CHASER: NAHAL TOOSI and LARA SELIGMAN on the potential for the U.S. embassy in Kabul to fall. THE GREAT BIDEN-BINO: During a White House ceremony welcoming in the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, Biden offered a reminiscence about baseball triumphs of his own. During the second congressional baseball game, he said, he “hit one off the right-centerfield wall,” a shot that he recalled going “368” or so feet. The Republican National Committee immediately called bunk. Write-ups of Biden’s stat lines during the early 1970s congressional baseball games showed he went 1-2 with a single in 1973 and 0-2 in 1974. He was stuck in traffic in 1975 but got to the stadium and played an inning that year. It’s unclear if that’s when he hit his bomb. But the contemporaneous newspaper account says nothing of it. Perhaps he was referring to another year. Perhaps the single in ‘73 was of the 368-foot, off-the-wall variety; if so, we have some questions about Biden’s acumen on the bases. We asked the White House for comment and got none. THE ‘SLOW BORING’ WHITE HOUSE — Center-left journalist and professional contrarian MATT YGLESIAS may have recently moved from Vox to his own Substack called “Slow Boring,” but he has maintained at least one key audience: Biden aides. Klain regularly retweets him (including this morning) and as do many of the senior officials at the White House, including director of the National Economic Council BRIAN DEESE, press secretary JEN PSAKI, the lead on Biden’s rescue package GENE SPERLING, plus members of the Council of Economic Advisers HEATHER BOUSHEY and JARED BERNSTEIN. In an email, Yglesias wrote to us: “I am very flattered to be read by people in a position to actually do things; it’s like the Biden team has always said — Twitter is real life!” THE LONG GOODBYE: Well, ANITA DUNN has long said her duties as one of Biden’s most trusted senior advisers would be temporary, and she’d be returning to SKDKnickerbocker as a partner in no time. On Friday she told our RYAN LIZZA that her planned departure is for real. “I am here as a temporary employee. I do believe when a president asks you directly to come serve, then you know you have a responsibility to serve,” Dunn said. “But this was not my intention to be at the White House full-time for a longer stint.” As for timing, Dunn said she plans to return to her firm “very shortly.” MAEVE SHEEHEY has more on that interview. On career advice for women, Dunn drew on words from HAMILTON JORDAN, President JIMMY CARTER ’s chief of staff, whom she worked for as an intern. “It is better to make a decision and have it be wrong, to make a mistake because you can fix it, than to make no decision,” Dunn recalled of Jordan’s advice. “No decision can be costly.” She’s told this story before, so it must really be stuck in her brain. ZIENTS ACCESS — The White House gave the Washington Post’s BEN TERRIS some good access to Covid czar JEFF ZIENTS for a profile on the Covid-19 response that landed this morning. We lol’d at this part: “That grin, plus his more-salt-than-pepper hair, has earned Zients occasional comparisons to George Clooney.” “‘You see it, right?’ he asked his testing coordinator, Carole Johnson, when she walked into the office at one point during the interview.” “‘Of course,’ she said.” Here’s a picture. You decide. | 
