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Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice.
When U.S. Surgeon General VIVEK MURTHY stepped back into the spotlight — very literally — last week to brief the press on the spread of Covid-19 and vaccine misinformation, it marked a return to a more public role after six months of operating largely behind the scenes.
President JOE BIDEN’s surgeon general, who served in the same role under BARACK OBAMA from 2014 to 2017, issued his first advisory last week, which blamed misinformation on technology and social media platforms for “prolonging the pandemic and putting lives at risk.”
But his relatively low public profile thus far in his second stint on the job has been surprising, particularly since a big part of the surgeon general’s job is to use a bully pulpit to improve Americans’ health and wellbeing.
Murthy was a prominent voice in the press and other public forums during the general election campaign, and was one of the first people Biden named to his pandemic advisory board during the presidential transition. Along with former FDA commissioner DAVID KESSLER, Murthy was one of two people who took the lead during Biden’s daily briefings on the virus.
Murthy’s name came up for a number of big health jobs in the administration. But his lack of managerial skills was seen as a drawback, Politico reported in the fall, which may have hurt his chances of scoring one of the bigger Cabinet posts, such as secretary of Health and Human Services.
Murthy has appeared on national television a couple of times this spring, including on MSNBC and CBS. (He made headlines in April when his young son video bombed an interview). But he stepped up his media hits this weekend, appearing on multiple Sunday shows to talk about the rising risk of the Delta variant of the coronavirus, which is spreading across the country, and vaccine misinformation.
The White House didn’t respond to questions about Murthy’s public re-appearance, but he is certainly helping fill a void left by former Covid-19 senior advisor ANDY SLAVITT, who departed the White House in June after a four-month tenure that was always intended to be short term.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. ROCHELLE WALENSKY, Dr. ANTHONY FAUCI and Slavitt had been the three main voices from Biden’s coronavirus response team, engaging regularly with the public. With Slavitt’s departure, and with the highly transmissible Delta variant driving a new spike in cases, the administration is redoubling its vaccine push and fighting back against misinformation, especially around vaccine safety.
Murthy has been part of the administration’s internal Covid-19 policy response and has been working on the disinformation issue. He’s also been personally affected by the pandemic, having lost 10 family members to Covid-19 in both the U.S. and India.
“On a personal note, it’s painful for me to know that nearly every death we are seeing now from Covid-19 could have been prevented,” Murthy told reporters last week. “I say that as someone who has lost 10 family members to Covid and who wishes each and every day that they had had the opportunity to get vaccinated.”
The role of surgeon general is to a large extent a public health messaging job — perhaps most famously, the surgeon general’s office has issued a landmark series of reports on the health dangers of smoking that helped discourage tobacco use in the country over the past few decades.
Kessler, who has known Murthy going back to his days as a Yale med student (Kessler was the dean of Yale Medical School at the time), described him as “a masterful communicator.”
“I remember when we were briefing during the campaign, and I was stumbling trying to explain the shortage of reagents for diagnostic tests,” Kessler told West Wing Playbook.
Kessler recalled how he struggled to convey the scientific concepts in laymen’s terms, only to have Murthy deftly come in with a simple-to-understand analogy.
“Vivek said, ‘Mr Vice President,’ which is what we called President Biden at that time, ‘just think of reagents as those pods, the detergent,’” Kessler recalled. “‘Not having reagents is like not having detergent.’ And everyone got it. It was the right metaphor. I was stumbling trying to explain re-agents – and he did it with detergent pods.”
Kessler couldn’t recall if Murthy actually cited dishwasher detergent or clothes washer detergent when he was briefing Biden. But, either way, “everyone understood – including the boss.”
And, hey, at least it wasn’t bleach.
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PRESIDENTIAL TRIVIA
With the Partnership for Public Service
According to Billboard, which president is the most name-dropped in music history?
(Answer at the bottom)
The Oval
TESTING … TESTING 1, 2, 3 — Fox News’ PETER DOOCY asked JEN PSAKI today if the White House had any “safety concerns” about the vice president spending time with the president after some of the Texas legislators Harris met with last week tested positive for Covid-19.
Psaki replied, “I think the vice president’s office put out that she was tested and that there was no detection of Covid-19.” She later added that, “What's important for everybody to know is that the vice president was tested.”
But the vice president’s office had not said that over the weekend. On Saturday, chief spokesperson SYMONE SANDERS put out a statement declaring that “based on the timeline of these positive tests, it was determined the Vice President and her staff present at the meeting were not at risk of exposure because they were not in close contact with those who tested positive and therefore do not need to be tested or quarantined.” (Our ace health reporter ADAM CANCRYN said this follows current CDC guidelines assuming Harris doesn’t develop symptoms.)
Asked about the contradicting answers, the White House bumped us over to Harris’ office who said Harris had been tested but not because of the Texas legislators. Sanders told West Wing Playbook that “the vice president is tested regularly as is her staff and that as a part of that regular testing, she was tested this weekend and Covid-19 was not detected. That is not in conflict with the statement we put out Saturday.”
PBS BOOKS @meena: This Friday, Harris’ niece MEENA HARRIS will do a read-along of her children’s book “Ambitious Girl” on PBS Kids’ social channels.
HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE-NAMED: Biden discusses Trump quite often but he continues to avoid saying his name, preferring words like “predecessor.” Today, Biden even quoted the former president without name-checking him.
“You might remember some of the predictions,” he said in remarks on the economy, “that if I became president, we’d, quote, ‘see a depression the likes of which we’ve never seen.’”
That remark came from Trump himself during their October 23rd debate last year.
ICYMI: our February 3rd look at this language choice that continues six months in.
Agenda Setting
ONLINE LEFT SOURING ON GARLAND — MATT YGLESIAS, a favorite writer of the West Wing’s, tweeted this afternoon that “The Merrick Garland Experience is a disaster.”
Garland has already been caught in the left’s crossfire a few times, including after his decision to keep defending DONALD TRUMP in a defamation suit brought by E. JEAN CARROLL.
Today, several prominent lefties bashed Garland over his decision late last week not to pursue prosecution of Trump Commerce Secretary WILBUR ROSS. The department’s inspector general found that in testimony before Congress Ross “misrepresented the full rationale” of how a citizenship question was added to the census and his role in it, according to Government Executive.
Harvard Law professor LAURENCE TRIBE tweeted that the Justice Department’s decision “looks pretty pathetic. But then I’m just a law professor with a half century’s experience with criminal as well as civil cases, not a genuine DC insider who finds lying to be par for the course. Sorry to be so naively insistent on principle.”
MORE NEWSLETTERS: 'National Security Daily’ by ALEX WARD is our newest addition to the POLITICO newsletter universe. You should all subscribe here.
Today’s newsletter included an eye-popping stat from NAHAL TOOSI: refugee arrivals this fiscal year are so far just 5,731, below even Trump’s presidency. Read the full edition today to find out why.
Advise and Consent
STANDING FIRM — Psaki was asked at Monday’s briefing whether new revelations about TRACY STONE-MANNING, Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management, and her role in a decades-old tree spiking case when she was a young environmental activist have changed the president’s support for the nomination.
“It has not,” she replied. “He stands by his nominee and looks forward to her getting confirmed.”
HE’S GOT ISSUES: Senate Majority Whip DICK DURBIN (D-Ill.) acknowledged this afternoon that “there are a lot of issues” with Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
The whip count for DAVID CHIPMAN’s nomination “is not where we want it yet, but there’s always a chance,” Durbin told MARIANNE LeVINE.
What We're Reading
GOP: Bipartisan infrastructure deal has ‘no chance’ on Wednesday (Politico’s Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine)
Wall Street has its worst day since May, as markets are jolted by the Delta variant (New York Times’ Coral Murphy Marcos)
White House backs raising visa cap for Afghans who assisted U.S. (Bloomberg’s Daniel Flatley and Roxana Tiron)
Where's Joe
Biden delivered remarks on the economy and infrastructure package in the State Dining Room.
He and first lady JILL BIDEN welcomed King ABDULLAH II IBN AL HUSSEIN and Queen RANIA AL ABDULLAH of Jordan and His Royal Highness Crown Prince AL HUSSEIN BIN ABDULLAH II.
Biden and King Abdullah then held a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office.
Where's Kamala
She did not hold any public events.
The Oppo Book
National Security Council spokesperson SEAN SAVETT will go the extra mile to get a job.
He got his first job in politics by dressing up as a duck because his boss’ opponent was “ducking” the issues (get it?).
Here’s the backstory—errrr quackstory. Savett was interviewing to work on Rep. LOUISE SLAUGHTER (D-N.Y.)’s 2012 reelection campaign. After his interview, but before he was offered the job, the campaign asked him if he could take on a small “project” for them.
Then they revealed the task: dressing in a duck costume and standing outside of opponent MAGGIE BROOKS’ office. Savett got the job and the duck helped Slaughter cruise to a 55.7 percent to 41.3 percent victory.
Don’t believe us? A little duck sent us these pictures:
Trivia Answer
BARACK OBAMA tops the list with 309 song mentions.
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