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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.
There are no interns roaming the halls of President JOE BIDEN’s White House ...at least not yet.
The Biden White House hasn’t had interns on its campus yet because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced many full-time staffers to work from home into the summer. And it opted not to do remote internships the way many companies have.
The absence may linger past the summer, however. While the Trump and Obama administrations posted their fall internship applications in early March, the Biden White House has yet to post any application information about its main internship program on its website.
The only internship applications online so far are for a fall internship with the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The White House “get involved” page also has information about the White House fellowship program, which is different from internships because it isn’t for undergraduate students. Applicants have already been chosen for the year.
We checked in with the White House, and they said they’re hoping for a “later launch” of the fall program, “as a result of the global pandemic and the phased approach to return to work unfolding across the federal government.”
Though the internship program is on hold, the White House is still paying someone to manage it: JULIAN J. MILLER earns $80,000 a year as the program’s director, according to a disclosure released on July 1.
Interns usually flow through the White House in the spring, summer and fall, with about 100 students selected a semester.
Both the Obama and Trump archived sites say assignments given to White House interns day to day could include research, managing “incoming inquiries,” attending meetings, writing memos and staffing events.
The slots are extremely coveted, offering the chance to roam the halls of power at the highest level while contributing to the success of an administration. And a number of former White House interns have gone onto prominent roles in national politics and media, including longtime Hillary Clinton aide HUMA ABEDIN, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development JULIAN CASTRO, Biden senior adviser ANITA DUNN, Fox News’ NEIL CAVUTO, NBC News’ BRIAN WILLIAMS and former deputy attorney general LISA MONACO.
But, as of now, they are also unpaid, which has fed an ongoing debate about the fairness of the system.
CARLOS MARK VERA, the co-founder of the nonprofit Pay Our Interns, has led the charge to get compensation. He said his group is getting closer to a win. House Democrats have included $4.5 million in an appropriations bill that would go towards paying White House and Executive Office of the President interns for the first time. The measure is awaiting Senate action on a bill to fund the Executive Office of the President. Vera said it’s up to the White House how much they want to pay their interns, but the campaign is pushing for $15 an hour.
It’s part of a larger push to get the federal government to phase out unpaid internships, entirely.
Biden in late June signed an executive order that established an initiative to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal workforce. Among other things, it directed federal agencies to reduce their reliance on unpaid interns and bump up the number of paid opportunities. According to a fact sheet, the goal of that executive order was to create a federal workforce “that looks like America,” since unpaid slots inherently disadvantage those from poorer backgrounds who can least afford to work without compensation.
Depending on when Congress reaches a spending deal and when the White House decides to restart the program, interns there could begin receiving pay as early as this fall.
Vera and his group are urging the White House to post applications soon.
“This is a missed opportunity for a lot of young people that are juniors, seniors in college that really want this experience,” Vera said. “So we're really strongly encouraging the White House to launch it sooner rather than later so people can apply because people are looking for fall internships right now.”
Do you work in the Biden administration? Are you in touch with the White House? Are you JULIAN J. MILLER?
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PRESIDENTIAL TRIVIA
With the Partnership for Public Service
In the summer of 1979, what animal attacked then-President JIMMY CARTER when he was on a fishing trip in Georgia?
(Answer at the bottom)
The Oval
CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE? In the two weeks after POLITICO reported that KAMALA HARRIS’ office environment was dysfunctional and unhealthy, Harris’ aides have been publicly displaying affection for one another online. Everyone felt free to post pictures from the staff get-together with the VP last week.
And then yesterday evening, a number of people from Harris’ office posted photos of the vice president giving birthday cupcakes to speechwriter KATE CHILDS-GRAHAM and her domestic policy adviser ROHINI KOSOGLU aboard Air Force Two. “We love birthdays on team OVP,” tweeted PETER VELZ, director of press operations for the vice president.
THE PROFESSIONAL LEFT — The White House has largely held their fire as the left-wing has slung more and more arrows their way recently on climate and voting rights.
But their frustration is trickling out. Senior adviser CEDRIC RICHMOND told NBC’s MIKE MEMOLI that Biden “worked the phone, and we got every Democratic Senator” on the recent voting rights bill that failed in the face of a Republican filibuster.
As for progressive critics, Richmond said, “If they want a president who just runs around beating his chest talking hot air, they had that in the last president….People consistently don't give President Biden credit for being strategic and knowing exactly what to do, how to do it and when to do it."
Chief of Staff RON KLAIN also retweeted a post from MATT YGLESIAS criticizing left-wing climate-focused groups for recent moves that he argues represent “a total failure to read the political situation.”
BOOK DEETS: The Wall Street Journal’s MICHAEL BENDER is out with a new book today on DONALD TRUMP’s 2020 campaign. Most of it is about Trump, but there is some interesting reporting on how the campaign viewed Biden and the crossroads the Trump campaign faced when Biden won the Democratic nomination soon after Covid-19 hit.
Bender reports: Trump campaign polling showed that Biden wasn’t well defined in voters’ minds — Americans knew who he was, but not much about him — and Brad [Parscale]’s plan was an advertising blitz that aimed to leverage frustration among voters over China’s failure to contain the coronavirus by attacking Biden over positive comments the former vice president had made about Beijing….“We gotta be hitting the m**k,” Brad said about Biden, using a derogatory term to refer to the Democrat’s Irish heritage.
Kellyanne [Conway] was so confident Brad was wrong that she went to both Trump and the press. Brad’s idea wasn’t unwise — it was unripe, she said.
Americans were focused on the pandemic, not the presidential race, and she told Trump his best bet to close the gap was to use his bully pulpit to take on the virus, not Biden. She viewed the political fight over coronavirus as between Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping. Injecting Biden into that equation risked elevating the former vice president, who was, for now, stuck on the sidelines of the debate.
Filling the Ranks
FLAKE’S REWARD — The president will nominate former Arizona Sen. JEFF FLAKE to serve as ambassador to Turkey, extending a high-profile diplomatic post to the anti-Trump Republican, NICK NIEDZWIADEK writes.
Flake served as one of several prominent GOP surrogates for Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign, alongside people like CINDY McCAIN — the widow of the late Sen. JOHN McCAIN, who also hailed from Arizona. Biden recently nominated Cindy McCain as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Food and Agriculture agencies in Rome.
NEW DRUG CZAR: Biden is tapping March of Dimes Chief Medical Officer RAHUL GUPTA to lead the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, charging the former West Virginia public health commissioner with leading federal efforts to combat a spiraling addiction crisis. More here from DAN GOLDBERG, RACHEL ROUBEIN and SARAH OWERMOHLE.
Flake and Gupta were two of the 11 nominees the White House announced late this afternoon — full list HERE.
Agenda Setting
BUILD BACK PRESSURE — The White House is shifting its messaging strategy on its biggest initiatives by grouping together the American Jobs Plan, Families Plan, and Rescue Plan all under the “Build Back Better” banner, NATASHA KORECKI and CHRIS CADELAGO reported last night.
Splitting the plans into two distinct agenda items was Biden’s decision, White House communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD told Natasha back in April.
From that April story: Inside the White House, there was also a belief that it was an easier sell if separated into two major groupings: the job creation piece of the first package and more of a caring economy piece of the second package.
Advise and Consent
FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK — A who’s who of the national security establishment in both parties have sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee backing MATTHEW OLSEN’s nomination to be assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department ahead of his confirmation hearing tomorrow.
The letter is signed by Democrats like former Defense Secretary LEON PANETTA, former Secretary of Homeland Security JEH JOHNSON, and former CIA Director MIKE MORRELL, along with Republicans such as former Attorney General MIKE MUKASEY and former Georgia Sen. SAXY CHAMBLISS.
The letter was organized by JAMIL JAFFER, a Justice Department colleague of Olsen’s from the W. Bush administration and the executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University Law School. Jaffer has quietly organized a few such campaigns for Biden nominees like DHS cybersecurity chief JEN EASTERLY and national cyber director CHRIS INGLIS.
TWO MORE CONFIRMED: The Senate confirmed UZRA ZEYA to be undersecretary of State for civilian security, democracy and human rights, by a vote of 73 to 24.
It also confirmed JULIE SU as deputy secretary of Labor, by a much narrower margin — 50 to 47. Every Republican senator, minus the three who were absent, voted against the former California labor secretary.
What We're Reading
Fired and defiant, former Social Security chief is cut off from agency computers (Washington Post’s Lisa Rein)
New concern for Biden: Could Larry Summers be right about inflation? (Politico’s Ben White)
White House appoints new director to steer key climate change report (Washington Post’s Jason Samenow)
Where's Joe
Biden traveled to Philadelphia, where he delivered remarks about protecting the right to vote at the National Constitution Center.
Also in attendance: senior adviser MIKE DONILON, deputy chief of staff JEN O’MALLEY DILLON, White House counsel DANA REMUS, senior adviser CEDRIC RICHMOND, deputy director of Oval Office operations ASHLEY WILLIAMS and Biden’s sister VALERIE BIDEN.
Where's Kamala
She met with the Democratic state legislators from Texas who fled the state to block a vote on Republican-backed voting restrictions at the American Federation of Teachers offices near the U.S. Capitol. “I wanted to stop by to say welcome and to say thank you,” Harris told them.
The Oppo Book
ARAZ POURMORAD, the director of presidential scheduling, is no stranger to the White House.
Pourmorad worked in the Obama administration as deputy director of operations and continuity and was promoted to the State Department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol.
While there, he took on a more colorful role, too.
For the 134th White House Easter Egg Roll in 2015, Pourmorad dressed up as the Easter Bunny, he admitted to the Orange County Register back in 2017.
Asked if he would once again don the costume in the Biden administration, Pourmorad did not respond.
Past Easter Bunnies include Trump press secretary SEAN SPICER and current White House director of message planning MEGHAN HAYS.
Trivia Answer
Carter’s press secretary, JODY POWELL, said the president was attacked by a killer rabbit while fishing in Plains, Ga.
Carter later explained that the rabbit was running away from hounds, jumped into the body of water where he was fishing and swam toward his boat. He used his boat paddle to get the rabbit away.
When the press picked up the story, however, it was another example of Carter’s perceived weakness. The Washington Post put it on the front page with the headline: “Bunny Goes Bugs: Rabbit Attacks President.” An accompanying cartoon also ran with the caption: “PAWS” above it.
“When Jody told it, it became a very humorous and still lasting story,” Carter told CNN’s HOWARD KURTZ in 2010. “Lots of people that had tame bunny rabbits threw them in swimming pools and said their rabbits could swim, too.”
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