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TO: JRB
FROM: Ron Klain
DATE: 01/22/23
RE: What’s next…
Everything is going to be fine.
And everything is going to be someone else’s problem soon.
Lots of really smart people have told you that no one else can hold this all together as your chief of staff.
As I’ve explained to you, here are the challenges that I have mastered that (probably) no one else can do:
Make Steve and Mike feel like they are in charge (but not actually letting them be in charge).
Anticipate and satisfy the First Lady’s every brilliant impulse.
Implement the 20% of Val’s ideas that are strong – and deflect the other 80%.
Use Twitter like a maestro.
Channel our mutual appreciation for Secretary Raimondo into giving her as much authority as we possibly can, while taking the edge off of the fact that she is president’s pet, to avoid upsetting other Cabinet secretaries.
Speak to Chuck up to two dozen times a day.
Manage Hunter in a way that keeps him from feeling managed (or fucking up).
Care and feeding for the top twenty White House beat reporters on deep background, all in service of your interests.
Manage your schedule and rest so the number of times you forget the Vice President’s name or speak to dead people at public events is at a miraculous minimum.
Push the personnel folks to maintain excellence and diversity in a way that President Obama never even tried to do – with the best pre-vetting in American history.
Make sure Susan’s portfolio is exactly what she wants it to be.
Get the Vice President as ready to be president as she could possibly be, under the circumstances, without making her (or her team) feel overwhelmed or underwhelmed.
Keep you away from members of Congress or others who might tell the media how much you yell at them, including the amount of profanity you use.
Handle pandemics, natural disasters, shortages, and crises like I’m one part James Baker and one part Jamie Dimon.
Ensure that the economic team is on message, on point, and on task – and insure that every public statement on the economy is in the form of “While there is more to do for America’s working families, we have made progress…”
Text 19 hours a day with the most liberal and most moderate Democrats in Congress, making sure they all feel the love and are confident that we appreciate their wish lists.
Spend the time necessary for the team to feel TLC from the CoS, so that those we want to stay, stay – and those who we want to leave, leave without spilling their guts to the Post.
Make sure our bundlers also feel the love, just in time.
Work at giving Bruce a ton of power, secure that he is a baby-faced killer when it comes to bureaucratic infighting – and positive that he doesn’t want any credit or publicity.
Bring to bear my decades of experience to know with caliper-precision just how many questions you need to take from the media (including at press conferences) to keep the lack of traditional access from becoming a “thing” that goes beyond the New York Post (and press corps chatter).
Maintain the most leak-proof administration in the modern history of the Republic.
Let Anita be Anita.
Cause all the loquacious worthies of the Clinton and Obama administrations to feel like they had great access to the White House -- and patiently explain directly to them that, when what we were doing seemed dumb, we had our reasons,
Play free safety, roaming around aggressively to prevent the many tone deaf folks in your employ from getting us in trouble.
Do so much for so many that when bad shit like your classified documents happens nobody blames the chief of staff.
Get the White House research/press team, the DNC, and our outside allies functioning proactively and preemptively to make sure Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Matt Gaetz are the face of the Republican Party.
Elevate each Cabinet member to the exact right level of prominence and influence, recognizing that each person’s level needs to be adjusted as circumstances warrant.
Have all the heavy artillery (Obamas, Clintons, The Other Mayor, etc) privately briefed and ready to go if we need to execute our emergency Buttigieg-Harris plan.
Talk on deep background to the right TV anchors at the right time.
Clear away whatever needs to be cleared away so Tony and Jake can do their thing.
Allow you to yell at me for things that are 100% your fault.
Treat every Democratic Senator like she or he is queen or king (except for one of them….).
Frequently remind the world and the nation that you are the Almighty compared to the alternative of Trump.
Understand the intersection of policy, politics, and the press so well I make George Stephanopoulos look like Sam Skinner.
****
What I can’t do is control the political clock. Things are about to change, and although I know what’s coming, it’s possible that someone else, with a full tank and less baggage, will be better suited to the parry and thrust on the horizon.
I’d be less than honest if I didn’t mention that I do miss the more languid lifestyle I learned to enjoy before this job, especially some of those long, fun family getaways. I’ve been lucky to not get nicked up too badly thus far.
I’ve decided I shouldn’t push my luck.
I’m duty bound to inform you that after Jim Baker was replaced by Don Regan in the Reagan White House, the Oval Office faced, in short order, Bitburg, Iran-Contra, and the revelations about Mrs. Reagan and astrology.
So, sure, Jeff Zients on paper should be great at this job – smart, peppy, organized, hardworking, ego in check, knows the players without a scorecard.
But there’s an X Factor to being Joe Biden’s White House chief of staff that we both know no one but me has. I’ve spent decades mastering the Biden biorhythms, something that can’t be taught or learned very fast (or probably ever, but certainly not in time).
Even if you run and I serve as chairman of the campaign (and, yes, of course, lead debate prep), I’m going to follow the Pelosi model: I will help my successor with the transition without being a mother-in-law in the kitchen.
There are no irreplaceable men or women in any government, as the old saying goes.
Let’s hope that’s right.
Talk to you later today.
Have a great workout in Delaware.
****
Not much analysis or reaction so far from/to the Saturday night revelation that more documents with classified markings were found in the Biden residence via a DOJ/FBI search (with Biden lawyers present).
A few tidbits:
A person familiar with the case said some of the documents found in the first discovery of classified materials related to Iran.
2. The fact that the latest batch reportedly includes material from Biden’s Senate days is ringing alarm bells in some quarters. Senators who had positions like Biden’s often see classified materials, but typically they are tightly controlled and supervised by the executive branch. For a senator to make off with one or more and then keep them in their position for a long time represents a mystery of a different kind that will need to be solved. For some, it suggests a pattern of cavalier sloppiness (at a minimum) that Biden has explicitly rejected as characterizing his behavior or attitude. This certainly will increase calls to have a full search of Biden’s Senate papers stored at the university.
3. “Saturday Night Live” was heavy on the George Santos jokes and light on the Biden documents matter, with just a few mild lines.
****
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NON-ESSENTIAL READING
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an Associated Press interview Saturday she expects Congress will ultimately vote to raise America’s debt limit, but demands by House Republicans for spending cuts in return for backing an increase are “a very irresponsible thing to do” and risk creating a “self-imposed calamity” for the global economy….
Asked in the interview, conducted during her trip to Africa, about such talk of withholding approval for a higher debt limit unless there are accompanying spending cuts, Yellen called that stance “a very irresponsible thing to do” and said it could have serious consequences even before “the day of reckoning.”
2. Dan Balz looks at the potential Mitch Daniels run for the open Indiana Senate seat as an effort to save the Republican Party from Trumpism.