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TO: JRB
FROM: Ron Klain
DATE: December 13, 2021
RE: The road ahead
I want to thank you and the First Lady again for hosting me in Delaware.
What a memorable weekend!
I know you will take what we discussed on board and to heart. As you know, personnel is the hardest part of management. We will figure it out, I know.
You have a pool spray at the top of your 11:00am Oval briefing with Secretary Mayorkas, FEMA Administrator Criswell, and Liz Sherwood-Randall on the tornadoes.
You will have some prepared remarks and we will let the press ask a few questions. Besides the tragedy, topics the pool might ask about, per Jen: Build Back Better, Putin, inflation, and Chris Wallace (yes, I’m serious).
As you know, while we aren’t perfect about everything, we totally get the projection of “whole of government” efforts to stay three steps ahead of any criticism in every emergency. We have surrogates, including Secretary Mayorkas, out on the morning shows, and we are looking at scheduling your trip to the region soon.
The Veep and the Cabinet will still do their full-court public press on the supply chain and the economy this week, with lots of events and travel, but, to be honest, Mr. President, given the storms and Senator Manchin, I’m not sure how much of that will break through.
You have very few public events on the books right now until your Friday trip to South Carolina State University for their commencement. Tomorrow, you and the First Lady are doing the DNC holiday ceremony and Thursday you are giving out some Medals of Honor.
That’s it on your public schedule, but you have a lot to do.
You are meeting with Senator Manchin to get him on board for BBB. Leg affairs is in constant touch with him, but, honestly, I don’t know where he is at now. Last week’s inflation and CBO reports were about the worst possible developments, but as you always say, “Joe will be there in the end.”
He’s not going to bring your presidency down, but we have to be prepared for a different take on that reality. He might think that delaying consideration of BBB into 2022 will, in fact, be what keeps you (and the party) afloat.
In the end, either Senator Schumer is going to deliver the Manchin vote or he is not. None of us want this to go into the new year because, as we have discussed, there are 101 things that can wrong at that point.
The expiration of the child tax credit and the Senators’ desire to get out of Dodge should be pretty good forcing mechanisms, but nothing is decided until everything is decided – and the Senate still has a lot of loose ends. Plus, of course, we still don’t know how the House caucus will feel about whatever the Senate version of BBB ends up being. The Speaker has a lot of sway (her people put out to CNN that she is sticking around, which should help), but this remains a very under covered – and challenging -- step on the journey ahead.
We have to figure out how to get some momentum back on the pandemic. Governor Polis in Colorado did us no favors saying “the emergency is over,” vaccination rates aren’t great still (including among seniors and nursing home residents), and the data on omicron is still sketchy enough that it is just sowing more confusion and giving the doubters more grist. Thanksgiving was bad and Christmas could be worse in terms of spread – but, as a political matter, we certainly can’t tell people not to travel. All of Anzo’s research suggests people across the board are sick of restrictions and are going back to the lives.
Another thing you will of course spend a lot of private time on is Russia. I know you talked to Tony about how G7 went in Liverpool. The allies are saying all the right thing, including not putting pressure on you to have a face-to-face with Putin. State’s Karen Donfried, as you know, is going to Kyiv and Moscow this week to meet with senior government officials to discuss Ukraine. We don’t have a good sense of how those meetings will go, but the intelligence community has a high degree of confidence that Putin will make her life miserable.
Since we agreed I would step up my political briefings to you, here’s the good news/bad news right now.
Good news: The New York Times tried to write a story about the “competitive” 2024 nomination fight, on the premise that no one wants or expects you and the Veep to top the ticket. All they could come up with was a lot of folks saying they are for you, and names such as Warren, Klobuchar, Landrieu, Murphy, Abrams, Pritzker, North Carolina Governor Cooper, and, of course, Buttigieg. In other words, they got nothing.
Bad news: The new ABC News poll is gruesome (although/and in line with our own private polling and other public data):
President Joe Biden is facing significant skepticism from the American public, with his job approval rating lagging across a range of major issues, including new lows for his handling of crime, gun violence and the economic recovery, a new ABC/Ipsos poll finds.
As the White House confronts rising and widespread concern about inflation, Americans are especially negative on how the Biden administration is managing this issue.
More than two-thirds of Americans (69%) disapprove of how Biden is handling inflation (only 28% approve) while more than half (57%) disapprove of his handling of the economic recovery. Partisan splits for inflation show expected negativity in Republican views (94% disapproving), but the survey also reveals weaknesses from Biden's own party with only a slim majority of Democrats (54%) approving. Biden's orbit is also hemorrhaging independent voters, with 71% disapproving of his handling of inflation.
We plan to close out the year by continuing to strike our balance (I know folks are hurting but inflation is going down thanks to my policies…), but if the inflation (and poll) numbers stay like this into January, we are going to have to make a pretty substantial portion of your State of the Union address about how we are going to whip inflation soon. Which means there will be less time in the speech to talk about the pandemic, which is not all bad, to say the least.
The Veep’s interview with the San Francisco Chronicle went fine, but it is no more likely to fix what ails her and that office than the Politico package with various strategists offering up “solutions.” I promised, as we discussed, to keep working on fixing this with her office.
Jake doesn’t think you should send Kim Jong Un anything to mark his decade in office, but if you change your mind, Protocol says ten year anniversary gifts should be tin or aluminum. So maybe get him a roof.
I know you were a little confused about the “Sex in the City” thing and what happened to Big. I’m pretty sure this story explains it.
Let me know if you need more on that.
I will see you after your workout.