| | |  | BY RYAN LIZZA | Presented by Uber | BREAKING — President Donald Trump has fired Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity chief Chris Krebs, who led efforts to defend last week’s election against foreign interference and rejected Trump's baseless claims of rampant voter fraud. BIDEN’S BIDENS — At the beginning of the Trump administration, there was one big question about a White House staff composed mostly of newcomers to government who were serving a complete novice: Who are the adults in the room? For Joe Biden’s White House, staffed at the highest levels by old-timers and serving someone with nearly five decades of government service, the question is the opposite: Who are the kids in the room? President-elect Biden announced his chief of staff, two key senior advisers and a bevy of supporting White House personnel this week. The big three are chief of staff Ron Klain, senior adviser Mike Donilon, and counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti. These are the same men who steered Biden to victory in the primaries when a lot of their contemporaries were snubbing them, saying that they were too old and too out of touch to win a presidential nomination fight in the modern Democratic Party. Klain had a public profile and is active on Twitter, but Donilon and Ricchetti have been nearly invisible. There will be two dynamics to watch for next year. One is whether they manage the natural tension that develops between the leaders of any modern organization and has been a source of friction in every recent White House. Klain and Ricchetti were finalists for the chief of staff job and Ricchetti, according to three Biden advisers, was disappointed he wasn’t chosen. The second is whether they form a united front against other factions in the administration. There will surely be younger and more progressive pockets of personnel, especially on the economic team. Donilon is a message specialist. Ricchetti is known as a centrist and for his relationships on the Hill. He is likely to be the person Republican senators call first. Klain is a process nerd and probably the most prepared chief of staff in history, having done the job previously for two vice presidents. In recent history, when a new White House gets in trouble politically, as it inevitably does in its first year, there have been three main sources for the problems: inexperience, ideological incompatibility and turf wars — sometimes all three. Jimmy Carter populated his White House with allies from Georgia, and their inexperience in Washington helped in his undoing. Bill Clinton’s first White House team was heavy on Arkansas buddies, including Mack McLarty, his first chief of staff. They were eventually replaced by more seasoned Washington hands. The first Reagan White House was famous for the turf wars between the so-called Big Three, Ed Meese, James Baker and Michael Deaver. That structure, and the accompanying intrigue, was recreated in the George W. Bush White House in 2001 with the triumvirate of Karen Hughes, Karl Rove and Joe Allbaugh. Barack Obama’s White House was notable because it was light on Chicago pals — he was never a governor with a big staff and coterie who wanted to accompany him to Washington — and heavy on Washington talent. In the crisis year of 2009 the biggest fights were ideological: How big should the stimulus be? How much of his original health care plan should he sacrifice to get a deal in the Senate? Should a climate bill embrace nuclear energy to win over the right? Biden has created another triumvirate model. Like their boss, Biden’s big three are not ideologues and they are not inexperienced. They ran Goldilocks campaigns in the primary and in the general election, finding and sticking to the ideological sweet spot in both races (a public option over Medicare for All, keeping illegal entry into the U.S. a criminal offense, reform the police rather than defund the police). They have all worked in previous Democratic White Houses at the highest levels. You could call them Biden’s Bidens. Their natural rivals will be the staffers joining the administration who have not been part of the Biden inner sanctum, a notoriously difficult place to penetrate. “It's a mix of the people who have been with him for a very long time and people who he only met recently,” said Anita Dunn, one of his close advisers who decided to return to private life rather than join the White House staff. In Biden’s White House, the “kids” won’t always be young — they will be the representatives of his party’s ideological and demographic diversity. A lot of Biden’s success next year will depend on how well he does integrating the old and the new. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out at rlizza@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @ryanlizza and @renurayasam.
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A message from Uber: CA voters & app workers voted overwhelmingly to protect workers’ flexibility and provide new benefits. Time for other states to follow, see how here. | | | | | HOW TRUMP WON TEJANOS — Trump is the first Republican presidential candidate to win Zapata County’s vote in 100 years. The Texas county, which is 94 percent Hispanic or Latino, is the only one in South Texas that flipped to the GOP, but it is by no means an anomaly, writes Jack Herrera for POLITICO Magazine. Republicans made gains in several counties in the Rio Grande Valley. How could Trump, a virulently anti-immigrant leader, make inroads with so many Latinos, and along the Mexican border no less? Very few long-term residents have ever used the word “Latino” to describe themselves , although the vast majority of people in these counties mark “Hispanic or Latino” on paper. Though not everyone in the Rio Grande Valley self-identifies as Tejano, the descriptor captures a distinct Latino community — culturally and politically — cultivated over centuries of both Mexican and Texan influences and geographic isolation. Exceedingly few identify as people of color. In Zapata, where 94 percent mark Hispanic/Latino on the Census, 98 percent of the same population count themselves as white. In the end, Trump’s success in peeling off Latino votes in South Texas had everything to do with not talking to them as Latinos. His campaign spoke to them as Tejanos, who may be traditionally Democratic but have a set of specific concerns — among them, the oil and gas industry, gun rights and even abortion — amenable to the Republican Party’s message, and it resonated. The region’s culture is, in many ways, conservative — despite being one of the most reliably Democratic up to now. A place like Zapata is oil country. On weekends, the town empties out as people head into the ranchland to hunt, and nearly everyone is proudly gun-toting. Support for abortion is practically non-existent, and support for law enforcement, the military and even Border Patrol is rock-solid. Key to the increase in Republican turnout was the GOP’s willingness to engage the border region as its own political environment, rather than just an extension of the so-called Latino community. In the face of the pandemic, Democrats stopped knocking on doors and holding in-person rallies and events. In the meantime, as “Trump Trains”— caravans of pick-up trucks flying MAGA flags — drove through cities all along the Rio Grande, Republicans told oil and gas workers that a Green New Deal would destroy their livelihood, told hunters that Democrats wanted to take their guns, and said that the Democrats would allow late-term abortion. In the final debate, when Biden said he would like to see the country transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy over time, Trump asked, “Will you remember that, Texas?”
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| | JOIN WEDNESDAY - CONFRONTING INEQUALITY TOWN HALL “BRIDGING THE ECONOMIC DIVIDE": Although pandemic job losses have been widespread, the economic blow has been especially devastating to Black workers and Black-owned businesses. POLITICO's third “Confronting Inequality in America” town hall will convene economists, scholars, private sector and city leaders to explore policies and strategies to deal with the disproportionate economic impact of the pandemic and the broader factors contributing to the persistent racial wealth and income gaps. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | 
Medical staff examine a patient suffering from coronavirus in the intensive care unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston. | Getty Images | | | Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. Tonight, executive health care editor Joanne Kenen on a topic that will dominate his presidency: Biden made his mark over his long Senate career on foreign affairs and the judiciary. Yet with a pandemic in deadly flower, he is about to become a health care president. It’s not that the president-elect didn’t care about health care before. He worked toward passage of Obamacare; his cancer “moon shot” accelerated research. And he secured himself a niche in Political Oratory’s Greatest Hits (Subcategory: Inadvertent) when he whispered — audibly — to President Barack Obama at the Affordable Care Act signing ceremony that the legislation was a “big f---ing deal.” He’s made light of the hot mic moment since then, putting in bold letters atop of his campaign website’s health page, “When we passed the Affordable Care Act, I told President Obama it was a big deal — or something to that effect.” Now, Biden’s top health care priorities are beating the virus, beating the virus and beating the virus. But that includes making sure people have access to care, that they can afford the care, and that the health care system, including jam-packed hospitals and exhausted first responders, doesn’t buckle under the strain. To Biden that means preserving, strengthening and possibly even expanding the ACA. He’s also likely to devote considerable resources to cleaning up the CDC — battered both by pressure from the Trump White House and its own bad calls on testing early in the outbreak. But given that the Senate is likely to be either tied or narrowly Republican controlled, Biden is unlikely to pass any of the three pillars that would have turned Obamacare into Bidencare. Those are: First, adding a robust public option that would, among other things, cover the uninsured — including people who are losing their jobs and insurance in the pandemic as well as low-income Americans who live in states that didn’t enact Medicaid expansion. Second, bringing the Medicare eligibility age down from 65 to 60 for those who choose that coverage. And third, changing how subsidies are calculated for Obamacare plans — and making the subsidies more generous. Without a comfortable Democratic edge in the Senate, those are all stretches. But remember, Trump didn’t succeed in repealing and replacing Obamacare, even though the Republican Congress spent nearly a year trying. Instead, using his executive, regulatory and administrative powers, Trump changed plenty. Biden has the same powers. He can undo what Trump did — and add his own flourishes. He can snuff out Republican plans to add work requirements to Medicaid, and stop them from turning the whole thing into a block grant. And his administration can use waivers and pilot projects — as Trump did — to let states experiment on how to expand coverage, lower costs, and keep America safe from future biological threats. And that could be another big f---ing deal.
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A message from Uber: In order to raise the standard for independent work for all, government and business need to work together. That’s why Uber created our Working Together Priorities, which can help people who earn through app-based work receive more security, protection, and transparency. This work is already underway in California, where voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 22. | | | | | GRASSLEY TESTS POSITIVE — Sen. Chuck Grassley, the second oldest member of the Senate, has tested positive for coronavirus. In a statement, the 87-year-old Iowa Republican said that he learned he was exposed to the coronavirus this morning and received a positive test. “While I still feel fine, the test came back positive for the coronavirus,” Grassley said. “I am continuing to follow my doctors’ orders and CDC guidelines. I’ll be keeping up my work for the people of Iowa from home.” Grassley joins Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in testing positive for the virus. Meanwhile, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) have tested positive for coronavirus antibodies.
| | ARE WE THERE YET? Biden won the election more than a week ago. But the General Services Administration — the agency that certifies presidential transitions — is still blocking Biden’s transition team from accessing government resources. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, national political reporter Alex Thompson breaks down why the GSA is holding things up and whether it could affect the Covid response.
| | MOVING ON — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell today waved away concerns about the Trump administration’s challenges to November’s election results. “What we all say about it is irrelevant,” McConnell told reporters today. “We’ll swear in the next administration on Jan. 20.” McConnell also said he was open to a targeted Covid relief bill. More from the Kentucky senator here.
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| | TRACK THE TRANSITION, SUBSCRIBE TO TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: As states certify their election results, President-elect Biden is building an administration. The staffing decisions made in the coming days, weeks, and months will send clear-cut signals about his administration’s agenda and priorities. Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to what could be one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, it tracks the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Stay in the know, subscribe today. | | | | | | | EU-PHORIA — Positive views of the European Union increased during the pandemic, according to a Pew Research Center study published today. The report found that a majority of people in these countries — the U.K. and EU members Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, France, Sweden and Belgium — had a favorable opinion of the EU. In the eight EU countries, people “approved not only of their national governments’ response to Covid-19, but also of how the EU had handled the outbreak,” the study noted. In the U.K., more people (64 percent) approved of the EU’s handling of the pandemic than of their own country’s (46 percent). Nearly three-quarters of Germans (73 percent) had a positive view of the EU, followed by Denmark (70 percent) and Spain (68 percent). The lowest rating came from Italy (58 percent). Nearly a year after leaving the bloc, 60 percent of British respondents had a favorable opinion of the EU — the highest rating since Pew began polling on the subject in 2004. Most respondents also thought the EU had done a good job dealing with the pandemic, ranging from 68 percent in Germany and the Netherlands to 51 percent in Belgium and 54 percent in Italy. WAIT ’TIL NEXT YEAR — Widespread immunization against coronavirus won’t be possible, even in Europe, within the next 12 months, according to David Nabarro, co-director of the Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation and special envoy on Covid-19 to the director general of the World Health Organization, Ashleigh Furlong writes. Speaking at POLITICO Europe’s Health Care Summit today Nabarro said that public health measures such as mask wearing, social distancing and hand hygiene would be needed instead “for at least another 12 months and probably longer.”
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12 percent The percentage of registered voters who believe Trump should refuse to concede to Biden “no matter what” — including 3 percent of Democrats polled, 8 percent of independents polled and 27 percent of Republicans polled — according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. |
| | | QUITTING TRUMP COLD TURKEY — The election was two weeks ago, and the key state projections that made it clear that Biden is president-elect are now 10 days old. But Trump is still coursing through your veins, isn’t he? This obsession is the most unifying dimension of a divided political culture. Our lights are on, but we’re not home. Our mind is not our own. Might as well face it: We’re addicted to Trump, founding editor John Harris writes. If national detox is the aim, there may be wisdom to be gleaned from the experience of the most famous addict of his generation: What could Keith Richards teach us about letting go of Trump? It starts with a recognition that Trump’s power is not political in the traditional sense but psychological. As he moved to the political arena, Trump exploited one more psychological reality: His supporters are attracted to him precisely because he so easily outrages his opponents. Richards’ memoir tells us that the first days are the hardest. He describes raw fingers from clawing at walls, soiled trousers from losing control of his bowels, muscle spasms that are out of control, and “a sense of self-loathing that takes a while to rub off.” Beating Trump addiction won’t be as hard as that. But the advantages of getting clean may be similar. “Most junkies become idiots. That’s what finally turned me around. We’ve got only one subject in mind, which is the dope,” Richards writes. “They’re just very boring people. Worse, a lot of these are very bright people, and we all kind of know we’ve been hoodwinked ...” Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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