POLITICO NIGHTLY: What Joe Biden reads and watches

BY DANIEL LIPPMAN

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With help from Renuka Rayasam and Myah Ward HOW THE PRESIDENT-ELECT GETS HIS NEWS — In the Biden administration, the foreign policy establishment is expected to return to its usual position of influence for the occupant of the Oval Office. But so is the news media establishment. Here is what Joe Biden reads and watches, according to five current and former aides: Like many other politicians, Biden gets a clips package at 9 a.m. On a busy day, it can run up to 50 pages. On a slower day, it is more in the 15- to 20-page range. Biden is not a social media obsessive, but conversations that percolate on Twitter and specific tweets are flagged to him. He also tracks moments from late-night shows that break through. “Biden reads a lot, but doesn’t watch a lot of TV news,” said Jay Carney, who was communications director to Biden when he was vice president. “Can’t remember him ever watching TV in his office when I worked for him.” Still, he usually watches a good portion of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” while getting ready for the day. And he will sometimes catch glimpses of TV coverage between meetings and is particularly interested in how Fox News covers him. “It’s instructive for how a certain slice of the country is being told how to interpret what he does and what he says,” said one longtime Biden aide. Biden watches CNN, too, and will sometimes watch some of the broadcast nightly news shows if he’s home by dinner time. But he’s mostly a newspaper guy. He gets the New York Times delivered to his house every day, so he can read it in print. He also loves to read the Delaware News-Journal and the Philadelphia Inquirer. “He’s still in many ways Delaware’s senator,” said the longtime Biden aide. “He’s still very acutely focused on his local papers.” He often reads The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and the Atlantic magazine. Biden is a devoted fan of the Apple News app on his iPhone, and frequently scrolls through it when he’s in a car, on a plane or just has some down time. (Playing chess and solitaire on his phone are also favorite activities.) He has the New York Times app on his phone, and a former Biden staffer said that when he was in the White House last time, Biden had the POLITICO app and checked it regularly. He has the phone’s push notifications turned on: On the campaign trail, another Biden aide said, Biden would take meetings with his iPhone on the table in front of him and would get alerts from news apps. (The Biden aide declined to comment when asked if Biden still has his iPhone or if it’s having its security upgraded given that he’s about to become president.) Another news source is his grandchildren, who text him links about him or just “fun stuff” that they find online, according to the aide. Biden is apparently fluent, or at least proficient, in emoji: He has been known to react with a thumbs-up to some links texted to him. “Big sweeping ideas” are what most interests Biden, said the longtime Biden aide. He recalled a David Brooks column that particularly captivated Biden, titled “The Essential John McCain” and published in October 2017. Two months earlier, after Charlottesville, Biden had published an essay in the Atlantic titled: “We Are Living Through a Battle for the Soul of This Nation.” “In it, he saw a vivid description of an idea that he himself had seen and spoken to and was kind of a parallel way of talking about the battle for the soul of the nation,” said the aide. “It struck a chord for him, and he was just really fascinated by it.” Biden called up Brooks to talk to him about the piece and for the next year he would cite Brooks’ column in his stump speeches during the 2018 midterms. Other journalists that Biden particularly likes include Thomas Friedman, the Times columnist whom he recently gave an interview to, and Jon Meacham, the historian and commentator who has helped write a number of Biden’s speeches. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out at dlippman@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @dlippman and @renurayasam.

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Santa chats with a visiting child in Seattle. Known as the Seattle Santa, he is usually booked for private events but is set up this year in a socially distanced snow globe for public visits. | Getty Images

FIRST IN NIGHTLY

THE UNDOING — It could take years for Biden to deliver on his promise to reverse the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies, Anita Kumar and Alice Miranda Ollstein write. In total, Trump has made more than 400 alterations to immigration policy in the last four years, some since Election Day , according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank with staffers across the political spectrum that provides data and analysis on immigration policy. Together, the moves have reshaped virtually every part of the U.S. immigration system through executive action, policy guidance and regulatory change. Biden will be able to rescind some policies through the stroke of a pen on Day 1. But scores of others face massive hurdles. A lengthy, cumbersome regulatory process will draw out rule changes. Months of legal challenges could imperil executive orders. A recalcitrant Congress is unlikely to swiftly change laws. And a divided public and shifting border situation could create political difficulties. The result is that millions of immigrants — from those seeking to escape their countries to wealthy foreign investors — will likely remain under a lingering Trump regime for months, even years.

LISTEN TO THE NEW SEASON OF GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST: Our Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded over the past year amid a global pandemic. This podcast helps to identify and understand the impediments to smart policymaking. Subscribe for Season Two, available now.

TRANSITION 2020

AUSTIN TO LEARN METRO’S YELLOW LINE — Retired Gen. Lloyd Austin, once viewed as a long-shot candidate to be Biden’s Defense secretary, has been chosen to lead the Pentagon, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The decision comes two weeks after Biden announced the other senior members of his national security team, Lara Seligman, Tyler Pager and Connor O’Brien report. Michèle Flournoy, who was widely seen as Hillary Clinton’s choice to be defense secretary had she won the election in 2016, was initially viewed as the frontrunner for the job. BROTHER, IN LAW — Kamala Harris’ sister, Maya, has been jockeying to boost her husband , Tony West, in his bid for attorney general, writes Tyler. In the Obama administration, West, now chief legal officer at Uber, served as the third-highest-ranking official and ran the department’s civil rights division. But West’s relationship to Kamala Harris is likely a nonstarter for many Democrats, who have eviscerated Trump over the past four years for elevating his family to key White House positions. His work as Uber’s top lawyer, given the company’s legal troubles, have also raised concerns about his ability to fill the role. KEEP THIS ON THE KUD-LOW — Top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow today applauded Biden’s nomination of Janet Yellen to lead the Treasury Department — breaking with other Trump administration officials who have not even acknowledged that Biden won the election. Kudlow offered the praise for Yellen during a live interview with The Washington Post, during which the National Economic Council director also revealed that he has started sending congratulatory notes to some early Biden appointees.

AROUND THE NATION

WHO GETS THE GOLDEN TICKET? Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has the chance to shape California’s power structure for years to come. He not only has to appoint the person who will fill Kamala Harris’ Senate seat, but also the seat for attorney general Xavier Becerra, now tapped to be Biden’s health secretary. And then there is filling the seats of whoever gets those positions: If Newsom picks secretary of State Alex Padilla to fill Harris’ seat, for example, he has to figure out who fills Padilla’s seat. Nightly reached out to Carla Marinucci , who has been covering Newsom since the governor was San Francisco’s parking and traffic commissioner (and your Nightly host, Renuka Rayasam, was a lowly radio intern at San Francisco’s public radio station), about the jockeying in California. This conversation has been edited. What are the stakes for Newsom? This is the first time in nearly 70 years that a California governor has had anything close to this kind of appointment power. The last one was Gov. Earl Warren (who later became Supreme Court Chief Justice). Warren had to appoint a new U.S. senator, state controller and a member of the Board of Equalization, the state’s elected tax commission. His decisions are fraught with all kinds of political wrestling between interest groups. Latinos say they have never held a U.S. Senate seat in California’s 170 years, and it’s about time. So they’re pushing for Padilla to fill Kamala’s seat. He’s already been endorsed by Dianne Feinstein. But African Americans say the seat is held by an African American woman — and there’s only one in the Senate now, Kamala. So they insist that the seat has to remain with an African American woman. They’re pushing candidates like Karen Bass, Barbara Lee and even Maxine Waters (an unlikely pick, given her combative and controversial nature, I would say). And the LGBTQ community wants Mayor Robert Garcia of Long Beach, who is LGBTQ and Latino — they say their electorate has been key to the California Democratic Party in fundraising and activism and deserves a shot. Then there’s who fills Becerra’s seat. Yeah, once again, we’ve got Latinos and African Americans — two critical minority groups — jockeying for a powerful position that has been a stepping stone to the governership. We’ve heard the names of at least two African American women in law enforcement being put forth: Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker and Contra Costa district Attorney Diana Becton. But Latinos are also putting forth names. City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who’s Latino, is considered the top contender because 1) he’s known Gavin for years; 2) was a big supporter of Kamala; 3) has helped Becerra lead the way in a number of key “state of resistance” lawsuits against Trump, including pushing back on his executive order to deny sanctuary cities federal funding. There are a couple of House members who might jump at it also. But we’re hearing that Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t want to give up any of these people because her margin in the House is too small, and it would be months to fill such a seat in a special election. But there’s plenty of others interested in the job too. Newsom gets to make friends — and lots of enemies — and the lobbying is already fierce Any insight into how Newsom makes these decisions? Based on his own future? Or the party’s? Or personal loyalty? It’s a little of all of those. The loyalty factor is why Padilla is so high on the list — he endorsed Gavin long before anyone, has been there for him for years and can be counted on to have his back when Newsom comes up for reelection in 2022. Do you think Newsom relishes being a kingmaker? No, he has told us this whole decision is “vexing.” Should it be someone who reflects Harris’ profile? Should it be a “placeholder” (like a Jerry Brown) who won’t run again in 2022 when the seat is up? Anyone he picks will be given a huge advantage in that 2022 election as the incumbent. And California Senate seats are golden tickets. Anyone who’s appointed will have lots of power and lots of chances to rack up seniority in the U.S. Senate for decades.

BIDENOLOGY

Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. Tonight, a trip into the POLITICO Magazine archives, and some of the notable Bidenisms included in the March/April 2014 piece “Joe Being Joe.” On ambition: “I never had an interest in being a mayor ’cause that’s a real job. You have to produce. That’s why I was able to be a senator for 36 years.” — March 29, 2012 On the campaign trail: “You got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” — Jan. 31, 2007 On the vice presidency: “My mother believed and my father believed that if I wanted to be president of the United States, I could be, I could be vice president!” — May 16, 2012 On the presidency: “I’d rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep.” — June 22, 2006 “Here I am, the first Irish-Catholic vice president in the history of the United States of America. Barack Obama is the first African American in the history of the United States of America.” — March 17, 2010 “A man I’m proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next president of the United States — Barack America!” — Aug. 23, 2008

ON THE HILL

HISPANIC CAUCUS VOTES ON NEW LEADER — Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will vote Tuesday morning on a new leader to replace outgoing Chair Joaquin Castro (D-Texas). The group is pushing for Biden to tap more Latinos to top positions in the incoming administration, writes Sabrina Rodriguez. The race is down to Reps. Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) and Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) — with Ruiz considered the frontrunner as the more senior of the two lawmakers. Ruiz, a physician who has been in Congress since 2013, is pitching himself as the candidate best equipped to tackle the pandemic response. Escobar allies on the Hill say that she’s better equipped for the job because she’s been in leadership roles. Escobar served for the past year on Pelosi’s leadership team as freshman representative and was tapped by Biden for his unity task force on immigration with Sen. Bernie Sanders. Whoever wins will play a role in how Democrats shape themselves going into 2022. House Democrats are currently trying to improve their Latino outreach after witnessing Trump make inroads in the November election. The next CHC chair will also work to help Biden push along any legislation on immigration reform. CHC member and California Rep. Linda Sánchez is currently drafting a bill that Democrats hope to drop right as Biden enters the White House. STRAIGHT TO THE TOP — Sen. Josh Hawley is unhappy that the leading coronavirus proposals do not include another round of direct payments to Americans — and he’s taking his case straight to the president, Burgess Everett writes. The Republican senator from Missouri lobbied Trump to veto any coronavirus aid bill that does not contain a second tranche of checks to Americans in a phone call on Saturday. Hawley said the president listened intently as he flew home on Air Force One from a rally in Georgia. “I said, ‘I think it’s vital that any relief include direct payments, and I’m not gonna vote for it if it doesn’t.’ And I also urged him to veto any bill that did not have direct payments in it,” Hawley said in an interview today. Hawley argues that it is “wild” that a Senate GOP proposal and a bipartisan $908 billion plan offers aid but doesn’t include more checks like the $1,200 payments in March’s massive CARES Act package.

FROM THE EDUCATION DESK

BIG PLAN ON CAMPUS — First semester didn’t go too well. Colleges and universities across the country are looking for a do-over in the spring. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, education reporter Juan Perez Jr. reports on how schools are trying to beat coronavirus — and what lessons they’ve learned from the past year.

Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast

ASK THE AUDIENCE

Nightly asks you: Every December, the news media reflects on the lives we lost this year, and 2020 has been especially deadly. Tell us who you’ll miss the most — a family member, a civic leader, a celebrity — and how you’ll remember them. Send us your answers in our form, and we’ll publish select responses this week.

JOIN TUESDAY TO POWER FORWARD WITH WOMEN RULE: Americans have endured multiple crises in 2020, from the pandemic to the economic recession, racial injustices, and a highly contentious presidential election. Women have often led the way in helping the country navigate these crises and will continue to in the new year. Join us for the conclusion of "Powering Forward," a series of virtual conversations that has brought the Women Rule community together during a year that changed how women live, work, and lead. REGISTER HERE.

PALACE INTRIGUE

PARDON YOU? In the latest episode of The Aftermath, Eugene Daniels examines Trump’s ability (or inability) to pardon himself, his family and his associates.

NIGHTLY NUMBER

6 The number of Peter Navarro media interviews referenced by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel in a report urging Trump to take “appropriate disciplinary action” for Navarro’s violations of the Hatch Act. The report referenced the interviews in which “Dr. Navarro repeatedly attacked presidential candidate Joe Biden and/or vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris” in his capacity as assistant to the president and director of the Office on Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

PARTING WORDS

TENNIS ANYONE? Weeks before her family turns the White House over to the Bidens, Melania Trump announced today that a new tennis pavilion on the south grounds is ready for action. The project included sprucing up an existing tennis court and children’s garden, in addition to construction of the pavilion, which replaces a smaller structure. The first lady’s office said the pavilion’s design was inspired by the architecture of the White House, especially the East and West Wings. A colonnade, parapet wall and fanlight windows tie the new building to the look and feel of the White House. Planning for the project began in early 2018, followed by approval in June 2019 by the Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission. Melania Trump helped break ground for the project in October 2019. Construction was in partnership with the Trust for the National Mall and the National Park Service. The new building was funded by private donations. The White House did not disclose the cost.

A message from the American Petroleum Institute: Even as CO2 emissions have dropped, the U.S. has reduced dependence on foreign energy and became one of the world’s top energy exporters thanks in part to natural gas. Natural gas has helped provide electricity to millions around the world for the first time. All while American families have enjoyed relatively flat household energy costs over the past 15 years while other costs have jumped. We don’t have to choose between making lasting, tangible climate progress and reliable energy; we can and must do both. Join us to learn how we can do even more – together.

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Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward

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