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Here are some FAKE leaks and FAKE blind quotes you will likely never read regarding the Biden administration:
* “According to more than a dozen sources familiar with the internal disagreement, there continues to be fierce debate about who should replace Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen if she and President Biden decide she should leave the job. Among those supporting current Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo are political adviser Mike Donilon, director of the National Economic Council Brian Deese, and many of Biden’s Wall Street contributors, while Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard has the backing of Vice President Kamala Harris, chief of staff Ron Klain, and the labor union leaders whose relationships with Biden have long been close.”
* “Many around Biden question his understanding of complex economic issues. ‘There’s a reason he chaired Foreign Relations and Judiciary,’ as a senator from Delaware, said one longtime Biden economic adviser, followed by a long, audible sigh.”
* “’It was the moment we have all dreaded happening in public, after seeing it too many times to count in private,’ said one shaken Biden aide of the moment when the president called out for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) at a White House event. ‘Imagine if this happens in the heat of a presidential campaign.’”
* “’We all have sympathy for Hunter’s addiction, his kids, what he has put the family through,’ said one of six longtime Biden advisers who spoke for this story, all on the condition of anonymity to protect their relationships with the family, ‘But it isn’t about drugs. It’s about the shameless buckraking that Hunter and his uncles have engaged in, trading on Joe’s reputation and connections in a way so shameless it would make Jared Kushner blush.’”
* “According to one White House official, the fury at Senator Sinema is deep and wide, ‘but we have to just suck it up and pretend we don’t mind. After all the administration has done to accommodate her, and now this???!!’”
* “In interviews with seventeen administration officials, congressional Democrats, and close outside advisers to the White House, a portrait emerges of a group of people with no idea about how to control the border with Mexico and a large segment of active policy formation participants in denial about just how bad the situation is.”
* “Even before Biden and Harris took office, it was clear to their top aides that her lack of relationships with world leaders would present a dangerous problem if she were suddenly thrust into the presidency. So throughout the administration, she has been on a crash course of the equivalent of diplomatic speed dating, her schedule regularly crammed with face-to-face meetings both at home and abroad with all manner of presidents, prime ministers, and other top officials. And, yet, according to one of Joe Biden’s top foreign policy advisers, ‘She is no more ready to take over now than she was two years ago. The president knows that, but he pretends that he doesn’t.’”
* “Not since Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon possessed a stranglehold over U.S. foreign policy has such a small group so dominated American foreign policy and national security policymaking. Said one cabinet official, ‘Tony and Jake might not be as power hungry as Kissinger – they aren’t – but everything begins and ends with them.’”
* “’Major the dog has as much business being speaker of the House as Kevin McCarthy does,’” said one Biden political adviser, not trying to hide her contempt for the man widely expected to take control of the chamber come January.”
* “Jimmy Carter might have obsessed over who used the White House tennis courts, but Ron will hold seventeen meetings to discuss the balls that are being used, where they are made, is the Progressive Caucus okay with it, are there cheaper tennis balls out there, on and on and on. He takes micromanaging to a place none of us have ever seen or imagined,’ said one administration official who believes Klain’s habits have hurt the president.”
I offer these fake news items up to you as a way to return to a key reality I have written about before: The members of Team Biden are the most closed-mouthed group of officials in the modern history of the presidency.
This extraordinary and extended display of discipline, loyalty, and self-preservation is one of the most valuable assets the White House has exhibited.
It is nearly impossible to name the second-best administration by this metric, because no one else comes close. (Ok, it’s Bush 43, but they are a distant silver medalist…)
This important fact is on my mind this morning because of two items in the news.
First, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did what was arguably her most high-profile interview since taking office, an extended turn on “60 Minutes,” and it gets about as little coverage as one could imagine such a thing getting. Drudge plays it big, but it is not visible at this writing on the homepages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, or Washington Post.
In an ordinary administration, the causes and effects around that truth would be the subject of devastating blind quotes and leaks from her colleagues about her lack of ability to drive an economic message with he public or Congress at a time when that is arguably need #1 for Team Biden.
Instead, crickets.
Second, check out these two blind quotes from Republicans contained within an essential reading Washington Post story on the upcoming House investigations by their party, built around the question of whether they will play both offense against Joe Biden and defense for Donald Trump:
“It’s an easy crutch for them to grasp, and they’re grasping it because they can’t actually defend what he’s potentially going to be indicted for,” said one House GOP staffer, who like some others interviewed for this report spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation candidly. “They lean on this as opposed to defending him on the facts, which they can’t do.”
*
“When the investigators give you an answer you don’t like, investigate the investigators,” the investigator said. “The members get invested, and then the base gets invested, and even if things turn out to be really stupid things they are investigating, they’ll get a lot of Fox News out of it.”
Now, those are very kind of hurtful and harmful blind quotes the inhabitants of Biden World almost never have to read about themselves.
With House Republicans taking control and a potential recession looming, all while Joe Biden is widely expected to launch a re-election effort in the face of an unprecedented lack of interest in four more years on the part of members of his own party, the coming months are likely to be quite tough for Team Biden.
And, yet, the lack of leaking remains a massive advantage, whose origins are not fully understood (of course) and whose benefits cannot be overstated.
****
* The Washington Post:
The Department of Energy plans to announce Tuesday that scientists have been able for the first time to produce a fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain — a major milestone in the decades-long, multibillion-dollar quest to develop a technology that provides unlimited, cheap, clean power.
The aim of fusion research is to replicate the nuclear reaction through which energy is created on the sun. It is a “holy grail” of carbon-free power that scientists have been chasing since the 1950s. It is still at least a decade — maybe decades — away from commercial use, but the latest development is likely to be touted by the Biden administration as an affirmation of a massive investment by the government over the years.
* Two New York Post pieces are a stark reminder that the Dominant Media does not cover Republicans and Democrats equally.
First, Jonathan Turley points out the apparent witness intimidation embedded in the weekend’s Washington Post story about Team Biden gearing up to protect Hunter Biden.
Imagine the Dominant Media’s reaction if there were a Daily Caller story about such an effort to protect the Trump family during the previous administration.
Second, Miranda Devine chronicles the failure of the major organs of the Dominant Media to cover the Twitter Files release.
Imagine the Dominant Media’s reaction if it were revealed that there was secret coordination that benefited Republicans between law enforcement, the intelligence community, and private companies dominated by conservatives and which influenced public opinion in a subterranean manner.
* Incoming House Republican oversight chief James Comer does two very clever (and politically significant) things in his Wall Street Journal op-ed piece. First, following Karl Rove’s advice, he frames all of the investigative topics in terms of the public interest and legitimate congressional oversight. And, second, his laundry list of areas the committee plans to probe puts Hunter Biden in the very last slot. The piece gives off the impression that Comer aspires to be Henry Waxman, not Trey Gowdy.
* Per Politico, a lot of Republican Senators would like to see Tim Scott run for president in 2024. And Scott, unlike a lot of others who are said to be considering a go, can actually raise serious money.
* The Associated Press undermines the existing narrative that young people (inspired by abortion rights) turned out in dramatic numbers for Democrats in the midterms:
Young voters who have been critical to Democratic successes in recent elections showed signs in November’s midterms that their enthusiasm may be waning, a potential warning sign for a party that will need their strong backing heading into the 2024 presidential race.
Voters under 30 went 53% for Democratic House candidates compared with only 41% for Republican candidates nationwide, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping national survey of the electorate. But that level of support for Democrats was down compared with 2020, when such voters supported President Joe Biden over his predecessor, Donald Trump, 61% to 36%. And in 2018, when Democrats used a midterm surge to retake control of the House, voters 18 to 29 went 64% for the party compared with 34% for the GOP.
