Politico

When President Joe Biden nominated Monica Bertagnolli to run the National Institutes of Health, it seemed like a choice meant to make everyone happy.

A renowned cancer surgeon, Bertagnolli fulfilled Biden’s personal demand that his next NIH chief come from the oncology world he’s long admired. Bertagnolli had already done a stint atop the government’s National Cancer Institute, where she was well-liked by staff scientists and clinicians. And throughout the broader medical research community, support for her was instant and full-throated.

“We wholeheartedly applaud the announcement from President Biden for this outstanding choice,” Karen Knudsen, the CEO of the American Cancer Society, said in a May statement urging swift confirmation for a pick she called “an exceptional surgical oncologist, innovative scientist and leader with a strong track record of transforming organizations.”

Yet two months later, what many viewed as a slam-dunk selection has become the latest personnel headache for a White House that’s struggled mightily of late to get its nominees through the narrowly divided Senate.

Bertagnolli’s candidacy is stalled indefinitely, caught up in a standoff between the administration and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) over Biden’s drug pricing agenda.

A second senator, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has made her own demands, pressuring Bertagnolli to sign expanded ethics agreements that include swearing off working for or on behalf of major drug companies for four years after leaving NIH. Bertagnolli has so far resisted over concerns about the scope of those commitments, two people familiar with the matter said.

It’s a process that’s become so unexpectedly drawn out and uncomfortable for Bertagnolli that her allies privately question at what point it’s no longer worth the hassle. In addition to juggling full-time duties at NCI and her candidacy to run NIH, Bertagnolli recently underwent treatment for her own breast cancer diagnosis.

“To have members of the Democratic caucus presenting obstacles to getting this done, it’s frustrating,” said Harold Varmus, who ran the NIH during the Clinton era, and is a strong supporter of Bertagnolli. “I’ve seen the statements by Sen. Sanders and by the White House, and I don’t see those unblocking things.”

Biden has been without a permanent NIH director for a year-and-a-half, alarming medical research groups who believe it’s critical to have a confirmed leader ahead of looming budget negotiations on Capitol Hill — as well to provide stability at a time when public health agencies are under increasing political scrutiny.

The logjam has also raised fresh questions about the White House’s personnel operation, and why it didn’t anticipate that its NIH nominee would run into roadblocks.

Sanders, who chairs the Senate committee responsible for vetting Bertagnolli’s candidacy, said in a recent interview that he began warning the administration in January that he wanted more unilateral actions to slash drug prices. Frustrated by the lack of response, he decided to go public in a June interview with The Washington Post, vowing to oppose all health nominees until the White House met his demands.

Despite those running tensions, the White House did not alert Sanders it planned to nominate Bertagnolli before the news broke, said the two people familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity to describe internal decision making. In the weeks after Bertagnolli’s nomination, some Biden officials also expressed internal optimism that Sanders would grant her a hearing in June, the people said.

No hearing has been held. Instead, Sanders insists he feels no pressure to move on Bertagnolli’s nomination as long his requests remain unmet, telling POLITICO “the public is probably more on my side.”

“What the American people want now is not just another head of an agency,” he said. “They want policies to address the major crises facing this country.”

The impasse is just one of several Biden has encountered with respect to his nominees. And it’s a sign of how efforts by senators in both parties to use the nominations process to exercise leverage has upended expectations that the White House would face an easier time after Democrats expanded their Senate majority last November.

Biden’s pick to run the Labor Department, Julie Su, has seen her nomination founder for five months amid skepticism from a trio of senators. Nominees for both the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Communications Commission withdrew this year after it became clear they couldn’t win confirmation. In May alone, Biden lost two judicial nominees. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), meanwhile, has singlehandedly halted the promotions of around 250 military officers, resulting in vacancies across the Pentagon.

In response to questions about Sanders’ demands, the White House declined to comment on the record.

But a White House official pointed to its passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and said the administration remains committed to getting Bertagnolli confirmed.

“The President shares the Senator’s concerns on drug pricing,” the White House spokesperson said, calling the IRA “the most consequential law addressing the high cost of prescription drugs.”

The White House also defended its nominations process by noting it’s confirmed more nominees than the Trump administration had to this point in the term, despite holding fewer Senate seats at the beginning of Biden’s presidency.

In Bertagnolli’s case, the fight over her nomination has proved particularly frustrating for Biden officials because it has little to do with her actual qualifications.

Sanders wants the White House to take more aggressive steps to rein in drug prices, such as reinstating an NIH requirement that drug companies sell a medicine at a “reasonable” price when it’s developed with help from the federal government, or seizing drug patents to license them out to other manufacturers to lower their prices.

NIH researchers previously concluded the “reasonable” pricing clause discouraged private-sector collaboration with the agency. The Health and Human Services Department is reviewing its so-called march-in authority, but earlier this year declined a petition to test that patent-seizing power for a prostate cancer drug.

Biden officials counter Sanders by stressing that the IRA is already having an impact. The law capped the price of insulin for older Americans starting this year, and will eventually allow Medicare to directly negotiate the cost of certain drugs, a goal Democrats pursued for decades.

Sanders, though, waved away the argument, calling the IRA’s provisions “a very modest step that doesn’t go anywhere near far enough.”

Bertagnolli continues to meet with senators in hopes the White House and Sanders resolve their standoff. She sat down on Tuesday with Warren to discuss her ethics demands, although it did not result in an agreement. Outside allies have also ramped up their lobbying in recent weeks, sending letters to Sanders and Senate leadership pushing for her confirmation.

After missing the June window, Varmus said his hope is that Bertagnolli can get a hearing before the August recess.

But Biden allies dismissed the prospect that the White House would bend to Sanders’ demands just to jumpstart Bertagnolli’s confirmation, arguing that despite what the senator says, there’s little more it can realistically do to make a major dent in drug prices.

Sanders, too, remains unmoved, having yet to even scheduling a meeting with Bertagnolli.

“It’s nothing personal,” he said. “The principle here is that we have got to address some of the major health care crises in America. That’s what we’ve got to do, and it’s time for the administration to act.”

President Joe Biden will hold two high-profile bilateral meetings during the NATO summit this week, finding time to sit down one-on-one with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The sessions, described to POLITICO by two people familiar with the planning, will come on the sidelines of the two-gathering of transatlantic allies this week.

On Tuesday, Biden will sit down with Erdoğan to convince the autocrat that he should accept Sweden as NATO’s 32nd member. Erdoğan has blocked the move for more than a year, claiming that Stockholm was too cozy with Kurds that Ankara considers to be terrorists. The last few weeks have featured a flurry of diplomatic activity to break the deadlock, and Biden will likely aim to secure a pathway forward in his face-to-face chat.

The meeting with Zelenskyy, which is planned for Wednesday but not finalized, would be equally as testy. Kyiv hopes NATO would provide Ukraine with a speedy path into the alliance, even though Biden and other member nations oppose the idea of doing that soon. One reason is that making Ukraine an ally now would essentially put NATO at war with Russia, which continues its nine-year invasion.

Biden will look to convince Zelenskyy that removing a series of bureaucratic hurdles and reforms, in addition to a large security commitment by the U.S. and some NATO allies, was the most Kyiv could get in Vilnius this year.

Ukraine has not confirmed any plans for Zelenskyy to attend the summit.

It’s unclear if either discussion will produce a breakthrough. But holding the meetings shows Biden wants to invest himself personally — and the power of the presidency — in both relationships.

The National Security Council didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden said this week that Ukraine is not yet ready to join NATO, calling the prospect of its membership in the international alliance “premature” amid its war with Russia.

“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in NATO,” Biden said in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that aired Sunday. “I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war.”

Biden added that Ukraine still has work to do to meet all of the qualifications for membership, cautioning the process is “going to take a while.” But he reiterated his pledge to provide the country with security guarantees in the interim, stressing that the U.S. would ensure Ukraine has the weaponry it needs to defend itself against Russia.

Biden’s vow came shortly after he agreed to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, overriding humanitarian concerns about the bombs by arguing that it was crucial to provide Kyiv with more artillery. The president on Sunday left for an international trip that will include the NATO summit in Lithuania, where he will seek to rally the organization’s support for Ukraine.

“It was a very difficult decision on my part,” Biden said of approving the cluster munitions. “But the main thing is, they either have the weapons to stop the Russians now from their — keep them from stopping the Ukrainian offensive through these areas, or they don’t. And I think they needed them.”

Biden during the interview also expressed optimism that Sweden would soon gain entry to NATO, and touted the alliance’s ability to remain united in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“I believe Putin has had an overwhelming objective from the time he launched 185,000 troops into Ukraine, and that was to break NATO,” he said. “So holding NATO together is really critical.”

During the wide-ranging discussion, Biden also was asked about the White House’s posture toward China. The president said he was confident the U.S. could reach a “stable point” with its international rival and would work toward establishing a “working relationship with China that benefits them and us.” But he also indicated he believes that China’s overarching goal is to become the largest economic and military power in the world.

“China has enormous potential capacity, but enormous problems as well,” he said. “I think there’s a way we can work through this.”

Biden warned Chinese President Xi Jinping against providing more support to Russia in its war against Ukraine, he added, emphasizing the economic blow if American corporations pulled out of the nation at the same pace as they have in Russia.

“I said, this is not a threat, this is an observation,” Biden said. “And if you notice, he has not gone full-bore on Russia.”

Biden also waved away questions about his age amid concerns over the ability for an 81-year-old seeking reelection to excite the Democratic base ahead of the 2024 election, arguing that he possesses “wisdom” only gained through his decades in politics.

“We’re uniting democracies,” he said, pointing to the continued support for Ukraine across Europe. “I think we have enormous opportunities. And I just want to finish the job, and I think we can do that in the next six years.”

President Joe Biden’s trip to Europe next week may feel familiar, coming under the shadow of an increasingly stalemated war.

But for administration officials and foreign policy experts, the five-day swing across the Atlantic has quickly taken on heightened import: a bit of high-wire act diplomacy that could profoundly impact international alliances and fundamentally alter the very course of the war itself. The opportunity is there, they argue.

“This is the weakest Putin has been since taking power,” said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, a global risk assessment firm based in New York. “Those escalation concerns that existed when the war began have steadily diminished.”

Biden leaves Sunday for a trip that will have at its heart the NATO summit in Lithuania, a gathering now timed to an inflection point in Russia’s invasion of its neighbor. Held in Vilnius, just a few hundred miles from the fighting, the alliance’s gathering comes as Ukraine has slowly rolled out its counteroffensive. Biden then will visit Finland for a Baltic States summit, personally planting the symbolic flag of the West on the soil of NATO’s newest member.

Biden, his aides previewed, will use a major address Wednesday before NATO to forcefully urge for a redoubling of Western support for Ukraine. He will declare it imperative that Kyiv be sufficiently armed to make real progress before the fighting season slows for mud and then snow. He also will point to NATO’s response over the past 16 months, and the alliance’s expansion, to argue that he’s delivered on a promise to repair America’s alliances — and use the recent tumult in Russia as further evidence that efforts by allies have been working.

“The president has been clear that we are going to support Ukraine for as long as it takes and provide them an exceptional quantity of arms and capabilities,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Friday. “We believe we have been able to mount a vigorous concerted, dynamic response in response to Russia’s aggression.”

Alarm has been increasing among many of those allies over how long, and at what cost, Kyiv can continue to be supported. And some of those wary voices have grown louder in Washington, as more congressional Republicans — and leading GOP presidential candidates — have expressed objections to bankrolling the resistance to Vladimir Putin. That, in turn, has stirred fears across Europe that a GOP White House win next year could shatter the alliance. And several points of strain will be evident in Vilnius, including sharp divides as to whether to put Ukraine on a path to NATO membership.

Evidence of Putin’s possible new vulnerability lies just across the border from the NATO summit.

Vilnius sits not far from Lithuania’s border with Belarus, a fellow former Soviet state that has taken a very different path. While Lithuania has linked itself to Europe, Belarus remains a Russian satellite and its leader, Aleksandr Lukashenko, helped broker a deal to end the mercenary Wagner Group’s rebellion attempt two weeks ago.

Lukashenko offered Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, refuge in the capital of Minsk after the insurrection failed, though his whereabouts remain unknown. But the reasons for the mercenary leader’s aborted mutiny remain present: Prigozhin had myriad complaints about Russia’s faltering invasion, revealing huge cracks in the Russian military’s equipment and strategy that cost thousands of men their lives.

Biden will argue, aides say, that those Russian missteps came because of Ukraine’s fierce resistance, in part fueled by a treasure trove of weapons and money sent by the West. And Bremmer, among others, believes that the failed insurrection gives “a boost to Ukraine’s push to join NATO and gives the West a lot less reason to worry about any of Putin’s supposed red lines.”

But Kyiv’s long-awaited counteroffensive has gotten off to an undeniably sluggish start, with many of Ukraine’s top soldiers exhausted or incapacitated after nearly 18 months of fighting. With those struggles as the backdrop, Ukraine next week will again push for NATO membership, something that is certain to be a flashpoint in Vilnius.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is seeking a clear indication from leaders on where they stand on that question, which appears to be splitting two key members of the alliance. French President Emmanuel Macron, struggling to quiet widespread rioting across his nation, canceled a scheduled state visit to Berlin last week. That added to the rising tension between Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz over Ukraine’s potential NATO membership.

During a trilateral meeting in Paris last month, which was also attended by Polish President Andrej Duda, Macron shifted his position on the matter to be more in line with Poland and other eastern flank countries that want Ukraine to eventually join the alliance. That, in turn, alienated Scholz, who is constrained politically by a German public wary about getting entangled further in the conflict.

Biden has also made clear that Kyiv should not get a shortcut to admittance, a stance many allies share, given lingering concerns about its defense capabilities and the need for more democratic reforms. Sullivan said on Friday that Ukraine would not gain admittance in Vilnius.

A resolution over Sweden’s membership appears closer at hand. That country applied for membership at the same time as Finland, but has been blocked by objections from Turkey and, to a lesser degree, Hungary. Earlier this week, Biden forcefully added his voice to a late push to get the deal done in Vilnius.

One matter that was settled ahead of time: Keeping Jens Stoltenberg in place as NATO’s secretary general. Privately, the president urged the former Norwegian prime minister, whose term was due to end in October, to consider another extension, two White House officials said. The push reflected Biden’s desire to maintain the status quo and general cohesion within a complex alliance still facing a war right on its doorstep, the officials said.

“It’s indicative of the broader climate within the alliance and how right now the priority is to hold the line on Ukraine for as long as possible,” said Rachel Rizzo, a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, who expressed doubt that leaders would satisfy Ukraine’s request for clarity about its membership ambitions next week. “NATO must present a cohesive front at this summit. So the easier approach here is just answering the short-term questions; and the bigger questions that require consensus from allies are being kicked down the road a little.”

After Biden leaves Sunday, his first stop will be London for his first visit with King Charles III since the monarch took the throne. That visit will be part ceremonial and part substantive, focusing mostly on climate change. Biden will also meet with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before heading to Lithuania.

Biden’s team believes that prioritizing leadership on the world stage will benefit him back home, providing a sharp and effective contrast to the raucous GOP primary field. And Biden’s final stop of the week will implicitly drive that home.

Upon leaving Vilnius, Biden will fly to Helsinki for a Baltic States summit and to welcome Finland into the NATO alliance. He is expected to hold a Thursday news conference in the Finnish capital — five years to the week since his predecessor, Donald Trump, did the same in a very different political moment.

It was in Helsinki that Trump met with Putin in 2018, the two men huddling alone for hours in their sole full-fledged summit. At the news conference afterward, Trump made clear that he believed Putin’s denials about Russia’s 2016 election interference over the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies. And national security analysts believe that, despite his military setbacks, Putin might try to keep his war going through the next U.S. presidential election

“Given that Trump is running again for president and given the growing chorus of Republican candidates who question or are against U.S. support for Ukraine,” said Hagar Chemali, a former National Security Council and Treasury Department official under President Barack Obama, “I would expect President Zelenskyy to push even harder for additional military support this year to avoid getting stuck in U.S. domestic politics as we near November 2024.”

Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su voiced confidence Friday that she will eventually be confirmed by the Senate, even as multiple key senators have not yet announced whether they will support her nomination.

“I remain hopeful for confirmation,” Su said in an appearance on CNN Friday morning. “I’m grateful for the support of many, many senators, as well as labor and business.”

President Joe Biden nominated Su earlier this year to succeed Marty Walsh, who left the administration to lead the National Hockey League Players Association. She was confirmed by the Senate in 2021 as deputy Labor secretary along party lines, but has seen her nomination as Labor secretary face significant headwinds on Capitol Hill.

Most Democrats in the Senate, as well as organized labor groups and some business groups, have voiced their support for Su. But Republicans have lined up to oppose the former California Labor secretary, citing her handling of unemployment funding during the Covid-19 pandemic and her past support for a California law that requires companies to designate most workers as employees, not independent contractors. App-based companies such as Uber and Lyft, franchise restaurants and other employers that depend on gig workers have also voiced opposition due to concerns Su would pursue similar regulations at the federal level.

Su’s nomination has taken on new significance for key moderate senators. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who all face tough reelection battles in 2024, have refused to take a public position on Su’s nomination. Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) have also been publicly noncommittal. Tester, Sinema and Manchin have each met with Su.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not yet scheduled a vote on Su. The White House has shown no indication it will withdraw Su’s nomination.

Joe Biden is running his reelection bid on the cheap.

The president has hired fewer than 20 campaign aides. His team hasn’t yet announced a 2024 headquarters. His first political rally this year was paid for by other organizations.

In an interview with POLITICO, Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg said the frugality is no accident. And it isn’t going to change anytime soon, either.

“Right now, we have a fine-tuned race car here. At some point, we will build out a big, substantial, competitive organization and enterprise,” he said. “We don’t need to do that today. It literally would be a waste of money.”

Biden’s approach, while designed to save money, carries the risk of keeping his approval ratings at the low level where they are today. It also could limit his ability to better define the contours of the campaign at a time when the Republican field is bludgeoning each other in their own primary. Twelve years ago, his former boss, Barack Obama, moved swiftly in anticipation of facing off against Mitt Romney during the summer before the election year.

Biden’s campaign and pro-Biden super PACs have spent $7.5 million on broadcast, cable and digital ads since he launched his reelection bid, according to an analysis by the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Trump’s campaign and an outside group backing him have spent $16.4 million in the same time period, with the vast majority of that outlay coming from his super PAC.

There are lots of potential reasons for Biden’s thriftiness. As the incumbent president, he doesn’t need to chase headlines. Because he doesn’t have a serious primary opponent, he’s not under pressure to hit the gas yet in early-voting states, either. And like previous presidents who have run for reelection, he can travel to critical battlegrounds on the taxpayer dime.

Biden also has the luck of running against Trump, who is already well-defined in the eyes of voters, facing myriad legal troubles, and whose ad spending is geared in part toward attacking others in the GOP primary.

But lurking behind the Biden team’s cost-cutting efforts, there is a low-grade anxiety among Democrats about the president’s fundraising abilities.

Though Biden’s campaign aides have expressed confidence in his capacity to bring in the money they believe they need this cycle — some Democrats think Biden and outside groups could top $2 billion in spending — they have not offered so much as a glimpse into his checkbook.

His team did not disclose how much money he raised in the first 24 hours of his reelection campaign. It is also not planning to unveil how much it raised in the first quarter since he kicked off his bid until July 15, the date on which he is legally required to disclose that information.

“No matter what the White House wants to say, you take a survey and a huge plurality of Democratic voters don’t even want him to run again,” said a national Democratic strategist who was granted anonymity to speak frankly. “There’s really an enthusiasm gap that I think is their central challenge.”

Biden’s second quarter haul will be closely studied for signs of whether he is generating excitement among donors. And the benchmark is fairly high. In 2019, when Trump was running for reelection, his campaign and the Republican National Committee raised a total of $105 million in the second quarter of the year.

The president, who has struggled with fundraising in the past, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff, went on a mad dash on the fundraising circuit before the most recent campaign finance quarter ended. They held more than 20 high-dollar events across the country, and top Democratic fundraisers such as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom participated in some of them.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also rallied members of Biden’s campaign national advisory board in a call ahead of last month’s deadline.

Across a few recent big-money events in California, Biden raised around $10 million, according to two people familiar with the haul.

“We are encouraged by the strong response we are seeing from donors and our grassroots supporters, including a significant number of new donors since 2020,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz.

Biden’s allies say running a lean campaign is smart, at least right now. Dollars not spent unnecessarily are just as important as dollars raised, allies argue.

“I am always a big believer in hoarding resources for the real meat of a campaign,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), who sits on Biden’s campaign national advisory board. “I think saving money now will just prove to be wise come next year when you really need it.”

The campaign is saving money. When Biden spoke at the first political rally of his reelection campaign in Philadelphia last month, labor unions paid for the event, said a person familiar with the spending. A Biden campaign spokesperson confirmed the setup.

Like other presidents running for reelection, Biden has used official White House travel to layer on fundraising events paid for by the campaign and Democratic National Committee too.

Dick Harpootlian, a South Carolina lawyer and state senator who bundled for Biden during his 2020 run, said there isn’t a “frenetic” pressure to do intense fundraising at this point in the 2024 cycle. He stressed that he wasn’t worried.

“If the question is why aren’t they raising more money,” he said, “They’re not attempting to at this point to raise more money. … It’s just too early.”

Still, there are signs that Biden world is looking to pick up the pace. Biden has brought in some top campaign staff in recent weeks, including a communications director and general counsel. Rufus Gifford is also expected to depart the State Department for Biden’s campaign soon to help with donor outreach.

Biden hasn’t yet announced a fundraising director or fundraising co-chairs, but Katzenberg said the fundraising team will staff up “very, very soon.”

Biden’s team has also touted the fact that every state party and Washington, D.C., have entered into a joint-fundraising agreement with his campaign, enabling donors to cut larger checks. John Atkinson, a Democratic donor who attended Biden’s 200-person fundraiser in Chicago last week, said the bundlers for the president have remained engaged.

“I anticipate fundraising will really start to pick up in this next quarter,” he said. “And I think a lot of it will be driven by what’s going to be a Biden campaign buoyed by [a] good economic record and at the same time Republicans being tied to this extremist Supreme Court that they’ve dreamt about for so long.”

Biden’s campaign can afford to be frugal, in part, because the DNC often picks up the tab. Unlike during the Obama years, the DNC this cycle is in more solid financial shape. It currently has more than 300 staff members and its communications, fundraising and research teams, in particular, have worked closely on Biden’s reelection.

In 2020, Biden had to build his operation from the ground up. Today, Katzenberg said, “we have the luxury of time. He doesn’t need to extract every dollar out of every event. He can actually afford to invest in long-term relationships and get reconnected with his backers.”

Some Democrats, however, fear that Biden doesn’t have the luxury of waiting. The Republican field for president is currently in a fundraising arms race. Trump’s campaign officials have said that his joint fundraising committee collected $35 million in the second quarter, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his top primary opponent, said it raised $20 million in the six weeks since he launched his campaign. Much of that cash will go toward attacking each other. But some of their ads have hit Biden, too.

Then there are questions about whether Biden can kick his fundraising into higher gear when needed. The president is 80 years old. And while the White House says he travels robustly, he also hasn’t run a fast-paced general election campaign since serving as VP in 2012, having won the last one under the cloud of Covid-19.

John Morgan, a Democratic donor and attorney, said he has talked to the campaign about hosting a fundraiser in the fall but it hadn’t yet been confirmed if Biden would attend.

He said Biden’s absence could make it more difficult to bring in a substantial amount of money because, unlike Obama or 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, there is no one else in Biden world who can attract donors the way the president can.

“They want me to raise two to three million bucks. OK, well when you give me that goal, I have to have the tools to do it,” he said.

Referring to one of Biden’s closest aides, he added, “If you want it to be a $500,000 fundraiser, send [Steve] Ricchetti, and we’ll get fucked up on the back porch and smoke cigars. I’m okay with that. But I can’t raise two to three million dollars without a huge draw.”

Several other Biden donors and bundlers said they’re confident the president will bring in the money necessary. Part of it may be that they’re saving up now. But much of it will be that they’ll raise boatloads with having Trump on the political scene.

“With the party energized over all of his legislative accomplishments, I have no doubts that the president will raise the resources he needs to run an effective campaign,” said Neil Makhija, a Democratic fundraiser and the executive director of Indian American Impact.

Christopher Cadelago contributed to this report.

The Biden administration is appealing a court ruling sharply limiting the ability of federal officials to interact with social media companies about the content contained on their platforms.

In addition, a Justice Department official said Wednesday night that attorneys there plan to act “expeditiously” to seek a stay of the unusual injunction issued on July 4 by U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty in response to a lawsuit filed by Louisiana and Missouri last year.

The suit claims that President Joe Biden’s White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and officials at other agencies committed censorship in violation of the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to remove or limit access to anti-vaccine posts and to take down the accounts of certain users.

Social media companies, like other private businesses, don’t generally have to observe First Amendment standards, and they aren’t named as defendants in the suit. But the lawsuit argues that the Biden administration actions to limit public discussion of the COVID-19-related content – as well as election-related disinformation and issues like Hunter Biden’s laptop – made the companies an extension of the government.

Doughty, who is based in Monroe, Louisiana, and was appointed by former President Donald Trump, called the government’s pressure on the firms “Orwellian.” But other legal experts said his ruling did not give adequate weight to the rights of Biden and others to cajole the companies to limit their publication of content that the officials considered objectionable.

The Justice Department filed a notice of appeal Wednesday evening that will send Doughty’s opinion and the accompanying injunction to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for review. That court is considered one of the most conservative federal appeals courts in the nation, but previously ruled against Doughty on a couple of disputes about demands for depositions of federal officials in the same litigation.

Doughty’s order limiting interaction between certain federal officials and agencies and the social media firms kicked in immediately when the judge issued it on Tuesday. The Justice Department is expected to ask him shortly to issue a stay of his order to allow for appeal. If he declines, DOJ lawyers are likely to go to the 5th Circuit to ask for such a reprieve.

In the passenger seat of an electric vehicle cruising through western Tennessee last week, Mitch Landrieu was fired up — talking into his cell phone about as fast as the speed limit, his voice booming.

President Joe Biden’s infrastructure coordinator, in the midst of a summer-long road trip highlighting the administration’s industrial policy, had just visited an electric vehicle charging station and a plant converted to produce fiber optic cable. But he was calling to talk about how the reopening of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, just 12 days after a deadly bridge collapse, provided evidence of “Bidenomics” success, a tangible improvement people can see and feel that will be a centerpiece of the president’s 2024 campaign.

“We’re in the process of rebuilding America,” Landrieu told West Wing Playbook. “Laying cable, modernizing cars and making them, making the parts … it takes time to completely rebuild the country from the bottom up … but people are going to see the benefits.”

The speedy repair of the I-95 bridge, as Landrieu sees it, was largely the result of the Biden administration’s work: The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law that provided funding for repairs, strong coordination between the White House and local leaders, and the president’s own directive that aides make the repairs their top priority.

After the collapse, local officials were alarmed — as was Biden, no stranger to the area. Beyond commuter headaches, they worried about the impact on supply chains if the East Coast’s main ground transportation artery was closed for months, as many initially projected.

“When I woke up that Sunday morning, my phone had blown up,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), whose district was home to the collapsed bridge. “My first call was to the White House.” After connecting with senior aides including Anita Dunn and Steve Richetti, Boyle got a call from Biden “assuring me they were going to move heaven and earth.”

By that point, Landrieu had already assured Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro that federal funding from the infrastructure law would be available. Federal Highway Administration Administrator Shailen Bratt was already on the ground, setting up a command center with local officials.

“The president called me that Monday and said, ‘Mitch, this is the No. 1 priority in the country,’” Landrieu recalled.

Inside the White House, deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon and the intergovernmental affairs team helped oversee coordination. PennDot’s Mike Carroll, a former state lawmaker who knew Shapiro and Boyle well from their days in Harrisburg, had offered a potential quick fix: Use 2,000 tons of aggregate made from recycled glass to fill in the area beneath the now collapsed bridge to reopen the interstate on top of it.

PennDot already had experience using the glass material, which was available from a facility in Delaware County just 17 miles away. Just as auspiciously, there was a contractor doing work on the highway that officials redirected to the bridge repair effort. Weather largely cooperated. And there were no qualms about keeping the four local union crews working around the clock — and paying their overtime — because the federal funding was already in place.

“We had a team of people that knew each other well. Nothing can move that fast if no one trusts each other, so you’ve got to build that,” said Landrieu. “That has allowed us to respond very quickly when we have catastrophic events and the president says, ‘Run to that fire.’”

Biden, who received written progress reports from Landrieu every day, joined Shapiro, Boyle and other local officials for a flyover and press conference the weekend after the collapse. In the Philadelphia area, people were fixated on the progress. In addition to the governor holding daily briefings, Shapiro’s office set up a livestream so the public could watch repairs. The reopening just 12 days after the bridge collapse became a cause for celebration — not quite Phillies championship parade levels, but close. The Phillies Phanatic and Gritty, the Flyer’s hairy orange mascot, were among the first to traverse the road atop a firetruck.

“I have never gotten more compliments,” said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. “I think the PR part was handled quite well. I didn’t expect Gritty on the fire truck but there he was. This was a tragedy because we lost that driver, but overall the way this came out, people were confident about their government’s ability to do stuff.”

Few states will be as critical to Biden’s reelection as Pennsylvania. But while Shapiro’s statewide approval rating is now at 57 percent following the I-95 reopening, the president, who carried Pennsylvania in 2020, remains well under the 50 percent mark.

Sharif Street, chair of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party and a state senator, said Biden, Shapiro and the city’s building trades all deserve credit for the quick fix. But he said Biden in particular isn’t getting the kudos he is owed.

“He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for most of what he does,” Street said. “If a good thing happens, he only gets half the credit. If a bad thing happens, he gets twice the blame.”