Politico

The White House announced Monday that the U.S. would sanction Russia for recognizing two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine as independent.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. has been prepared for this move and is ready to respond “immediately.” President Joe Biden will sign an executive order to “prohibit new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in the so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine” as well as “provide authority to impose sanctions on any person determined to operate in those areas of Ukraine,” Psaki said in a statement.

DNR and LNR refer to the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic, both of which are controlled by Russia-backed forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared these eastern Ukrainian territories as independent.

“To be clear: these measures are separate from and would be in addition to the swift and severe economic measures we have been preparing in coordination with Allies and partners should Russia further invade Ukraine,” the White House said. “We are continuing to closely consult with Allies and partners, including Ukraine, on next steps and on Russia’s ongoing escalation along the border with Ukraine.”

The Departments of State and Treasury will be releasing more details on the measure “shortly,” the White House said.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who earned a reputation in the Senate as a tenacious questioner of judicial nominees, is leveraging her chamber connections for the forthcoming Supreme Court fight.

Harris, after propelling her Trump-era rise in national politics through a Judiciary Committee spot, has recently reached out to women senators on both sides of the aisle to seek their input on the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy.

“She was information gathering. I appreciated it,” said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.). “She asked me what my priorities were, and any other feedback I had. She’s very much in listening mode.”

The one-on-one outreach comes as Harris has struggled to find her footing as an effective emissary for President Joe Biden. She has taken on the deeply challenging core issues of Central American migration and voting rights, but the former remains a problem for the administration and the latter push faltered in the Senate. Now, Harris is poised to get more assertive, on wooing high-court votes and beyond.

This week, the vice president is headed to the big security conference in Munich, a trip that’s seen as her biggest diplomatic test to date, as the U.S. warns that Russia could invade Ukraine. On the home front, her own political and legal backgrounds make her a natural fit to be part of Biden’s Supreme Court selection and nomination process. And she’s not just reaching out to Democrats about the president’s still-unnamed pick..

Sens. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) have all spoken to Harris about the Supreme Court vacancy, which Biden has vowed to fill with the first Black woman justice. That’s on top of the vice president’s conversations with at least five Democratic senators: Smith, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Washington’s Patty Murray, Illinois’ Tammy Duckworth and Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow. Six of those senators confirmed they’d spoken to Harris in interviews.

Some of Harris’ former Senate GOP colleagues remain skeptical of her influence. But Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who served alongside Harris for four years as the Judiciary panel’s only Black members, said the vice president “feels very passionately” about the issue.

“She’s a partner in this process and I think she’s going to play a very important role,” said Booker. “I just know when it comes to this Supreme Court pick she is in the mix everywhere I look.”

During Harris’ time on the judiciary committee, she acquired a formidable reputation for grilling then-President Donald Trump’s nominees, including now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She’s also been the first woman of color — and Black woman — to serve in many of her past elected offices, including district attorney of San Francisco, attorney general of California and a senator from the state. Biden has pledged to nominate a Black woman for the Supreme Court post being vacated by retiring justice, Stephen Breyer.

Harris participated in Biden’s meeting Thursday with Senate Judiciary Democrats. The president has also done his own outreach to Republican swing votes about the forthcoming nomination, including Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine.

“She was talking about the process, and that their focus is really to have a good process,” Fischer said. “She understands what’s necessary. I’m sure she’ll continue to help the president reach out to senators.”

Bakari Sellers, a longtime Harris ally and former South Carolina state lawmaker, described her conversations with former Senate colleagues as in keeping with Biden’s interest in a less partisan Supreme Court confirmation this year.

“She could sit on her hands and be vote No. 51,” Sellers said. “But you want to have a Supreme Court justice that comes in in a bipartisan fashion. It’s somewhat necessary to preserve the integrity of the court and to give people a rejuvenated belief in democracy.”

Fischer, Capito and Ernst attended a dinner Harris hosted last year for women senators, many of whom she knows from her time in office. The vice president may not be the best Supreme Court messenger for every Senate Republican, however.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who spoke to the White House counsel about the incoming nomination but not to Harris, quipped that “I don’t know what she does all day … I guess they’re trying to find something for her to do.”

Sellers countered that tapping Harris to serve in a more central role for the Supreme Court nomination fight demonstrated that the administration is learning how best to deploy her. He likened the VP to the talented wide receiver on her beloved San Francisco 49ers, Deebo Samuel, who often gets slotted as a running back as well.

“You got to figure out how to get them the ball,” Sellers said. “They are still feeling that part and learning it. There have been many of us who have been yelling for a year-plus to use her; get her out more. And if you scream loud enough, they’ll hear you.”

A White House official, addressing Harris’ outreach on condition of anonymity, said only that she is making calls to senators on both sides of the aisle.

Harris’ experience with evaluating nominees for the bench dates to before her time on the Judiciary Committee. As California attorney general, she served on the state’s commission on judicial appointments when Leondra Kruger — now a frontrunner for Biden’s Supreme Court nomination — was confirmed to California’s highest court in 2014.

Harris’ previous Hill outreach has extended beyond migration and voting rights to the administration’s biggest priorities, including elements of the infrastructure and social spending packages. But Biden’s own deep ties in the Capitol — as well as elevated roles he’s given others, such as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg— have at times overshadowed her.

But Harris has also made some missteps, such as a West Virginia media appearance last year that tweaked Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Still, Harris can lean on close ties to aides involved in the Supreme Court confirmation process. Minyon Moore, whom Biden tapped to help with the nomination, is among the vice president’s unofficial outside advisers. And Kristine Lucius, Harris’ current legislative director, is a former chief counsel and staff director on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

Jay Shambaugh, who was a key economic adviser in President Barack Obama’s White House, is under consideration to be Treasury under secretary for international affairs, the agency’s top financial diplomat, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Shambaugh, who served as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2015 to 2017, is a professor of economics and international affairs at George Washington University and a nonresident senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

The position, one of the most senior Treasury jobs, has been vacant since the start of the Biden administration despite Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s packed international agenda, including an effort to advance a global tax agreement.

Several other contenders were under consideration for the job last year, including Heidi Crebo-Rediker, a former chief economist at the State Department, and Marisa Lago, a former Obama Treasury official who is now under secretary for international trade at the Commerce Department. But the White House didn’t put forward a nominee for the position, which has been filled on an acting basis by Andy Baukol, a career civil servant and Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for monetary policy.

The White House declined to comment as did a Treasury Department spokesperson. Shambaugh had no comment.

Prior to becoming a member of Obama’s economic council, Shambaugh served as a CEA staff economist focusing on international economics, and later as chief economist. After leaving the CEA, he spent three years as director of the Hamilton Project, a progressive economic think tank affiliated with Brookings. He also served on the Biden administration’s CEA transition team.

Shambaugh’s research has focused on the interaction of exchange rate regimes with monetary policy, capital flows and trade flows, as well as international reserves holdings and the global effects of U.S. fiscal policy.

President Joe Biden’s top science adviser, Eric Lander, bullied and demeaned his subordinates and violated the White House’s workplace policy, an internal White House investigation recently concluded, according to interviews and an audio recording obtained by POLITICO.

The two-month investigation found “credible evidence” that Lander — a Cabinet member and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy who the White House touts as a key player in the pandemic response — was “bullying” toward his then-general counsel, Rachel Wallace, according to a recorded January briefing on the investigation’s findings.

Christian Peele, the White House’s deputy director of management and administration for personnel, said that the investigation also concluded that there was “credible evidence of disrespectful interactions with staff by Dr. Lander and OSTP leadership,” according to the roughly 20-minute briefing, which included a representative of the White House Counsel’s office.

There was also “credible evidence” that Lander had spoken “harshly and disrespectfully to colleagues in front of other colleagues,” Peele said, according to the recording. “The investigation found credible evidence of instances of multiple women having complained to other staff about negative interactions with Dr. Lander, where he spoke to them in a demeaning or abrasive way in front of other staff,” Peele said in the recording.

In an office of roughly 140 people, 14 current and former OSTP staffers who worked under Lander this past year shared similar descriptions of a toxic work environment where they say Lander frequently bullied, cut off and dismissed subordinates. Nine of those current and former OSTP staffers said Lander yelled and sometimes made people feel humiliated in front of their peers. Most were granted anonymity because they feared retaliation from Lander.

The behavior is at odds with Biden’s Day-1 warning to his political appointees that anyone who disrespected their colleagues would be fired “On the spot. No ifs, ands or buts.”

Lander, who is scheduled to appear before the House’s Health Subcommittee on biomedical research Tuesday, did not answer phone calls Friday and declined through his office to be interviewed.

Soon after his top aides became aware of the extent of POLITICO’s investigation, Lander sent an email late Friday to all OSTP staff apologizing for his behavior.

“I am deeply sorry for my conduct. I especially want to apologize to those of you who I treated poorly or were present at the time,” he wrote, POLITICO first reported. “It’s my responsibility to set a respectful tone for our community. It’s clear that I have not lived up to this responsibility. I have spoken to colleagues within OSTP in a disrespectful or demeaning way.”

Biden picked Lander, a leading scientist who first came to prominence for his work mapping the human genome, to head OSTP in part to show his administration would entrust scientists and medical experts as they work to combat the coronavirus. Last January, Biden wrote a public open letter to Lander urging him to “refresh and reinvigorate our national science and technology strategy to set us on a strong course for the next 75 years,” comparing the task to a forward-looking 1944 report published by FDR’s science adviser.

A White House spokesperson wrote in a statement to POLITICO that “a full and thorough investigation was conducted” and “White House leadership met with Dr. Lander to discuss the seriousness of the matter and the President’s expectation that all staff interactions be conducted with respect.” Peele did not respond to requests for comment.

An OSTP spokesperson said in a statement: “The investigation found credible evidence of violations of the EOP’s Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy, and corrective action was taken consistent with those findings.”

Both spokespeople declined to attach their names to the statements. The same OSTP spokesperson said: “We are going to let Eric’s apology to our team speak for itself.”

Wallace, a career civil servant who has worked across the executive branch since the Clinton administration, including at the OSTP during both the Obama and Trump administrations, had registered a complaint to Peele last September against “Lander and other OSTP leadership,” according to the recording.

Wallace told POLITICO that Lander “retaliated against staff for speaking out and asking questions by calling them names, disparaging them, embarrassing them in front of their peers, laughing at them, shunning them, taking away their duties, and replacing them or driving them out of the agency. Numerous women have been left in tears, traumatized, and feeling vulnerable and isolated.”

In addition to his behavior toward subordinates, Wallace, who is now deputy counsel but retained her title as chief operating officer at OSTP, accused Lander of retaliating against her by demoting her. The White House investigation did not conclude her reassignment was “procedurally improper,” but that she had been excluded from “meetings, conversations and assignments, in violation of the safe and respectful workplace policy,” according to the briefing.

Wallace initially declined to comment for this story but changed her mind after reading Lander’s note to staff on Friday. “Lander’s apology did not come close to addressing the full extent of his egregious behavior,” she said.

“He did so much more than speak to staff in a ‘disrespectful or demeaning way.’” She added: “Lander’s apology was not only disingenuous. It compounded the deep hurt and damage he has caused by ignoring these other acts of aggression, harassment and retaliation.”

After the investigation ended in December, the White House’s personnel and Counsel’s offices concluded that Lander’s offenses were “very, very serious and are outside the expectations of all staff within the [Executive Office of the President],” according to the recording of Peele. They also concluded he had violated the White House’s “Safe and Respectful Workplace Policy” which defines bullying as “repeated behavior that a reasonable individual would find disrespectful, intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive.” The OSTP spokesperson noted that the “investigation did not find credible evidence of gender-based discrimination.”

The investigator reviewed documents and conducted seven interviews, including with Lander, according to the recording.

As discipline, the White House required Lander to hold more collaborative meetings with subordinates, such as “brown bag sessions,” Peele said in the recorded briefing. It also mandated more trainings for all staff on the workplace policy. Peele said in the briefing there would be a check-in at the 30 to 45 day mark to see if the problematic behavior has ceased.

Eight current and former staffers said Lander should have faced tougher consequences such as mandated training for himself specifically or a suspension. Some said he should be fired, given the president’s stated zero-tolerance policy.

While swearing in political appointees on Inauguration Day, Biden pledged: “If you are ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot. On the spot. No ifs, ands or buts.” Some OSTP staffers now scoff at the president’s promise as empty political rhetoric while others say they still believe Biden would take some sort of action if he knew the extent of the problem.

“[Lander] has a bit of Jekyll and Hyde personality. If he’s in a meeting with external people, he’s positive and ebullient, even. It’s behind closed doors that he changes,” said one OSTP staffer. “There are a lot of brilliant people in this country. I completely reject the notion that his brilliance is so singular and critical to the nation that his behavior is excusable.”

“Mr. President, please protect the dignity and well-being of our staff by standing by your zero-tolerance policy,” said a second OSTP staffer, who said they believed Lander should be fired.

Three current and former OSTP staffers said in interviews that he has laughed or taunted subordinates in front of other colleagues or asked questions that are obviously not in the person’s area of expertise until they admit they don’t know the answer. Six current and former OSTP staffers said that while he bullies men and women, he appears to take delight in trying to embarrass female colleagues in front of others.

“The Joe Biden I voted for would never knowingly empower an aggressor like Lander who openly targets women by publicly humiliating, infantilizing and intimidating them into submission,” said the second OSTP staffer.

“But Lander seems to know he’s protected. The most terrifying part about him is the open and brazen way he conducts his abuse. After repeatedly insulting and humiliating me in front of colleagues, Lander acknowledged his inability to control himself, telling me ‘I hate that I do it,’” the staffer said.

“Everyone is afraid of him,” said a third OSTP staffer. “Lander yells — screams. He’ll ask the same thing over and over but getting louder and louder each time,” said the staffer, who has witnessed his behavior.

Lander has been one of the nation’s leading scientists for decades. After winning a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award in 1987 at age 30, he did foundational work on the international Human Genome Project and CRISPR-based genome editing. Lander has long been known as a brash, polarizing figure. “Why Eric Lander morphed from science god to punching bag,” a Stat News headline put it in 2016. During the so-called genome wars in the late ’90s and early 2000s, his critiques of rivals earned him the moniker of “Eric Slander” among some.

He apologized in his confirmation hearing last spring for “understating” the role of two women scientists in a 2016 essay on the discovery of CRISPR gene-editing technology. “I made a mistake. And when I make a mistake, I owned it and tried to do better,” he said.

That history, along with some concerns about two past fundraising meetings that included the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, delayed his confirmation last spring. Of Biden’s initial 22 Cabinet nominees, Lander was the last to be confirmed.

He is a close confidante of the president. He served on the board of the Biden Cancer Initiative, the charitable organization the president launched after serving in the Obama administration. He became the first OSTP director in history to be granted Cabinet rank and is heading up the president’s “Cancer Moonshot” initiative, a personal priority for Biden after the death of his son, Beau in 2015.

Lander also has a long-standing relationship with deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, Biden’s most influential policy adviser. Reed previously served as president of the Broad Foundation, which includes MIT’s Broad Institute, a biomedical research organization where Lander served as founding director and president. He is currently on unpaid leave from the institute while serving in the administration.

After the White House’s investigation concluded, Lander appeared with Biden on Wednesday for the launch of the administration’s initiative to help decrease cancer deaths. “Dr. Eric Lander — sitting on the end there — will chart the path for the Cancer Moonshot for 2022 and beyond,” Biden said. The White House declined to say if Biden was aware of the investigation’s findings before the event.

Some staffers say that the consequences of Lander’s abusive behavior extend to the OSTP’s mission itself. Beyond the Cancer Moonshot, Lander has played a leading role in the coronavirus response. Asked by the New York Times’ Ezra Klein in January whether the Biden administration was prepared to quickly produce variant-specific boosters, chief of staff Ron Klain immediately pointed to Lander.

“One reason why President Biden asked Eric Lander to come here to be his science adviser was to have the kind of scientific wherewithal and knowledge,” Klain said. “Eric leads a group with our medical teams across all the agencies every week where this is exactly his focus, on making sure we are building the manufacturing capacity, scientific capacity, all the different capacities we need, to hit that 100-day standard. We aren’t there yet, but we continue to work on it every single week.”

Some current and former staffers called Lander a “brilliant scientist,” but said his treatment of colleagues undermines his ability to do his current job.

“It’s not just about intimidating staff,” said a fourth OSTP staffer. “Staff waste time thinking about how to present information to him. I worry that as work problems crop up — as they do in any workplace — that they could get worse before being resolved because people are afraid of how he will react when they’re just giving him the facts.”

President Joe Biden sounded a triumphant note Friday after the monthly jobs report came in significantly above expectations.

“America’s job machine is going stronger than ever,” Biden said at the White House.

Employers in the U.S. added roughly 467,000 jobs in January and the numbers for November and December were revised significantly upward — an unexpected jolt to the economy that came in the midst of the surging Omicron variant of Covid-19.

“America is back to work,” the president said.

Biden said that with Friday’s news, the economy has added more than 6.6 million jobs over his first year in office.

“If you can’t remember another year when so many people went to work in this country, there’s a reason. It never happened,” Biden said. “History has been made here.”

The strong jobs numbers seemed to have caught the White House off guard, as officials had been signaling in the run-up to its release that the January report may have been weighed down by the spike in Covid-19 infections.

The jobs figures also offers a political tailwind to the administration, which in recent weeks has seen key parts of its legislative agenda sputter in Congress and Biden’s poll numbers sink.

Biden also used the January jobs report to make the case for his stalled Build Back Better plan, which has floundered on Capitol Hill since late last year, when lynchpin Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced his opposition to the massive social spending package.

“The bottom line is this, the United States is once again in a position to not only compete with the rest of the world, but outcompete the rest of the world once again,” he said.

Biden did acknowledge that more work still needs to be down to tamp down the rate of inflation, which has eaten into economic progress on other fronts.

“We still need to ease the burden on working families by making everyday things more affordable and accessible,” he said, arguing that his spending blueprint would help do so.

When it comes to matters of war, the Biden administration’s current stance is “trust us” — and if you disagree, you’re Vladimir Putin’s or ISIS’ talking puppet.

Thursday should have been a blemish-free day for the Biden administration to tout a couple rare wins in the contested national security and intelligence arenas — the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and the “discovery” of a Russian disinformation plot in Ukraine. But instead it bumbled the message, raised the hackles of a skeptical press, and bullied the conversation into a Bush-era “you’re either with or against us” false dichotomy.

It speaks to a communications shop that seems frustrated when journalists don’t buy their line and that’s straining against a real current of Russia-friendly positions spouted by right-wing figures in the U.S.

But it’s one thing to know such a startling symbiosis is happening. It’s another to imply American reporters, and political opponents, have bought into it.

When Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) suggested Wednesday that the U.S. shouldn’t offer Ukraine membership in NATO and should focus more on China, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said he was “digesting Russian misinformation and parroting Russian talking points.”

Then Thursday, NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe asked Psaki if the U.S. could provide evidence supporting President Joe Biden’s statement that al-Qurayshi detonated a suicide bomb and killed civilians during the U.S. military raid “[b]ecause there may be people that are skeptical of the events.”

“Skeptical of the U.S. military’s assessment when they went and took out … the leader of ISIS? That they are not providing accurate information and ISIS is providing accurate information?” Psaki responded, not-so-subtly implying that questioning the administration’s readout of the raid means someone believes ISIS is a more truthful actor. Psaki then did go on to address Rascoe’s question, reiterating “that the individual who was the target detonated himself, killing his entire family,” though she didn’t offer any additional evidence beyond the administration’s repeated statements.

The White Helmets, a Syrian civil defense and humanitarian group, reported that they had recovered the bodies of six children and four women from the site of the raid.

Moments later at the State Department, spokesperson Ned Price sparred with the Associated Press’ Matthew Lee, who pressed Price to show evidence for the allegation that the Russians planned a false flag operation as a pretext for a Ukraine invasion. “If you doubt the credibility of the U.S. government … and want to find solace in information that the Russians are putting out, that’s for you to do,” Price responded at the end of a testy five-minute exchange.

Just six months ago, the administration called the bombing of 10 innocent people, including seven children, in Afghanistan a “righteous strike” before The New York Times proved otherwise. This is the same administration that confidently backed intelligence assessments indicating it would take over a year, maybe two, for Kabul to fall. And yet, Biden officials seem dumbfounded when journalists ask probing questions before filing to their editors an official summary or raw collected intelligence doled out by the administration.

Maggie Haberman, a reporter for The New York Times, told POLITICO that her paper’s reporting “on the actual facts of the drone strike months back are a reminder of why asking questions of the government is important.”

No Biden officials would speak on the record about their remarks. But Psaki and Price were once official-statement skeptics before reentering government. After former President Donald Trump in 2017 bombed Syrian targets in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians, Psaki asked on Twitter: “what is the legal authority for strikes?”

Price also openly questioned the Trump administration’s 2019 release of intelligence that Iran planned attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. “[O]ur antennas should go up every time we hear this administration characterize intelligence as the basis for escalating against Tehran–especially militarily,” Price tweeted at the time. (Though in fairness to Price, he worried Trump’s team aimed to start a war while this administration aims to stop one.)

The State spokesperson did apologize to Lee in a phone call and on Twitter. “Nothing but respect for him,” Price wrote. And Psaki attempted to set the record straight, tweeting that context was important and noting that their “focus has been on providing as many confirmed details as we know at this point.” Psaki also called Rascoe to apologize.

There’s no evidence to suggest the administration made a conscious effort to label inquisitive reporters as foreign mouthpieces, and it’s more than likely that Psaki and Price’s comments were ill-timed back-to-back. But reporters and political opponents aren’t taking kindly to the implication that they’re being manipulated by adversarial sources — particularly when it comes from an administration that has promised transparency and respect in dealing with the media.

The media’s pushback has begun. “Both of these responses from Psaki and Price are completely dumb and gross and only make them, and the case they are making, look worse,” Chris Hayes, host of a MSNBC primetime news show, wrote on Twitter. “Sorry but no US administration has earned a ‘trust us’ on matters of foreign intelligence with regards to war and peace.”

“It’s the job of reporters to ask for proof to back up government statements. Doing so does not mean one believes propaganda put out by U.S. adversaries. I imagine these officials know that,” tweeted Felicia Sonmez, a Washington Post national reporter whose Twitter thread brought attention to the spokespeople’s comments.

“The US government has repeatedly made false statements about civilian casualties, only to admit them after reporters unearthed contradictory info. That’s why reporters ask such questions,” Kenneth Vogel, a New York Times reporter, piled on.

The collective response isn’t just the normal mobilization of a press under fire. It’s a reaction to how the administration has handled the press to date.

Briefings are back, sure. And yes, this administration doesn’t call the media the “enemy of the people.” But when the Biden White House hosts a call to explain a policy decision, it’s almost always “on background” and attributable to a “senior administration official.”

It’s a common complaint in the press corps that when a reporter makes a slight error, or makes an analytical case against the administration’s policy, a spokesperson will call and act as if it was a personal slight. The president also rarely makes himself available for interviews except to friendly outlets, though when he does give press conferences they can extend for historically long periods of time.

While it’s possible the administration is representing the series of events accurately, said Erik Wemple, The Washington Post’s longtime media critic, the U.S. government’s history of hiding or distorting inconvenient facts during conflicts justified the need for transparency.

“For the most part, it’s been an enormous return to normalcy,” Wemple said of the Biden administration’s relationship with the press. “But this is absolutely insane. The dichotomy — that [if] you don’t believe us, you believe the other side — it’s a complete non-starter, and completely antithetical to a functioning democracy.”

As for this piece, one Biden official did offer a statement on background.

“We welcome good faith scrutiny. Our spokespeople hold daily briefings where they answer tough questions from smart journalists to the best of our ability — as Jen and Ned tweeted,” a National Security Council spokesperson emailed.

“A day when we kill the leader of a terrorist organization threatening Americans, and call out the efforts by another country to lay the predicate for war is a good day for the United States and the American people. We will let others prognosticate if they would like to the contrary.”

Max Tani contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — Early Thursday, President Joe Biden issued a statement announcing a raid by U.S. armed forces that resulted in the death of the leader of ISIS.

Two hours later, he sat down to pray with lawmakers at the Capitol.

Hours after that, he jetted off to New York City for meetings with teachers and police.

All presidents are forced to balance competing priorities and demands. But rarely do the days leap between the global, ecumenical and domestic in such a short timespan as they did for Biden on Thursday.

“Mr. President, life is all about showing up,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul as she sat next to Biden inside One Police Plaza, the headquarters of the New York City Police Department. “On a day when you had to deal with an international incident, when the rest of the country was riveted on the news that was coming out of the White House, you still found the time to show up.”

It was a triumphant, if not frenetic, 24 hours for the White House — perhaps the most dizzying of his presidency — and it began on Wednesday evening around 5 p.m.

As Biden was finishing an unrelated call with French President Emmanuel Macron, he received updates on the raid that would result in the death of ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi from his national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Sullivan ran back and forth from the Situation Room to brief the president until Biden was able to join everyone to watch a video feed. The room remained mostly silent and tense, as one senior administration official described it, until Gen. Mark Milley, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared the mission appeared to have been a success as U.S. forces were beginning exfiltration from the site of the raid in northern Syria.

Word of the raid, which had been planned for months and authorized on Tuesday, came the next morning in a formal statement from Biden. But before he would speak before the cameras, he left to pray.

On Biden’s schedule Thursday morning was the National Prayer Breakfast, a yearly event that brings lawmakers together on the first Thursday of February. There, the president called for a return to a time when members of Congress “really get to know each other.” To demonstrate his own commitment to the concept, he touted his friendship with Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader obstructing much of his agenda. After finally appearing before cameras to talk about the strike in Syria, Biden jetted off to New York, where he’d repeat the theme of unity again, calling for consensus around his initiatives to fund police and community intervention programs.

That rapid succession of wildly different events seemed to jolt an administration that has spent most of its time in its first year grappling with a pandemic and its vast impacts. It also seemed to provide a sense of relief, and a feeling inside and out of the White House — however fleeting it may turn out to be — that progress was being made.

“There are very few presidential days that are transformational for someone’s political fortunes — 9-11 was one and there haven’t been a hell of a lot of others,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the moderate think tank Third Way. “But this has been a pretty good day, and it has allowed Biden to recast himself a little bit and show some steel.”

“Being able to use the bully pulpit, and use the power of the presidency in national security, and talk about things like crime on his own terms, is helpful,” Bennett added. “He could use more days like this.”

When Biden eventually arrived in New York City — for stops his White House said were meant to underscore his record of “supporting local cops programs” and pursuing police reform as “a step that will help rebuild trust in communities” — he appeared at ease.

At the first event, Biden was surrounded by city and state police, and members of New York’s congressional delegation, as he vowed his support for a city and its police force that are reeling from a rise in crime and recent deaths of NYPD officers. It was a place he had been before. As vice president, Biden was dispatched to New York to deliver a eulogy for Rafael Ramos, the NYPD officer who was shot and killed by a man seeking revenge for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner — two Black men killed by police who were ultimately not charged. Being a cop, Biden said at the time, was not just what they did for work, but “who you are.”

When Biden ran for president in 2020, many of the country’s police unions sided with Donald Trump. And they remained fearful that the Biden White House would pursue far-reaching reforms to address police brutality and killings of Black people.

But Biden has tried to straddle the line: supporting (now failed) policing reform efforts in Congress while continuously re-stating his opposition to proposals to defund police departments. On Thursday, he tried to allay those concerns further. Everyone he grew up with, Biden said, became a police officer, a firefighter or priest. “I wouldn’t qualify for any of them so here I am,” he joked to laughter.

Biden struck somber notes too. He took a moment to commend NYPD Officer Sumit Sulan, the third officer who responded to the domestic dispute call in Harlem that left two other New York police officers dead.

“Six NYPD officers have been victims of gun violence so far just this year,” Biden said, as Sulan sat behind him among other officers. He added that across Philadelphia, Wilmington, Del. and Washington, D.C., some 64 children had been “injured by gun violence so far this year, 26 killed.”

“Enough is enough because we know we can do things about this but for the resistance you’re getting in some sectors of the government,” he said. “The answer is not defunding the police.”

Joining Biden at his stops across the city was the city’s newly elected mayor, Eric Adams, who the White House believes echoes and personifies the president’s holistic approach to crime and policing.

Adams did his part to play up the partnership, declaring himself again “the Biden of Brooklyn,” and adding that he and Biden were “on the same page.” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) said Biden was “smart” to align himself with Adams, whom he described as both a former officer who is clearly supportive of police but also someone who from a young age has been behind police reforms. Suozzi also said Biden was wise to get out of the White House and speak directly with the voters, noting that once Biden dropped his scripted material and spoke freely about crime and guns, “the audience really warmed to him.”

“Between Covid and some of his handlers, the president has been too walled off from the people,” Suozzi said. “The challenge for Democrats … is they’ve got to talk about what the people care about. And in New York right now people care about crime, and they care about taxes, and they care about the economic recovery post-Covid. They don’t want to hear about this esoteric, theoretical, crazy far-right and extreme far-left debate.”

The White House, Suozzi noted, has “gotta let Biden be Biden.”

For as frenetic as the day was for Biden, he spent a lot of it listening.

At a later stop at P.S. 111 Jacob Blackwell school in Queens — which teaches kindergarten through 8th grades — Biden stood with his arms crossed or in his pockets as others described the challenges the school and its students face. He engaged with the school’s principal Dionne Jaggon, and K. Bain, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Community Capacity Development. Adams and Gov. Hochul stood nearby.

Biden appeared keenly interested in the work being done by the school, asking the principal to define a rating the school previously held of being “persistently dangerous.” But one issue in particular kept nagging him: What kind of participation did the school have from parents? “You haven’t talked at all about the home and what impact that has on what you’re doing,” he said.

Bain explained that through their violence intervention program, “outreach workers” and “violence interrupters” become semi-guardians for at-risk kids, providing food and routine homework help.

As press were ushered out of the room, Biden continued to dissect the work being done in the school. He would eventually have to depart for JFK airport, where he would get on a plane so that he could return to D.C., where his social spending bill — the one that would fund such community violence intervention programs — remains stalled in Congress.

The Biden administration is no longer using the word “imminent” to describe a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House announced on Wednesday — backing away from an assessment U.S. officials have repeatedly deployed in recent days before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated frustration with the term.

“I used that once. I think others have used that once, and then we stopped using it,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a news briefing, explaining that the word “imminent” mistakenly conveyed certainty among U.S. officials about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions.

“I think it sent a message that we weren’t intending to send, which was that we knew that President Putin had made a decision,” Psaki said. “I would say the vast majority of times I’ve talked about it, we said he could invade at any time. That’s true. We still don’t know that he’s made a decision.”

U.S. officials began escalating their warnings about the Russian threat two weeks ago, when Psaki said at a news briefing that the security situation was “now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine.”

Psaki reiterated that position Jan. 25, telling reporters: “I think when we said it was imminent, it remains imminent.” Last Thursday, when asked whether the White House had altered its assessment of an “imminent” invasion, Psaki responded that the official opinion “has not changed.” And as recently as Tuesday, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said at a news briefing that Putin “could move imminently, at any time.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have urged calm. Zelenskyy said in a televised address to the nation on Jan. 25 that his government was “strong enough to keep everything under control and derail any attempts at destabilization.” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov also said in a speech to the nation’s parliament: “Don’t worry, sleep well. No need to have your bags packed.”

Zelenskyy and Biden reportedly disagreed over the United States’ “imminent” messaging in a Thursday call that some media accounts characterized as tense. And Friday, Zelenskyy publicly expressed annoyance over Western depictions of the security situation — arguing that they were undermining Ukrianians’ faith in government and stoking economic panic across the nation.

“These signals were sent by even respected leaders of the respected countries. And sometimes, they’re not even using diplomatic language,” Zelenskyy said at a news conference. “They’re saying, ‘Tomorrow is the war.’ This means panic in the market. Panic in the financial sector. … How much does it cost to our country?”

POLITICO previously reported that part of Zelenskyy’s complaint about the word “imminent” was its unclear meaning in his East Slavic language. There is no direct Ukrainian translation for “imminent” — that word is Неминуче, which most closely corresponds to “no matter what” or “inevitable.”

Former President Donald Trump’s political organization announced Monday that it has more than $122 million socked away, a massive sum that reaffirms his grip on the Republican Party — and could well scare away potential challengers for the next GOP presidential nomination.

Trump’s Save America leadership political action committee drew more than 1.6 million donations, much of it raised through Facebook, text messages and other online solicitations. The former president has tapped into a deep well of small-dollar donors that he cultivated during his time in the White House, supporters he would likely be able to carry into a 2024 comeback bid.

Most of the money — over $105 million — is in Save America PAC, which wouldn’t be able to transfer that money into a prospective future Trump campaign. But the former president can spend it at will to affect the 2022 midterms, and his ability to raise so much money in the first place highlights his singular position in the GOP.

Trump’s finance report, which reflects the second half of 2021, provides clues as to how his political operation is shaping up ahead of the next election, pulling back the curtain on which consultants he’s paying, how he’s using social media and which down-ballot allies he’s rewarding.

A small circle of advisers are drawing consulting payments

The former president has continued to keep a small — and familiar — circle of aides and advisers on his payroll, according to filings. That circle includes figures like his caddy-turned-confidante Dan Scavino, longtime aide Lynne Patton, Stephen Miller, spokespeople Taylor Budowich and Liz Harrington, and former White House aides Beau Harrison, Margo Martin and Molly Mitchell.

Trump’s Save America PAC has also continued to shell out thousands to consulting firms run by former campaign officials.

Save America PAC paid $128,970 to the firm of former campaign strategist Michael Glassner, while a firm run by former campaign manager Brad Parscale got $60,000 for digital consulting.

The PAC paid National Public Affairs, led by former campaign manager Bill Stepien and top campaign officials Justin Clark and Nick Trainer, over $60,000. Another $60,000 went to Belmont Strategies, a political consulting firm headed by Andrew Surabian, a top aide to Donald Trump Jr.

Law firms linked to Jan. 6 probe get PAC payments

According to Save America PAC’s new filing, tens of thousands of dollars were paid to law firms representing top Trump aides who have gotten subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill. It’s unclear exactly why the PAC was paying the firms, but several of them have been deeply involved in dealings with the Jan. 6 committee.

The PAC paid $29,500 in December to Abel Bean Law, a firm based in Jacksonville, Fla., that is representing Budowich, the Trump spokesperson. Over the holidays, Budowich — who testified before the committee and turned over financial documents — sued the committee over a subpoena to his bank. A federal judge rejected that effort, but Budowich and his attorneys continue to fight to keep his bank records private.

Another firm, Brand Woodward Law, has represented Scavino, who tried and failed to sue Verizon and block a subpoena for his phone records. Save America PAC paid that law firm $25,000. Like others, Scavino tried to fight the subpoena by arguing the investigative committee lacked “valid legislative purpose.”

The PAC also paid $50,000 to “JP Rowley Law PLLC,” a law firm representing conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell, who advised Trump on how to contest the election and took part in his now-infamous call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Trump-endorsed candidates get a sliver of his cash

Save America PAC unloaded some of its money to Trump-backed candidates for the first time in the last six months of 2021. All told, the group spread $205,000 to 41 candidates for House and Senate, including a number of incumbents and several notable challengers running against Republican incumbents who supported Trump’s impeachment last year. Harriet Hageman, who is challenging Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), and Joe Kent, running against Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), were among those who got donations from Save America.

But with those contributions limited to $5,000 apiece, the organization’s real financial clout in the midterms will come if it spends money six- or seven-figures at a time on ad campaigns backing these candidates.

Out of $1.35 million the PAC spent on “like-minded causes and endorsed candidates,” $1 million went to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows’ new nonprofit organization, the Conservative Partnership Institute. The donation went out in July, well before Meadows agreed to testify to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and then tried to walk back his cooperation.

The PAC also gave money to state-level candidates, including several running for secretary of state in key battleground states. The positions are in charge of election administration in many states, with duties that can include certifying results, setting policies for county clerks and investigating potential wrongdoing.

Trump has zeroed in on the roles since his failed efforts to subvert the 2020 election ran into opposition from, among others, secretaries of state like Raffensperger, a Republican now facing a Trump-backed challenge from GOP Rep. Jody Hice.

A handful of big donors padded the numbers

Trump’s political operation touted a $31 average donation to his groups in the second half of 2021, as online donors piled money into Save America in response to incessant emails, texts and online ads boosting the PAC.

Meanwhile, a smaller, richer cadre of Trump backers poured money into Make America Great Again, Again! — the super PAC blessed by Trump. It had $9.5 million in the bank at the end of 2021, fueled by a handful of donors who gave $250,000 or more in the second half of the year.

Among the wealthy contributors were Wisconsin building billionaire Diane Hendricks, Las Vegas businessperson Don Ahern and Texas energy executive D. Mayes Middleton II.

Supporters who can give hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time are formidable political allies, but Trump’s email list is a rare asset that’s even more lucrative than rich backers. Despite operating under contribution limits, unlike the super PAC, Save America has still built up more than 10 times more cash than MAGA Again.

Brittany Gibson contributed to this report.