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Alex Thompson

17 Sep, 8 tweets, 4 min read

@NickNiedz

NEW: columnist Jennifer Rubin was one of the Obama administration’s most reactionary critics

Now she’s the Biden admin’s favorite columnist
W/ @NickNiedz

We reached out to Rubin her columns and divisions at Wapo over them

Her response—>
politico.com/newsletters/we…

I’m 2010, Rubin wrote of Obama during the so-called “ground zero mosque” fight: “His sympathies for the Muslim World take precedence over those, such as they are, for his fellow citizens.”

commentary.org/jennifer-rubin…

When Obama said that police had “acted stupidly” when they arrested a Black professor outside his home in 09, Rubin wrote that “Obama indisputably fanned the flames of racism and rekindled animosity on both sides by assuming or making this all about race”
pjmedia.com/blog/jennifer-…

A 2010 weekly standard piece had the hed and subhead: “Friends in High Places: The Obama Justice Department went to bat for the New Black Panther party—and then covered it up”

web.archive.org/web/2012031621…

She was also down on Biden, writing in 2012: “Biden reflects Obama’s judgment and dispels the notion that the president wants the best and the brightest around him. Ole Joe doesn’t fit that description, does he?”

But that’s all changed.
washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-tu…

Klain has retweeted or @ mentioned Rubin more than three dozen times since mid-May. The WH press team, the DNC, the State Department, and the vice president’s office have all promoted various columns and tweets from her recently

The WH has also encouraged outside allies to share some of Rubin’s articles online.
One told West Wing Playbook that they declined to do so because they thought it was just too embarrassing to earnestly share a Rubin column.

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More from @AlexThomp

Alex Thompson

@AlexThomp

27 Aug

New: West Wing PB is meant to be consumed by politicos/WH ppl.
Today, we wanted to give others a chance to reach that audience,
We asked active duty/veterans who served in Afghanistan: What would you tell the White House today?
Here r some of their answers
politico.com/newsletters/we…

Democratic congressional staffer and U.S. Army veteran:

Current active duty Air Force officer who spent time on a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Regional Command-South in Afghanistan:

Read 11 tweets

Alex Thompson

@AlexThomp

20 Aug

@NickNiedz

NEW: The WH is in crisis comms mode. We analyzed who and where they put their ppl on TV
No Blinken since Sunday
No Austin despite asks
Jake Sullivan, Jon Finer, and John Kirby did the most
No primetime cable
w/ @NickNiedz (his WWPB debut) & @TinaSfon
politico.com/newsletters/we…

well it's not Nick's debut. he's helped a bunch before. But it's his first time leading the topper.

Icymi

Read 4 tweets

Alex Thompson

@AlexThomp

8 Jul

@margbrennan

I still find this @margbrennan exchange the most illuminating/honest in how Biden thinks about Afghanistan
“Don’t you bear some responsibility for the outcome if the taliban ends up back no control & women end up losing the rights—-“

“No I don’t!”

Full transcript of the exchange.

the next most revealing exchange comes from George Packer's Holbrooke book.
"When I mentioned the women’s issue, Biden erupted.

'I am not sending my boy back there to risk his life on behalf of women’s rights, it just won’t work, that’s not what they’re there for.'"

Read 4 tweets

Alex Thompson

@AlexThomp

2 Jun

@dlippman

NEW: If you look thru Blinken's pictures at meetings w/ Russia, India, etc., the man sitting next to him is Tom Sullivan, Jake's little brother
A look at the former Klobuchar staffer & Amazon exec who's become a key Blinken aide
w/@dlippman @theodoricmeyer
politico.com/newsletters/we…

It's not just Tom. Jake and Tom's spouse are also in high-ranking positions across the Biden admin.
Tom's wife Rose is the principal deputy asst secretary for leg at HHS after a stint lobbying for companies like Google/Alphabet, CVS Health and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries

@brianefallon

Jake’s wife, Maggie Goodlander, clerked for Stephen breyer (cc @brianefallon and then-Judge Garland before becoming counsel to Garland in the attorney general’s office.

Read 8 tweets

Alex Thompson

@AlexThomp

10 May

NEW: reporters fume at WH’s frequent use of “background with quote approval”

“The rule treats them like coddled Capitol Hill pages and that’s not who they are or the protections they deserve,” said one reporter.

Psaki responds

politico.com/newsletters/we…

The NYT barred the practice of interviews with quote approval back in 2012

but the NYT declined to comment on how rigorously they enforce it or if their reporters have always followed it when dealing with the Biden White House.

@peterbakernyt

.@peterbakernyt weighs in.
“the WH realized: ‘Hey, this quote approval thing is a cool thing. We can now control what is in their stories by refusing to allow them use anything without our approval.’ And it's a pernicious, insidious, awful practice that reporters should resist”

Read 6 tweets

Alex Thompson

@AlexThomp

9 May

NEWS: Warren tells me she’s running for re-election in 2024.
That and much more in an interview about her new book, her relationship w/ Bernie, and the 2020 primary
politico.com/news/2021/05/0…

Other bits:
There was A private phone call between warren and Bernie in September 2019 when she confronted him about his staff/supporters. It didn’t go well.
“I'm not going there, I'm just not looking back,” she told me

when Jayapal called warren to explain her decision to endorse Bernie,
Jayapal told others that she felt Warren had questioned her feminism, according to a person Jayapal told at the time.
This happened soon after the “woman can’t win” story broke.

Read 6 tweets

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