New w/ @hollyotterbein

A growing number of Jewish Democrats tell Axios they feel shunned — unwelcome strangers in their own party w/ potential 2028 consequences.

“Jews are starting to feel scared again," said Rep. Jared Moskowitz

axios.com/2026/06/07/jew… Jewish staffers in some Dem campaigns/offices say they've increasingly felt a chill.

One former Biden WH official: "No Jews in the Biden administration agreed with what Netanyahu was doing, but we all felt like we were having to answer for it by the party and our colleagues."

“Days after Graham Platner announced his Maine Senate bid, his wife informed the campaign about a potential political problem she had previously discovered on the oyster farmer’s phone: sexually explicit texts with several women”

wsj.com/politics/elect… NYT too:
“Ms. McDonald said Ms. Gertner told her that her husband had been exchanging sexual messages with as many as a dozen women.
A current Platner campaign official said Mr. Platner had been communicating with up to six women.”

nytimes.com/2026/05/30/us/…

New: Kamala Harris writes that Biden’s response to Gaza was “inadequate.”

"I had pleaded with Joe…to extend the same empathy he showed to the suffering of Ukrainians to the suffering of innocent Gazan civilians.”

axios.com/2025/09/22/har… Harris also writes of Biden:

“But he couldn't do it: While he could passionately state, 'I am a Zionist,' his remarks about innocent Palestinians came off as inadequate and forced."

Scoop: High-ranking Biden admin officials repeatedly questioned and criticized how the president's team decided on controversial pardons and allowed the frequent use of an autopen to sign measures late in his term, internal emails obtained by Axios show.

axios.com/2025/09/06/bid… After the political backlash to the Hunter pardon, the WH pushed to find more people to grant clemency to

“There was a mad dash to find groups of people that he could then pardon — and then they largely didn't run it by the Justice Department to vet them," per a person familiar

New: Jean-Pierre’s colleagues had thoughts abt her & her book
“one of the most ineffectual and unprepared people I've ever worked with”

“The amount of time that was spent coddling her…was astronomical compared to our attn on actual matters of substance”
axios.com/2025/06/05/kar…
Many quietly had fumed for years, believing she was incompetent at her job at the podium and more interested in promoting herself than Joe Biden.

Biden aides largely had stayed silent b/c she was seen as untouchable, given her close relationship w/ FLOTUS aide Anthony Bernal.

Exclusive: Axios obtained the audio of Robert Hur's 2023 interviews of Biden which show repeated mental lapses as he struggles to remember words & dates amid long, uncomfortable pauses.
Biden WH didn't release it last year. Listen below.
w/ @MarcACaputo
axios.com/2025/05/16/bid… The audio shows what the transcript lacks — Biden's dry-whisper voice and the long silences as he struggles to speak and remember details.
Those often were supplied by his attorneys, who acted as caretakers of his memory.
There is also a clock in the background as a metronome.

New: the legal group co-founded by Stephen Miller has continued filing lawsuits and legal complaints—including against the Trump administration—as part of his larger campaign to make DEI programs illegal.

My look at another lever of Miller’s power

axios.com/2025/03/08/ste… In early Feb, America First Legal petitioned the Education dept to investigate 5 school districts in VA for allegedly not complying with Title IX

Less than 2 weeks later, the Civil Rights office of the dept announced it was opening an investigation into the districts.

My write up:

I also asked the WH how they knew Biden only meant “supporter’s” as they have it in this transcript.

Did they talk to Biden to ask him what he meant? The spokesperson asked to go off the record. We declined. They didn’t comment further.

axios.com/2024/10/30/bid… x.com/alexthomp/stat… Operatives in both parties instantly saw it as a flashback to Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark.

The Trump team has already started to fundraise off it, sending out an email with the subject line: "You are not garbage! I love you! You are the best our nation has to offer."

After Slotkin retreats from EV’s in a new ad this week, Harris told people in Michigan yesterday: "Contrary to what my opponent is suggesting, I will never tell you what kind of car you have to drive.”

Some more context in this piece.

In 2019, Harris backed a plan requiring all automakers to only make EV’s and hydrogen cars by 2035.

axios.com/2024/09/04/kam…

New: Kamala Harris’s called private prisons “morally wrong.”

She vowed to end the govt. using private detention centers for undocumented immigrants “on day one” of her presidency.

We asked if she still planned to do that. Her campaign didn’t respond.

axios.com/2024/10/01/kam…
Some of Harris’ posts on the topic going back to her 2016 Senate run.

2019: “On day 1, the administration will shut down all govt. contracts with private prisons.”

When Newsom signed a bill in 2019 trying to do that in CA, she wrote: “it’s time we did the same nationwide.”

New: In an Aug. 28 letter obtained by Axios, the WH News Photographers Association said Harris' team was engaging in an "unprecedented reduction in access.”

The VP’s team didn’t respond until last night after we asked about the letter

W/ @sarafischer
axios.com/2024/09/12/har…


Jessica Koscielniak, the president of the WHNPA, wrote to Harris' top aides last month protesting that "the four independent news photographer seats have been downgraded to one."

She proposed either adding a "chaser plane" for additional media or the WHCA reorganizing who gets a seat.

In their response last night, the VP’s office said they explored adding more seats on Air Force Two and a chase plane and "learned both suggestions are not viable given available resources, including personnel and aircraft."

The full VP response below:

New: the Harris campaign wrote in an email that she “does not support an electric vehicle mandate.”

I asked if that meant she would veto or sign the bill she co-sponsored in 2019 w/ such a mandate for manufacturers.

The campaign declined to comment

axios.com/2024/09/04/kam… W/ the great @Ben_Geman

As Senator, Harris co-sponsored the Zero-Emissions Act in 2019, which would require by 2040 that 100% of new passenger vehicle sales in the U.S. release no greenhouse gases (only EV’s and hydrogen cars fit that criteria).

During her 2020 campaign, she advocated for an “accelerated model” of the bill and proposed requiring "50% of all new passenger vehicles sold are zero-emission by 2030, and 100% are zero-emission by 2035."

New: The good vibes Harris's campaign are masking tensions among competing factions, as Harris loyalists and Obama alumni are grafted onto Biden's campaign.

“The entanglement of these different entities has led to many people feeling a real lack of role clarity," one person involved in the campaign told Axios.

My latest: axios.com/2024/08/29/kam… New people are remaking the campaign on the fly.

The result is a large and at times unwieldy team, with internal worries about cohesiveness when inevitable stumbles arise, 6 people involved in the campaign tell Axios.

From July 21 (Biden drops out) through Labor Day, both camps are set to spend over $300 million on TV & digital ads racing to define Harris, per
@AdImpact_Pol.

Here's a 🧵 of the ads:

First up, FF PAC w/ "As America turns the page, Kamala is ready." next one, pro-Trump MAGA Inc. w/ "Radical Kamala"

Most Trump team ads hit similar themes trying to label Harris as: "dangerous," "weak," "failed," "radical," "dangerously liberal."

New: Biden hesitated to step aside in part b/c he and sr. advisers worried VP Harris wasn't up to taking on Trump, per 3 Biden aides familiar with recent talks

W/ some prominent holdouts, this next week is critical for Harris to prove her doubters wrong
axios.com/2024/07/22/bid… Some critique Harris' staff high turnover:

Only 5 of the 47 Harris staffers listed in 2021 disclosures still worked for her as of this spring (about 1/2 of the VP's staff is paid by the Senate)

Compared that to VP Biden in Obama's 1st term: 17 of 38 of his aides stayed w/ him

New: How Biden’s grudge against Obama over 2016 is fueling his 2024 resolve to stay in the race.

Several ppl close to Biden said they believe his bitterness toward Obama, and the Dems now trashing him, is making Biden more determined to continue

axios.com/2024/07/21/bid… If Obama directly pushed Biden to not to run, Biden aides told Axios it could make POTUS even more resolved to stay in the race

A former Biden aide said: "Obama already used that chit in 2016 when his team lobbied him against running. You don't get to do that more than once."

New: Current and former Biden aides are worried that Biden is now surrounded by a shrinking group of "yes" men and women who block negative information from getting to him.

My look w/ @HansNichols at the small group of aides Biden is relying on more

axios.com/2024/07/12/bid… Since the debate, Biden is relying even more on longtime advisers Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, and Bruce Reed — a trio sometimes referred to inside the WH as "the poobahs," "the grey hairs" and, less often, "the triumvirate."

They are as close to family as staffers can get.

Re: the growing criticism of biden, the Clooney op-ed etc, Morning Joe says:

“The Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this” Despite repeated WH denials of any Obama-Biden tension and the public bromance displays, Biden friend Joe Scarborough says:

"Joe Biden is deeply resentful of his treatment under not only the Obama staff but also the way he was pushed aside for Hillary Clinton"

Scoop: A look at the template that the WH sends to staffers organizing events for POTUS.

"I staffed a simple fundraiser at a private residence, but they treated it like it was a NATO summit with his movements," a person who staffed a Biden event said.
axios.com/2024/07/07/bid…
Since the debate, some Dems who've attended and helped set up Biden events have wondered whether his team's focus on minute details were to obscure POTUS's limitations — rather than just a reflection of a meticulous staff.

New: Inside the White House, there are sometimes two Biden’s.

America saw the other one Thursday night.

My look inside the WH and why Thursday left some Biden aides shaken and worried whether Biden can do another four-year term.

axios.com/2024/06/29/two… From 10am to 4pm, Biden is dependably engaged — and many of his public events in front of cameras are held within those hours.

Outside of that time range or while traveling abroad, the other Biden is more likely to emerge and have verbal miscues and become fatigued, aides say.

New: internal finger pointing begins starting w/ Biden’s debate prep team.
"He was over-prepared and relying on minutiae when all that mattered was vigor and energy," one person in Biden's orbit told Axios. "They prepared him for the wrong debate”

axios.com/2024/06/28/bid…
"It's sad but it also makes me so mad to think of all the smart people lying and trying to make this work," a former Biden White House official told Axios.

“Disaster” a former admin official said.

“DEFCON 1,” said David Plouffe.

W/ @HansNichols