A big beautiful Trump impersonator

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President JOE BIDEN is currently ensconced with top aides at Camp David for a full week of “debate camp.” And unlike the prep sessions four years ago, in which only a small group of top aides attended in person because of Covid-19 concerns, a larger collection of voices is on hand.

JEN O’MALLEY DILLON, JEFF ZIENTS, RON KLAIN, MIKE DONILON, ANITA DUNN, STEVE RICCHETTI and BRUCE REED are all prepping Biden at Camp David, according to three people familiar with the prep sessions who were granted anonymity to share private details. And a number of senior campaign officials made the trip from Wilmington, too. That includes JULIE CHAVEZ RODRIGUEZ, QUENTIN FULKS, MICHAEL TYLER, CEDRIC RICHMOND and ROB FLAHERTY.

Klain, the people said, tends to run the sessions. Reed will brief Biden on policy matters before the mock debates and then other top aides will offer feedback about how to sharpen answers or other advice during them and after.

The details from those sessions are understandably opaque, but the people said that aides are prepping Biden on policy issues and the articulation and defense of his record, urging him to speak about the economy in a way that takes credit for America’s strong recovery from the pandemic while showing a sensitivity to frustrations about inflation and higher costs. The president, those people said, will be ready to defend attacks on his son, HUNTER BIDEN, and to pummel DONALD TRUMP over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and being a convicted felon.

And just as he did four years ago, BOB BAUER, Biden’s outside counsel and Dunn’s husband, is playing former President Trump in practice sessions, the three people confirmed.

Bauer’s role as the Trump impersonator may make him the most important participant in these debate sessions — mainly because it is so hard to approximate what it is like to be on stage with the former president.

In his new book, “The Unraveling,” Bauer gave telling details as to how he went about doing so. He writes that, in 2020, he watched “hours of tapes” of Trump and pored over transcripts from his rallies and other events. Certain sessions, Bauer writes, were set aside for him to behave “at my Trump worst — as personally insulting and unhinged as Trump would be.”

As part of his work, Bauer suffered at least one personal humiliation unrelated to living in Trump’s head space. He describes having fallen into a swimming pool in Biden’s backyard during a break while hurling tennis balls to MAJOR, the president’s German Shepherd, and then trying to hide his wet pants behind the lectern when the mock debate session resumed.

Beyond that, the physical exertions weren’t too bad. Bauer didn’t wear orange-ish makeup or a lengthy red tie.

Instead, he impersonated Trump mainly by mimicking his inflection, catchphrases and riffs. And insults. Many, many insults. VALERIE BIDEN OWENS, writing in her own book, noted that Bauer had figured out “how to get under [her brother’s] skin.”

To impersonate Trump, Bauer recalled, can be difficult, in part because it’s not always entirely clear what his policy positions are at the moment in time. When he was playing the then-president in 2020, Bauer recalled blurting out (in debate prep) that he “supported the end of Roe.” It wasn’t entirely clear, at that moment, if Trump held that position. Afterward, he huddled with Dunn and Klain — both of whom were serving as moderators — and eventually repeated with a more nuanced abortion policy.

Four years later, Roe has been overturned by a Supreme Court on which Trump placed three new conservative justices. And reproductive rights will be a central topic in Thursday’s debate, as Biden looks to pin the blame on an opponent who has already tried to recalibrate his position on abortion by framing it as an issue for the states.

“My debate prep,” Bauer wrote in hindsight, “had just gotten a little ahead of itself.”

MESSAGE US — Are you PHILIPPE REINES, who played Trump for HILLARY CLINTON’s debate prep in 2016? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at [email protected].

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POTUS PUZZLER

Who was the first president to travel overseas?

(Answer at bottom.)

The Oval

TWO YEARS SINCE DOBBS: On the two-year anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the Biden campaign came out swinging, laying the blame at Donald Trump’s feet. Vice President KAMALA HARRIS spoke at two events in Maryland and Arizona to highlight the anniversary while the campaign released a new ad slamming Trump for his abortion stance. The ad features a Louisiana woman named KAITLYN JOSHUA, who was turned away from two emergency rooms after suffering a miscarriage at 11 weeks of pregnancy — in part because of the state’s abortion ban.


“What we’re seeing here in Louisiana is a direct result of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade,” Joshua says in the one-minute spot. “Donald Trump is going to pass a national abortion ban if he’s elected again. This has to stop.”

Notably, we don’t think Donald Trump’s campaign put out any statement on the Dobbs’ anniversary — at least not from its official email account.


‘ANTISEMITIC AND UN-AMERICAN': President Biden on Monday emphatically condemned violent clashes between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and pro-Israel counterprotestors outside a Los Angeles synagogue, our TYLER KATZENBERGER reports. “Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American,” Biden wrote in a post on X. “Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship — and engaging in violence — is never acceptable.”

Los Angeles police said Monday that officers responded to a protest over the weekend that involved “several physical altercations” between the two groups.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This piece by Newsweek’s DANIEL BUSH, who reports that Donald Trump’s support among moderate, college-educated suburban voters — a traditionally Republican stronghold — is breaking down. According to a new analysis of campaign finance data, Trump’s fundraising in wealthy suburbs across North Carolina and other key battleground states is down 25 percent so far this election cycle compared to 2016.

One North Carolina voter, MICHAEL TUCKER, a lifelong Republican who voted for and donated to Trump in 2016 and 2020, is now done with the former president. “I can’t go back,” Tucker said. “He kind of lost me.”

Campaign spokesperson JAMES SINGER shared the piece on X.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by WaPo’s MAXINE JOSELOW, who writes that President Biden’s promise to make a “just transition” away from fossil fuels is a tough sell for coal counties that have lost well-paying jobs from shuttered plants.

In Indiana County, Pa., a coal town about an hour outside of Pittsburgh, Biden administration officials shared an upbeat message on how they’ll help the town navigate a clean transition. That message wasn’t received so well: During the roughly two-hour meeting, many residents vented their frustration with the federal government, saying it’s forgotten about the town’s struggle to replace the jobs and tax base that the coal industry once offered.

“We get overlooked all the time,” said LUANN ZAK, assistant director of the Indiana County Office of Planning and Development.

CAMPAIGN HQ

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: Climate Power — a climate-based advocacy organization — is out with a new six-figure national TV ad campaign that will run tomorrow morning in battlegrounds such as Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The ad, titled “Red, White and Blue,” argues that President Biden’s plan for a clean energy transition will keep “good-paying jobs” in America.

The 30-second spot, which will air in English and Spanish, is a part of an $80 million education campaign launched by the group in December, aimed at touting the president’s climate agenda.

J.O.D. LOCKS IN: Puck’s JOHN HEILEMANN sat down with Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon for her first “single extended, recorded, on-the-record” interview. In it, she had a call to action for voters: “For every single person who is worried, go do something about it ... Go do your own fucking TikToks.” [We’re excited to see the boomer Biden fans debut their TikToks in response.]

There was more than that in the interview, including a bit on how debate prep was going ahead of Thursday’s showdown with Trump and an emphasis on the viability of North Carolina for Biden, who will stop there after the debate. “I am bullish on North Carolina, and I don’t fuck around in saying that,” J.O.D. said of the Tar Heel state.

One other notable tidbit from the piece:

Heilemann: And you’re saying you see North Carolina also as a battleground state?

O’Malley Dillon: Yes.

Heilemann: Florida?

O’Malley Dillon: No.

Sorry, BARRY GOLSON.

THE BUREAUCRATS

DUG UP RECEIPTS: Newly promoted White House associate communications director TYLER CHERRY took some heat over the weekend from conservative outlets over a series of decade-old tweets. Some of the resurfaced tweets included a call for abolishing ICE and a comparison of police to “slave patrols.” Cherry responded Sunday with a statement on X: “Past social media posts from when I was younger do not reflect my current views. Period. I support this Administration’s agenda.”

Future White House officials: Might be worth your time to dedicate a solid 20 minutes digging through your old tweets. Oppos can be ruthless. Better yet, never tweet. Unless you’re Sam. Your tweets are invaluable.

PERSONNEL MOVES: Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN tapped senior State Department official DEREK CHOLLET as the Pentagon’s new chief of staff, WaPo’s MISSY RYAN reports. Chollet — who as an aide to Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN has played a key role in crafting a post-war proposal for the Middle East— will replace current chief of staff KELLY MAGSAMEN, who is stepping down this month.

Blinken is naming TOM SULLIVAN (brother of JAKE), another of his top advisers, to become State Department counselor, a senior position that does not require Senate approval.

— SARA SHAH is now deputy chief of staff of the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Department of Commerce, our DANIEL LIPPMAN has learned. She rejoins the Biden administration after two years at Stanford University, where she received her master’s in international policy, cyber policy and security. Shah previously served as special assistant to Homeland Security Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS.

Agenda Setting

OPENING THE DOOR: Treasury Secretary JANET YELLEN on Monday announced new steps to increase access to affordable housing as stubbornly-high prices on groceries and other necessities push up the cost of living, AP’s FATIMA HUSSEIN reports. During a visit to Minneapolis, Yellen promoted the Biden administration’s new investments, including a new $100 million fund to support affordable housing financing.

A NEW FRONT IN UKRAINE: National security adviser Jake Sullivan announced on Monday that the Biden administration, through USAID, would provide funding to print three million textbooks for Ukrainian children amidst a Russian bombing campaign targeting printing houses. Specifically, the action comes roughly a month after a Russian strike destroyed the Faktur-Druk printing house in Kharkiv, one of the largest printing houses in Europe and a press that produces “a significant percentage of all books in Ukraine, including textbooks for Ukrainian children,” Sullivan said in a statement. “By striking these printing houses, Russia is attacking Ukraine’s education system. We will not let Russia succeed.”

What We're Reading

The Greatest Speeches of All Time, and What Biden Said. (The Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan)

Inside the $100 million plan to restore abortion rights in America (POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein)

What Obama Is Whispering to Biden (New Yorker’s Gabriel Debenedetti)

POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER

In 1906, President THEODORE ROOSVELT traveled to Panama City to inspect the construction of the Panama Canal, a project he had championed during his presidency.

Thanks to the Office of the Historian at the State Department for this question!

A CALL OUT! Do you think you have a harder trivia question? Send us your best one about the presidents, with a citation or sourcing, and we may feature it!

Edited by Sam Stein and Rishika Dugyala.

An earlier version of this newsletter misidentified Jen O’Malley Dillon’s title. She is the Biden campaign chair, not the campaign manager.