Two of President Biden’s top advisers, Mike Donilon and Jen O’Malley Dillon, will depart the White House and join his reelection campaign early next month as the president pivots to an all-hands-on-deck mode with former president Donald Trump quickly moving toward the Republican nomination.
Washington
Top Biden strategists to leave White House for Biden campaign
The moves come after several Democrats, including former president Barack Obama, have encouraged Biden to bolster his campaign apparatus and empower more top-level decision-makers at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del.
O’Malley Dillon ran Biden’s successful general election campaign in 2020 and has been a principal architect of the president’s reelection while juggling other White House duties. Donilon is a longtime adviser who oversaw Biden’s message and strategy in the 2020 campaign and has replicated that role at the White House.
O’Malley Dillon’s move was first reported by the New York Times.
Julie Chavez Rodriguez, currently Biden’s campaign manager, will remain in that role. Donilon is expected to play a central role in the campaign’s messaging and paid media strategy, and O’Malley Dillon in the organizing and execution of the path to 270 electoral votes.
“Mike and Jen were essential members of the senior team that helped President Biden and Vice President Harris earn the most votes in American history in 2020, and we’re thrilled to have their leadership and strategic prowess focused full-time on sending them back to the White House for four more years,” said Chavez Rodriguez.
One Biden adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said the move is being made now because the president is essentially heading into the general election. Trump is expected by most operatives in both parties to wrap up the Republican nomination shortly.
“This is a reflection that we are headed into the general” election, the adviser said. “This is a natural time to do this.”
Several people involved in the decision said it was not driven by outside criticism. Donilon, who also works with advertising and polling, has long been expected to leave the White House, while the plans for O’Malley Dillon have been less clear.
Jim Messina, who was a top aide to Obama in the White House and in his 2012 reelection campaign, said the move makes political sense.
“This is a smart move by President Biden and Julie,” Messina said. “Having additional top political aides focus full-time on the reelect is exactly what you’d expect the White House to do as the general election matchup comes into focus.”
Still, many of the people at the White House who are involved in campaign strategy will remain in Washington, including top Biden advisers Anita Dunn, Steve Ricchetti, Ben LaBolt and Emmy Ruiz.
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients will remain involved in campaign discussions as well, and so will senior White House advisers Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal.
Because so many top strategists have been based at the White House, more than 100 miles from campaign headquarters in Delaware, important decisions about the 2024 reelection effort have often had to be run by the White House first. That has led to concerns that the campaign is moving too slowly.
The transition has been planned for some time, though the timing has been uncertain until now.
In December, Obama met with Biden at the White House, where the two discussed the structure of the campaign. Obama had raised concerns about keeping all of Biden’s closest aides at the White House.
In contrast, Obama in 2012 dispatched two of his top aides to Chicago to oversee his reelection campaign.
Washington
Washington records world’s worst air quality for a city after 850,000 Fourth of July fireworks
Washington DC residents breathed in “unhealthy” air for hours after a 40-minute Independence Day fireworks show over the National Mall on Saturday night, with the country’s capital briefly recording the worst air quality of any major city in the world.
The highly emitting display, which the president called “spectacular”, came as the Trump administration rolls back an unprecedented number of pollution controls.
Hourly concentrations of particulate matter rose to 6.7 times their pre-fireworks levels, according to a Tuesday analysis from the company Clarity Movement based on its network of 26 air quality sensors throughout the city in partnership with the local department of energy and environment. Every one of those sensors reached air quality levels which the Environmental Protection Agency deems “unhealthy for sensitive groups” during the event, the researchers found, with some recording even worse levels of emissions.
Levels of particulate matter peaked at 4am on Sunday, approximately five hours after the display concluded, according to the new analysis. It remained elevated for approximately five hours after reaching its peak, the authors found, with city officials issuing a Code Red alert.
“Outdoor air quality is unhealthy for seniors, kids, people with medical conditions,” the alert said. “General public may experience health issues. Limit time outside.”
The south-west region of DC experienced the highest pollution levels, the report’s authors found, probably because of its proximity to one of the fireworks launch sites in West Potomac park, as well as overnight meteorological conditions that trapped smoke over the area.
That highly polluted air probably drifted into Arlington, Virginia, said David Lu, CEO and co-founder of Clarity Movement.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have sensors there to confirm it,” he said. “That’s exactly why expanding real-time air quality monitoring matters. Without comprehensive coverage, communities can be exposed to significant pollution events that go undetected.”
The air quality across the city could have been even worse in the aftermath of the display if it were not for thunderstorms that struck the city on Sunday evening.
“Despite the scale of the fireworks display, the city’s air quality avoided a worst-case scenario thanks to favorable weather conditions and the timing of the event,” said Lu.
The Fourth of July fireworks show, organized by the Trump-backed non-profit Freedom 250, began at 11pm on Saturday evening. It involved more than 850,000 fireworks launched from 10 sites across the capital, the organizers said. (A typical Independence Day show in DC involves just 17,000 shells.)
Trump on social media called the show “the Most Spectacular Fireworks Show I have ever seen, and I’ve seen them all”.
The fanfare came as the region was baking under an extreme heatwave, which brought triple-digit temperatures to the city hours earlier. For a time after the fireworks show, the city recorded the worst air quality of any major city in the world, according to AirNow, the Environmental Protection Agency website that reports air quality measurements from its monitoring stations.
Asked to comment, a White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said: “It was the largest and greatest firework display in the history of our country to properly celebrate America’s 250th birthday! Every year, fireworks on the Fourth of July cause short-term spikes in air quality across the United States, including Washington, DC. This was not unique to the 250th fireworks celebrations in our nation’s capital.”
The Guardian has contacted Freedom 250 for comment.
Americans shoot nearly 300m lb of fireworks into the atmosphere every year, according to the American Lung Association, letting off lung-harming gases such as sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.
The Trump administration has, since re-entering office, engaged in a wide-ranging assault on pollution controls, exempting polluting facilities from emissions regulations, boosting coal power, and halting the consideration of the value of lives saved when restricting fine particulate matter and ozone. On 4 July, the president also pardoned nine individuals convicted of violations related to the Clean Air Act, including people found to have tampered with emissions control equipment in cars or selling parts to bypass air pollution standards.
The Washington Commanders are looking for a bounce back performance from their offense, and they’ll need their wide receivers to take a step up to do so.
Terry McLaurin is the clear No. 1 option at the position, but after him, there are several questions about how the rest of the room will shake out. The No. 2 spot is wide open, and there are several players who could fit the role and others in David Blough’s new scheme. Analysts Santana Moss, Logan Paulsen and Fred Smoot broke down the position on one of the most recent “Command Center” podcast episodes, and as one of the franchise’s all-time best receivers, Moss had a few thoughts on the group. Here’s his assessment on three wideouts and how they could fit into the offense.
“Knowing that he can play both outside and inside, I would think with some of the guys and their size and their experience, I would mainly probably see Antonio attack that middle. I think his route running ability is already to the level of some of these guys who have already played at this level. And just showing me that you don’t look like that this is new to you … He ain’t scared to go out and compete against these guys. To me — and we don’t know anything; we’re just sitting here speculating and assuming — I’d say he’s a slot guy out the gate.”
“I think if I had to just say if I look at that paper, and I asked any coach in this building by name how they think this guy played…if you tell me that Burks played well this offseason, he would be my No. 2 out the gate. He would be my No. 2 wide receiver because one: he brings size, he brings speed, he brings a gear at that size that a lot of people ain’t comfortable checking … You got a guy with size, leaping ability, the catch radius and can run.”
“They talk about how he was one of those guys from Day 1 that could play every position, and that’s stemming from him being a quarterback. Quarterbacks learn the game a little different from just a regular skill position guy. Luke came in here, and he knew X, he knew Z, he knew Gator. When you have those intangibles and you have that kind of mindset when it comes to playing that position, they can use him where they want to use him. That’s why I said he’s a great committee guy. He’s a guy that I know I’m gonna have on special teams as a returner, and guess what? If he’s not the starter, I’m okay with that because I know I’m going to ask more of him if somebody needs to take a breather.
WASHINGTON — The Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., is featuring Georgia among its participating states. The fair had to close for several hours Friday because of the heat, but reopened to visitors.
Georgia’s booth showcases the state’s No. 1 industry: agriculture. The display focuses on peaches, peanuts, Vidalia onions and poultry.
One fairgoer said Georgia’s agricultural offerings were a surprise.
“I was not aware that you did eggs in Georgia. I should have figured that out since Waffle House is pretty much in every town, but that was a learning, and then, of course going along with eggs is chickens,” the attendee said.
All states are represented at the fair, though not all are participating directly.
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