Presented by

Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from producer Raymond Rapada

Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren

When President JOE BIDEN and first lady JILL BIDEN decide to go to the beach, it’s a fairly complicated ordeal. It involves local police, the Coast Guard, Secret Service agents and numerous aides, including those tasked with shepherding the small pool of reporters who follow the president wherever he goes.

On Sunday, as the Bidens arrived at Delaware’s Rehoboth Beach, they were kept high atop the dunes. The press pool noted some details of what they wore — bright blue shorts, a navy blue shirt, hat and sneakers for the president; a white top, blue skirt, hat and flip-flops for the first lady — but little else. They observed the Bidens parking themselves on some beach chairs beneath an umbrella and beginning to read. Then after 12 minutes, they were escorted away and waited in vans for the next three hours until the Bidens headed home.

So when photos of the shirtless president on the beach started lighting up the internet, it came as something of a surprise to the journalists in the pool vans — and to the White House.

It just so happened that a few other journalists were on the beach that day. ERIC GELLER, who covers cybersecurity for The Messenger, was spending the afternoon with his family, just a short walk south of where the Bidens had camped out.

“When we saw online that he was there, we walked up to see what the scene was like,” Geller said.

The sand right around the Bidens was clear of other beachgoers. The Secret Service agents working the scene were “giving them lots of space,” Geller said. “But the beach along the water line was completely open.”

After being wanded by Secret Service agents, who maintained a large perimeter around Biden, Geller and others were allowed to pass the area where the president was sitting as long as they remained down by the surf. Geller, who said he was standing roughly 30 feet away at one point, pulled out his cell phone and zoomed in.

Geller captured the president standing shirtless in his bright blue trunks, tennis shoes and aviators, with his familiar navy baseball cap with the logo of the Beau Biden Foundation turned backward. And Biden, hands on his hips, looked to be staring right back at him.

At 4:44 p.m., more than 90 minutes after the pool was escorted away from the beach, Geller tweeted three photos of the president, who, his caption noted, was “enjoying a gorgeous beach day here in Rehoboth.”

And that, folks, is how an iconic presidential photo gets made.

Geller also spotted the Coast Guard patrols offshore, suggesting in a tweet that one party barge not far out may have “gotten a talking to” for getting too close. But he and others were able to get their own photos of the president.

Geller wasn’t the only one snapping Biden pics. The celebrity gossip site TMZ actually beat him to the punch, publishing photos and a short cell phone video of Biden that it “obtained,” including one of him in the act of pulling his T-shirt off. “Joe Showing Some Skin!!!” the headline blared. But their work didn’t have the same intimate, Renaissance feel.

Not being in the press pool Sunday, CNN photographer JAY MCMICHAEL was also free to go for a stroll on the beach after learning — from a pool report — that the president was there. His image from down by the water showed the Bidens deep in their books. The first lady (an English professor) was reading BARBARA KINGSOLVER’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Demon Copperhead,” which the book’s publisher pointed out in a tweet Monday.

It had been some time since the country had seen a shirtless president. President BARACK OBAMA was captured paddle boarding while vacationing in Hawaii during 2020, which sent the internet aflutter. Not surprisingly, the images of Biden on Sunday generated their own mini news cycle and the usual chattering on social media as randos chimed in about the president’s bod (let’s see what you all look like when you’re topless and 80) and his decision to wear sneakers on the beach (a fairer line of debate, in our humble opinion).

MESSAGE US — Are you A REHOBOTH BEACH LIFEGUARD? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at [email protected].

Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!

What was RONALD REAGAN’s favorite movie soundtrack?

(Answer at bottom.)

SETTLING ON SEVEN: Biden publicly acknowledged HUNTER BIDEN’s 4-year-old daughter, NAVY JOAN ROBERTS, as one of his grandchildren in a statement late Friday. The president referred to the girl again in a podcast that aired Monday, our JOHN SAKELLARIADIS reports. “I have seven grandkids, five of ’em old enough to talk on the phone, you know, every day I either text or call them,” Biden told podcast host JAY SHETTY in an interview that took place last week. Navy’s mother, LUNDEN ROBERTS, recently settled a child support lawsuit against Hunter.

TOMMY, CAN YOU HEAR ME?: Biden decided Monday that the headquarters for Space Force, which President DONALD TRUMP ordered be moved to Alabama, will remain in Colorado, three sources familiar with the matter told POLITICO. The long-awaited decision came after more than two years of intense lobbying by Colorado Democratic Sens. MICHAEL BENNET and JOHN HICKENLOOPER — and as frustration mounts with Sen. TOMMY TUBERVILLE (R-Ala.), who has held up Pentagon promotions over his opposition to the department’s healthcare policy related to abortion.

Tuberville responded later in the day: “This is absolutely not over. I will continue to fight this as long as it takes to bring Space Command where it would be best served—Huntsville, Alabama.”

VOTERS OF TOMORROW. MAYBE: Press secretary KARINE JEAN-PIERRE addressed nearly 300 Gen Z activists last week as part of the Voters of Tomorrow summit in Washington. Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s record but she was interrupted by hecklers demanding more administration action on climate (the video went viral with 12 million YouTube views at this point). The conference, GABE FLEISHER writes in a lengthy dispatch for his “Wake Up to Politics” newsletter, laid bare the tensions between an aging president and the increasingly influential youth vote.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO WATCH (OR LISTEN TO): Shetty’s podcast episode featuring Biden, where the two men discuss a range of topics from the president’s speech impediment to how he dealt with loss throughout his life. “When you see people who are going through something tough, it does matter that you reach out,” Biden said. White House communications director BEN LABOLT announced the episode’s release on Twitter.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by the Washington Post’s COLBY ITKOWITZ, SABRINA RODRIGUEZ and MICHAEL SCHERER about how worried Democrats are about low Black voter turnout hurting Biden’s reelection chances. Black voters are the party’s most loyal constituency, but the story notes some fear Democrats are spending too much time instead on converting “conservative-leaning White women” in the suburbs who they see as swing voters, the trio writes.

PERSONNEL MOVES: LEXI BARRETT has been promoted to serve as the Education Department’s chief of staff. She previously worked as a senior advisor for education policy at the department.

“Lexi comes from a family of educators and has channeled that passion for educational opportunity into a career dedicated to ensuring our federal policies lead to tangible progress for our nation’s students,” Education Secretary MIGUEL CARDONA wrote in a statement.

FACING THE MUSIC: Republicans are increasingly conflicted on how to respond to Tuberville’s hold on military promotion as he shows no signs of backing off his opposition to Pentagon’s abortion travel policy, our BURGESS EVERETT and OLIVIA BEAVERS report.

Some senators like MIKE LEE (R-Utah) and CYNTHIA LUMMIS (R-Wyo.) have backed Tuberville, while Alaska Republicans LISA MURKOWSKI and DAN SULLIVAN have grown concerned. Sullivan, for one, is exploring a vote to circumvent the hold to confirm a new leader for the Marine Corps.

“It worked for the White House because, to their base, they’re fighting for abortion rights. It worked for Republicans like Tommy Tuberville because of our base,” said Sen. MITT ROMNEY (R-Utah). “It’s just not good for the American military.”

LONGING FOR A LONG-TERM FIX: The Agriculture Department is warning lawmakers of the consequences if they fail to extend the farm bill ahead of its looming Sept. 30 deadline. While Congress is behind its timeline of extending the bill, some lawmakers believe the USDA can tap its funding reserves to fill the gap until a long-term agreement is approved.

The bill is crafted every five years and authorizes farm safety net programs and nutritional assistance. Our MARCIA BROWN and MEREDITH LEE HILL have the details for Pro subscribers.

BOOSTING THE CYBER WORKFORCE: The White House on Monday unveiled its National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy. The multi-agency effort to fill the nation’s growing number of vacant cyber jobs aims to equip Americans with foundational skills and work to ensure underrepresented communities have access to training needed to pursue new jobs.

“Filling the hundreds of thousands of cyber job vacancies across our nation is a national security imperative and the Administration is making generational investments to prepare our country to lead in the digital economy,” the White House wrote in a statement.

The U.S. Clean-Energy Company That Hit the Subsidies Jackpot (WSJ’s Phred Dvorak)

Heat Is Costing the U.S. Economy Billions in Lost Productivity (NYT’s Coral Davenport)

The Biden Family Drama Is Far From Over (NYT’s Gail Collins and Bret Stephens)

Reagan was a huge fan of “The Sound of Music” soundtrack and even thought “Edelweiss” by RICHARD RODGERS was the Austrian national anthem. He used the song in a toast to former Austrian President RUDOLF KIRCHSCHLAEGER during his visit to the White House in 1984, according to the Washington Post.

Thanks to the Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute 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 Eun Kyung Kim and Sam Stein.