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

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The White House’s decision to switch from Zoom to Webex as the primary video call application earlier this year prompted frustration among staff. But for those Zoom lovers inside the walls of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., fret not: The company says the fight is not over yet.

Zoom, which became a mainstay of the Covid-19 pandemic, is now arguing that the White House has not given it the chance to make its case. It maintains its platform is secure, and that even President JOE BIDEN himself uses it.

Zoom’s head of public sector, MATT MANDRGOC, emphasized in an interview that the company’s current contract is not up until the end of January. He said Zoom was open to negotiations, given that the administration had claimed cost was the reason for the switch. But further clarity from the White House about its decision has been hard to get.

Mandrgoc said he first learned about the White House’s decision to step back from Zoom when POLITICO reported on the announcement by director of technology AUSTIN LIM in a Jan. 30 staff email. Mandrgroc said he reached out to the White House and subsequently learned that the administration’s decision was indeed cost based, not security related. But he said the White House would not share any additional information about the procurement process.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. But an administration official did confirm to us back in May that the switch was cost-related and not driven by security factors or any concerns about compliance with public records laws.

Mandrgoc said Zoom’s place as the White House’s preferred video conference call platform brought “the highest visibility of decisions across the world being made.” And the White House’s use of Zoom for its virtual meetings has served as a major brand validator for the company. Just this week, the company touted the broad reach and security of its program. “From the Oval Office to your local post office,” read its website.

Mandrgoc noted that West Wing staffers aren’t exactly happy about making the switch.

“This is what people are using,” Mandrgoc said. “There’s no security issues. There’s nothing. They said it was cost related. … We’ve not been able to track down from anyone what that means.”

He said there’s nothing Zoom can do unless the administration is open to discussing the issue of costs.

When asked why his company is pushing the White House so hard – and now, so publicly – to renew its contract with Zoom, Mandrgoc acknowledged the benefits that come with being the go-to video platform for the most powerful office in the world. Decisions at the White House being made over Zoom is as big a signifier of the platform’s stature as it could ever hope for. Hence, all the groveling.

But, he argued, the superiority of Zoom to WebEx or other networking platforms benefits users no matter who they are or what they’re discussing. “It’s very important,” Mandrgoc said, “to have a platform that allows our government leaders … [a quick], simple, scalable and secure [way] to have their communications and make world decisions.”

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BUILD BACK CHEDDAR: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS traveled to Eastern Market to purchase some cheese on Friday. And, like a smart customer, she sampled a few before settling on “some yellow cheddar from Wisconsin,” as the pool report described it. Like the masses who go to that cheese stand, Harris engaged in some small talk and waited patiently as they wrapped and weighed it. For those who haven’t been, it’s a good booth.

“I take my cheese seriously,” said the vice president, who also visited ReWild across the street and picked up a houseplant.

THE LATEST BIDENOMICS BAROMETER: Employers added 187,000 jobs last month, according to the Labor Department’s July jobs report released Friday. The unemployment rate also dipped a tenth of a point to 3.5 percent, a near record low. The jobs number was slightly less than what analysts expected, a sign of the economy cooling slightly as the Federal Reserve works to curb inflation. But the White House will take those numbers. In fact, they did.

In a statement, Biden asserted that the solid metrics underline his effective stewardship of the economy. “Unemployment near a record low and the share of working age Americans who have jobs at a 20-year high: that’s Bidenomics,” the president said.

GO WEST, OLD MAN: President Biden is set to embark on a western swing next week and the Washington Post’s TIMOTHY PUKO reported Friday that the trip could include another designation of a new national monument near the Grand Canyon. The move, if it happens, would protect another 1.1 million acres of public lands from potential uranium mining. Federal officials, Puko reports, “have started telling tribal and environmental groups to be available for a potential Grand Canyon announcement early next week, which would fall during Biden’s travel.”

SPEECHES. THEY’RE OFTEN REPETITIVE: The AP’S JOSH BOAK has a piece Friday titled “Play it again, Joe. Biden bets that repeating himself is smart politics.” It notes that the president relies on a number of lines and turns of phrases repeatedly in his addresses. Not only that, Boak reports that this is part of a strategy to sell the agenda. This is true. Biden-isms are a thing. But, also, a lot of politicians do this. Hope and Change. Build the Wall.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE WANTS YOU TO READ: This DANA MILBANK column in the Washington Post headlined, “Republicans who fought Biden’s agenda now claim credit for it.” Milbank tees off on Sen. JOHN CORNYN (R-Texas) over his recent boasts about a manufacturing boom during a visit to Tesla’s manufacturing plant. He notes the lawmaker now celebrating the 10,000 jobs at the plant failed to mention that he opposed last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, which contained massive tax incentives for electric vehicles.

Cornyn, Milbank notes, is hardly alone among his GOP colleagues. Republican Sens. CINDY HYDE-SMITH (Miss.), TOMMY TUBERVILLE (Ala.), JOHN BOOZMAN (Ark.) and TOM COTTON (Ark.) “also boasted about money coming to their states from the infrastructure law to fund transportation and broadband projects.” White House communications director BEN LABOLT tweeted the piece, which the press shop also blasted out in an ‘ICYMI’ email.

WHAT THE WHITE HOUSE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO READ: This piece by POLITICO’s JESSICA PIPER about how some Democrats are increasingly concerned about Biden’s online fundraising. Small dollar giving on Act Blue, the party’s primary donation platform, totaled $312 million in the first half of 2023, a drop-off of $30 million compared to the same point in the 2020 campaign cycle. “The lack of grassroots engagement is a warning sign for Biden ahead of a tough election cycle, raising questions about whether the 80-year-old incumbent is exciting the Democratic base the way he will need to win a second term,” Piper writes. “The new data also suggests that the threat of Donald Trump, once a huge driver of Democratic fundraising, is not motivating donors like it used to.”

FIRST IN WEST WING PLAYBOOK: DOMINIQUE DANSKY, who has been director of White House stenography since the Obama administration, has left the White House after 12 years.

And congratulations to White House stenographer COLIN MILLER, who just got engaged to his girlfriend, D.C. media strategist TAYLOR MOUNTAIN, on a beach in Malibu, Calif.

REALLY, WE SHOULD CALL THIS SECTION ‘NOT FILLING THE RANKS': With the retirement Friday of Army Chief of Staff Gen. JAMES MCCONVILLE, the U.S. Army became the second military branch without a Senate confirmed leader. Because of Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military promotions — done in protest to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing troops who travel to seek abortions — two of the eight seats on the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff are now being filled by interim officers. As of Friday, there were 301 senior military officers caught up in Tuberville’s hold, our PAUL MCLEARY reports.

“The failure to confirm our superbly qualified senior uniformed leaders undermines our military readiness,” Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN said at the changeover ceremony. “It undermines our retention of some of our very best officers. And it is upending the lives of far too many of their spouses, children and loved ones.”

The Marine Corps, for the first time in its history, has been without a Senate-confirmed leader since early July.

EPA, WTF?: A new ProPublica investigation found that the Environmental Protection Agency approved a Chevron boat fuel ingredient with a lifetime cancer risk 1 million times higher than what the agency usually finds acceptable. The chemical substance is so dangerous that the threat to people regularly exposed to it is six times worse than the risk of lung cancer for a lifetime smoker.

The EPA is not allowed to approve substances that pose such unreasonable health or environmental hazards without first finding ways to reduce the risk, ProPublica’s SHARON LERNER reports. The EPA acknowledged it made an error when the health danger for the chemical “was inadvertently not included” in its risk assessment. It also said in a statement that the cancer risk estimates were “extremely unlikely and reported with high uncertainty.”

‘Dangerous pivot’ on overseas oil and gas deals splits Biden administration (POLITICO’s Zack Colman)

Democrats press Biden to resolve New York’s migrant crisis (Semafor’s Kadia Goba)

The First Muslim Spokesperson Is Leaving The White House (HuffPo’s Rowaida Abdelaziz)

ULYSSES S. GRANT was arrested in 1872 for speeding for riding his horse too fast in Washington, according to The New York Times. (Former President DONALD TRUMP would become the second U.S. president taken into custody more than 150 years later.)

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.