White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

Photos: White House Easter Egg Roll 2013

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As spring blossoms in Washington–not that the lack of Cherry Blossoms help–we come to look upon the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. Held for the fifth year under President Obama, the Easter Egg Roll was presented this year in part with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Get Up And Move campaign.

“Today we’re going to have more than 30,000 people who will pass through this yard in celebration of nutrition and health and activity,” she said. “And we could not do this if it were not for all of our wonderful volunteers, our staff, all of the terrific performers and athletes who have taken time out of their lives and their busy days to make this important. So we need to give all of them a round of applause for all their hard work.”

The annual basketball and tennis outing was not as easy for POTUS. Per the Pool:

“POTUS stepped to free throw line and kids were asked to stand on opposite sides, depending on whether they think he would sink it. Most kids moved in one direction, but one boy went to the “miss” side.

“Oh, man,” a stunned POTUS said, hands on hips. The boy didn’t budge. And three others joined.

In sharp form, POTUS released the ball. It bounced off the rim and circled it — miss.

“Come on. Come on. Did you see that?” Obama said.

It got worse. A little while later, after playing tennis, Obama started to take shots amid the kids and pros.

Miss. Miss. Off the rim. Miss. Miss. Off the rim. Airball. He moved closer to the net.

But time and again, he missed. Of 22 shots POTUS took, he made two. (22 was general consensus of poolers)[.]”

At least reading went a little better for Obama than the pick-up game.

Obama and Kerry Inadvertently Have Soccer-Themed Day

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Sport Zone: Football
The other kind of football has returned to Washington. On a completely seperate-but-interesting moment saw the Obama administration have to deal with sports while the rest of D.C. attend the Supreme Court ruling on Proposition 8.

Flanked by 2012 MLS Champions Los Angeles Galaxy and recent Stanley Cup champions Los Angeles Kings, the Chicago native proved Washingtonians can at least play nice with rivals as long as it is sports related.
“So I’m going to be a good sport — these guys pointed out that they beat my Blackhawks last night. I will also say that, given this season how rare it is to beat the Blackhawks, I want to congratulate them for that as well,” said President Obama. The President then received duel Galaxy/Kings jerseys–number 44 of course–and ball from recent Galaxy re-signer Landon Donovan.

Meanwhile, proven that he can’t be outclassed so quickly, Secretary of State John Kerry headbutted a soccer ball. Then he continued his audition for Dave Letterman’s Stupid Human Tricks and made our day a little brighter. In actuality this is day two of John Kerry’s meetings with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai. The soccer shots came when Kerry was introduced to Zahra Mahmoodi, the captain of the Afghanistan National Soccer Team, and a group of female entrepreneurs from Afghanistan.

While no such thing like an Intermural Capitol Hill Soccer Association exists–unlike say this awkwardly named Washington association— this seems like a great way to kick off the league.

Obama Nominated Thomas Perez for Secretary of Labor

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Earlier today President Barack Obama announced Thomas Perez as his nomination for secretary of labor. Perez currently serves in the Civil Rights devision of the Department of Justice and would be following up in the role that Hilda Solis left in January.

“Like so many Americans, Tom knows what it’s like to climb the ladder of opportunity. He is the son of Dominican immigrants. He helped pay his way through college as a garbage collector and working at a warehouse. He went on to become the first lawyer in his family. So his story reminds us of this country’s promise, that if you’re willing to work hard, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, what your last name is — you can make it if you try,” said President Obama. The remarks were delievered earlier today from the East Room in the White House. Per the White House Pool report attendees including Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, NAACP President Richard Trumka, Al Sharpton, Valerie Jarrett, Gene Sperling and Executive Director of Labor Council for Latin American Advancement Hector Sanchez.
New York Times did the round-up of labor leaders, including the Teamsters’ own Jimmy Hoffa Jr. and AFL-CIO, and their opinions of Perez.

“And Tom has made protecting that promise — for everybody — the cause of his life. As a civil rights attorney, an aide to Senator Ted Kennedy, a member of the Montgomery, Maryland County Council, Tom fought for a level playing field where hard work and responsibility are rewarded and working families can get ahead,” said Obama. “Now, while he’s tackled plenty of tough issues, Tom has also spent a career as a consensus-builder. He’s worked with CEOs, he’s worked with labor leaders. He’s worked at federal, state, and local government levels. And throughout, he understands that our economy works best when the middle class and those working to get into the middle class have the security they need on the job, a democratic voice in the workplace, everybody playing by the same set of rules.”

There is no current date set for Perez’ Senate hearings or any opposition, so far, to his nomination. Perez gave selected remarks after Obama’s praise, summing it up like so:

“As you well know, our nation still faces critical economic challenges, and the Department’s mission is as important as ever. I am confident that together with our partners in organized labor, the business community, grassroots communities, Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike, we can keep making progress for all working families.”

Obama Announces Additional Nominations for State Dept, Heritage Abroad

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Earlier this morning President Barack Obama announced the next three individuals for positions in the administration. “It gives me great confidence that such dedicated and capable individuals have agreed to join this Administration to serve the American people. I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come,” said President Obama.

They include Ambassador Deborah K. Jones, currently Scholar-in-Resident at the Middle East Institute, for Ambassador to Libya; Ambassador James Knight, currently Assistant Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, for Ambassador to the Republlic of Chad. And Lesley Weiss, currently Director of Community Services and Cultural Affairs for NCSJ, to be Member and Chair for the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.

Both Jones and Knight will require nominations to be approved in upcoming Congressional sessions while Weiss will be appointed at an upcoming date.

The Donald Denied Reopening White House Tours, Obama May Anyway

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Not even The Donald can reopen The White House tours shuttered by the sequester. Or to be more accurate, The White House said “No thanks” when the notable centerpiece of NBC’s The Apprentice took to his new beloved medium of Fox News to take on the administration.

In the ultimate act of media ourobouros, Politico quoted White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer on CNN earlier after Trump commented on a Tweet from Newt Gingrich. So much back and forth between the news mediums makes our head spin as pundits go from Twitter to TV to Politico and back again. So why exactly can’t it work? Pfeiffer explained earlier:

“It doesn’t work that way; we can’t have private individuals paying the Secret Service — so that’s not how it works. This is about a very tough budget cut that the Secret Service has to take because of the sequester. It’s why we should have avoided the sequester to begin with.”

Already Yellowstone announced a late opening–by a week–that has caused tourists and small businesses to grumble about experiencing the Great Outdoors. Meanwhile this morning President Obama may review the suspended tours for school trips and students according to Post Politics. From his interview with ABC News:

“I’m always amused when people on the one hand say the sequester doesn’t mean anything and the administration’s exaggerating its effects and then whatever the specific effects are, they yell and scream and say, ‘Why are you doing that?’ Well, there are consequences to Congress not having come up with a more sensible way to reduce the deficit.”

Obama Scores With Gridiron Club Dinner

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Obama Waves to Press

Not only was this weekend unseasonably nice compared to the Snowquester,but President Barack Obama attended the 125th Gridiron Club and Foundation Dinner. (Technically the fifth for the combined Club and Foundation, but as if memories go back that far in Washington these days).

Attending for the second time since 2011, President Barack Obama opened up with remarks that brought the Beltway press to be responsible for their pleas about access and Bob Woodward’s recent fear of threats. Or, as scarily brought up by The Reliable Source, “Is it possible he’s beginning to like these dinners?”

“Before I begin, I know some of you have noticed that I’m dressed a little differently from the other gentlemen. Because of sequester, they cut my tails. My joke writers have been placed on furlough,” the president said. That’s what happens when your star speechwriter goes off to Tinseltown. Other politicans that stopped by this year include Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Senator Al Franken (“How do you start off being one of the original writers for Saturday Night Live and end up being the second-funniest Senator in Minnesota? How the mighty have fallen.”)

Some of the choicer cuts with a Favreau–although we can’t imagine he didn’t have at least one pass at this–less Obama:

On Woodward:
“Now I know that some folks think we responded to Woodward too aggressively. But hey, when has — can anybody tell me when an administration has ever regretted picking a fight with Bob Woodward? What’s the worst that could happen?”

On White House Correspondents Dinner Chairman Ed Henry:
“While we’re on this subject, I want to acknowledge Ed Henry, who is here — who is the fearless leader of the Washington press corps now. And at Ed’s request, tonight I will take one question from the press. Jay, do we have a question? Surprisingly, it’s a question from Ed Henry. ‘Mr. President, will you be taking any questions tonight?’ I’m happy to answer that. No, Ed, I will not.”

Proof That Favreau Must’ve Written Something:
“But all these changes to my team are tough to handle, I’ve got to admit. After nine years, I finally said goodbye to my chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau. I watched him grow up. He’s almost like a son to me, he’s been with me so long. And I said to him when he first informed me of his decision, I said, ‘Favs, you can’t leave.’ And he answered with three simple words — ‘yes, I can.’ Fortunately, he did not take the prompter on his way out. That would have been a problem.”

And just to show the President is well aware of his Internet status, he ended his speech on a nerd note:
“So I want to thank everybody for not just a wonderful evening — and, Chuck [Lewis], I want to thank you for your outstanding presidency — but I also just want to thank you for the work that you do each and every day. And in the words of one of my favorite Star Trek characters — Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise — ‘May the force be with you.'”

Sequester Goes Too Far With White House Tour Cancelation

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Starting March 9th, the sequester will take one of Washington’s few government benefits: the Official White House Tour.

Talking Points Memo confirmed, re-confirmed and then followed up with the White House phone reservation system:

What does The Daily Caller’s related article have to say about this? (“RELATED: Bob Woodward claims President Barack Obama lied repeatedly about sequester trigger”).

With hours to go before Washingtion is buried under the Snowquester who knows what terrible non-important fallout we’ll experience?

Obama Announces Replacement Picks for Energy, Labor and Budget

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Energy Secretary Steven Chu

President Obama announced his choices earlier today to replace Energy Secretary Steven Chu, EPA’s Lisa Jackson and Office of Management and Budget.The three nominations came during the president’s first cabinet meeting of 2013.

” I’m proud to nominate another brilliant scientist to take his place — Mr. Ernie Moniz. There’s Ernie right there. Now, the good news is that Ernie already knows his way around the Department of Energy. He is a physicist by training, but he also served as Under Secretary of Energy under President Clinton. Since then, he’s directed MIT’s Energy Initiative, which brings together prominent thinkers and energy companies to develop the technologies that can lead us to more energy independence and also to new jobs,” said Obama.

“At EPA, Gina McCarthy would take over Lisa Jackson’s position and Sylvia Mathews Burnwell would replace Jeff Zients at OMB. As I said before, the American people are resilient. And I know that Jeff and Sylvia will do everything in their power to blunt the impact of these cuts on businesses and middle-class families. But eventually, a lot of people are going to feel some pain. That’s why we’ve got to keep on working to reduce our deficit in a balanced way — an approach that’s supported by the majority of the American people, including a majority of Republicans. And I’m confident that we can get there if people of goodwill come together. So I want to thank Steve and Lisa and Jeff once more for their outstanding service, for all the great work that they’ve done in this administration over the last several years. I want to thank Ernie, Gina and Sylvia, and their families, for agreeing to take on these big roles.”

USA Today pointed out the obvious announcement:”In introducing his new budget director, Burwell, Obama cited her biggest immediate challenge: the sequester, $85 billion in automatic budget cuts over the next seven months that began over the weekend.”

The three will have to go through the Senate, but two of the nominees–per Politico–are bringing the conversation back to the sequester and environment. But that’ll be yet another issue in the coming weeks as the country learns exactly how the sequester will effect the country.

The Slurp Heard Around the SOTU

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Marco Rubio stole the entire show after President Obama gave an unanimously praised speech at the State of the Union. For the fifth time, the president remained on record but with a far sterner message to congress during and after his speech.

But before we go back to Obama, let’s focus on Senator Rubio. His “Watergate” broke out over Twitter:

On YouTube:

and the same joke repeated ad naseum. Despite President Obama’s repeated plea for a vote for victims of gun violence, for Sandy Hook and for those that struggle to vote–like 102-year old Desiline Victor–it would be Rubio who would capture the Internet’s attention. But that comes after a groundbreaking number of Tweets Per Minute (TPM) according to the official Twitter Blog.

They even provided a timeline in handy graph form:

But don’t think Obama got away without a fist-bump of his own. Over the closing minutes, as Obama went through the Capitol,he could be heard encouraging Representatives and Senators that everything “deserves a vote,” in calling back to his address.

Worth Reading Into The First Lady's SOTU Guests?

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First Family
It’s a valid point, but have the guests of Michelle Obama revealed the skeleton for tonight’s State of the Union? Traditionally Obama’s last four SOTU speeches have touched on gun control, the economy, immigration and climate change. But that was then and this could be a “congressional cattle prod” according to Politico. The continuing assault from President Obama’s inaugural will likely go on the offensive and stick to his previous points based on FLOTUS’ guests. The address is scheduled to focus on the middle class over the president’s first term, but what else could we gleam from those attending–aside from The Motor City Mad Man.

A rare first appearence involves The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, marks the first time that the hardware developer has set foot inside the Capitol notorious for being pro-PC. It’s a silly joke, but does Cook’s appearence give credit to the production move–even with Foxconn–back to the United States? There’s also a student under the DREAM act, the parents of the tragically murdered Hadiya Pendleton who performed at the Inaugural, small business owners, a First Grade Teacher from Sandy Hook and a 102-year old naturalized citizen that voted in the 2012 election.

The crowd is sure to be on their toes as Obama unveils his plan for the next year.

The full list is below.

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