White House Correspondents Insider

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

Senator John McCain Headlines Daily Beast Hero Summit

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Tina Brown kicks things off at the second annual Daily Beast Hero Summit with an interivew with the always interesting Senator John McCain. As politicians line up to claim they are outraged by the government shutdown’s affect on veteran services. Syria and the controveries in Congress will all be covered starting at 8:30 a.m. when Senator John McCain joins Tina Brown in a special session.

Afterwards the morning program continues with a look back at the 20th anniversary of the events behind Black Hawk Down with the producer of the 2001 film Jerry Bruckheimer. The day continues featuring speakers from Capitol Hill, the military and the premiere later tonight of Peter Berg‘s “Lone Survivor.”

You can watch the day’s panels live here:

After The Election, Biden Heads to Parks and Recreation

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Vice President Joe Biden and David Axelrod

Now that the election is over, we can get Vice President Joe Biden to where he really needs to be–meeting  Leslie Knope.

Or, to be more precise, Amy Poehler on the set of Parks and Recreation for their upcoming episode. The fifth season premiere featured Poehler (who plays the recently elected city councilwoman Knope) in D.C. with cameos from Senator John McCain, Barbara Boxer and Olympia Snowe. But for the November 15th episode, Vice President Biden shows up in the cold open according to Entertainment Weekly.

It’s no secret in the show that Knope has a crush on Biden, but it turns out the cameo was harassed by Beltway politics:

Once the producers committed to shooting an episode in D.C., the process of landing Biden was “so much less difficult than we ever possibly imagined,” says Schur, noting: “His staff really loves the show, and he apparently had watched the show with his family and his family liked it… The hardest part was keeping it secret for so long because there’s all these FEC rules and equal-time rules. We couldn’t air it before the election because it was the equivalent of a campaign contribution to advertise for one candidate.”

This is far from the first time that the vice president has appeared on TV. He’s read the Top Ten on Letterman, shown up constantly on Hardball, Meet the Press and The Daily Show. But this is the third time that he’s ever appeared on a scripted television show. The second was Robert Altman’s sequel to Tanner ’88, the Sundance Channel mini-series Tanner on Tanner. But the first? Way back in 1993, then Senator of Delaware, Biden appeared as himself on the PBS game show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? to offer the host some support:

Greg: Hello?
Joe Biden: Greg, Senator Joe Biden here.
Greg: Oh, hey, Senator.
Joe: I just wanted to let you know that I proposed a Congressional resolution naming you “The Best Detective of the Year”.
Greg: Why thank you, sir.
Joe: But some people were more comfortable with “Best Detective of the Month”.
Greg: Uh-huh.
Joe: And a few preferred “Best Detective of the Work Week”. Then someone suggested “best” is an awfully strong word, so we decided to name you “The Somewhat-Notable Detective of the Next 12 Minutes”. Congratulations, Greg.
Greg: Thank you very much, sir. Thank you. Good-bye. Thank you.

We can only hope he suggested the same when the episode airs next week.

Game Change Premieres in DC

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John Heilemann, Sarah Paulson, Julianne Moore, Mark Halperin

Mike Allen reported in today’s Politico Playbook, that while New Yorkers (who had their premiere two nights ago) thought the new HBO Film Game Change “was a sit-com,” Washington watched it as a documentary.  The Newseum was packed with reporters and 2008 campaign staff eager to see the much buzzed about Game Change film based on the book by the same name by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.  Walking the red, or blue rather, carpet were the authors, screen writer Danny Strong, director Jay Roach, and the star of the film, Julianne Moore, who plays Sarah Palin and Sarah Paulson who plays staffer Nicolle Wallace. Also in attendance were veteran producers Gary Goetzman and Tom Hanks, as well as McCain senior campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt who was portrayed by Woody Harrelson in the film.

The film takes place five years ago starting in 2007, following the John McCain campaign through selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate and the struggles and victories within the race.  Viewers such as Wolf Blizter praised Moore’s performance – “She did an amazing Sarah Palin. She looked like her, she sounded like her — she was Sarah Palin,” as reported by Politico. Ed Harris as John McCain and Harrelson as Schmidt were also highlights of the film as they played characters carrying the emotional weight of a presidential campaign having to make difficult decisions.  The film mixed real news footage of reporters and then candidate Obama with film footage which gave Blitzer, Gwen Ifill and Katie Couric cameos.

Check out more photos from the premiere below:

Ed Chen's White House

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Ed Chen will soon be stepping aside as President of the White House Correspondents’ Association but he’s still got his day job to keep him busy.

The Senior White House Correspondent for Bloomberg News recently sat down with Hans Nichols, fellow Bloomberg News correspondent and guest interviewer for WHC Insider, to talk about what goes on behind the scenes in the press room and what it’s like to cover the Obama administration.

The two also covered Senator John McCain during his bid for the Oval Office, and Nichols asked what it would be like if McCain were behind the press room podium instead:”Do you think he would have done those weekly briefings?”

Chen: “It would have been very interesting every day, and I also would have kept a suitcase here, packed, at the White House because you never know when a President McCain would have decided to go to Russia.”

Bloomberg’s Ed Chen & Hans Nichols for WHC Insider from whcinsider on Vimeo.