President Joe Biden will nominate his former covid-19 reaction coordinator, Jeff Zients, as White House staff leader when Ron Klain leaves the workplace in the coming weeks, according to multiple reports, a staff reshuffle that comes as Biden enters a new phase of his term getting ready for an imaginable presidential election in 2024. negotiating with a divided Congress and facing an inflated scandal over its handling of classified documents.
Zients, 56, began working as Biden’s covid-19 response coordinator some time after Biden took office until last spring.
He then appointed to help Biden seek out cabinet members and senior officials.
Prior to his tenure in the Biden White House, Zients co-chaired Biden’s transition team after the 2020 presidential election; he also served as an economic adviser under former President Barack Obama.
News of Zients’ hiring comes a day after the New York Times reported that Klain would resign, a move he had long planned to make after the midterm elections. He is expected to remain in that position for several weeks to help Zients. Klain, 61, once served as an associate counsel for former President Bill Clinton and staff leader to former Vice President Al Gore. Two years in office, Zients will focus less on policymaking and more on the long-term politics of Biden and the Democrats, as Biden evaluates plans to run for re-election in 2024. Zients is also expected to play a huge role in helping Biden navigate a Republican-controlled house that has promised investigations into Biden’s handling of classified documents, border policies, his family’s businesses and his Covid-19 response.
66. That’s the number of senior Biden management officials who resigned in October, according to the Brookings Institution: a turnover rate of 32% to a turnover rate of 31% in former President Donald Trump’s first two years in office.
Biden staff leader Klain reportedly intends to resign (Forbes)