Biden announces Jeff Zients will be new White House chief of staff So who is he?

Table Of Content

• Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy
• He has extensive private sector experience
• Biden announces Jeff Zients will be new White House chief of staff. So who is he?
• Elections
• Presidents
• White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on President Biden’s economic and domestic priorities
• White House Military Office

Ronald Alan Klain (/ˈkleɪn/ KLAYN; born August 8, 1961)[1] is an American attorney, political consultant, and former lobbyist who served as White House chief of staff under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2023. But according to his allies, the president appreciates his eye for recruiting talent and his experience at coordinating large projects, including overseeing the largest vaccine campaign in U.S. history during the coronavirus fight. Mr. Klain likely would stay around for a transition period to help the next chief settle into the corner office that has been his command post for many crises and legislative battles. He was particularly critical of Mr. Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, having served as the “Ebola czar” under Mr. Obama during an outbreak of the deadly disease in his second term.

Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy

The following table details previous White House chiefs of staff since the role was created in 1946. We'll be in touch with the latest information on how President Biden and his administration are working for the American people, as well as ways you can get involved and help our country build back better. Skinner served as executive producer on several shows that place emphasis on female professionals in the sports industry, particularly the NFL. While Donald Trump sits in a Manhattan courtroom in his criminal hush money trial, a federal judge upheld E. Jean Carroll's defamation verdict and denied the former president's motion for a new trial Thursday.

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He has extensive private sector experience

Mr. Zients, 56, by contrast, is an entrepreneur who made a fortune by building health care and education consultancies. He does not have deep relationships with lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and did not nurture those contacts through years of coffee dates and phone calls in the same way as his predecessor. His interactions with Mr. Biden tend to be matter-of-fact briefings, where he offers the president a list of options and sometimes calls on aides to flesh out the details.

Biden announces Jeff Zients will be new White House chief of staff. So who is he?

Klain, who was also Biden's chief of staff during his vice presidency, is credited with bringing a quiet discipline and order to West Wing operations, which have been noticeably free of drama. WASHINGTON — Ron Klain, the White House chief of staff who has steered President Biden’s administration through two years of triumphs and setbacks, is expected to step down in coming weeks in the most significant changing of the guard since Mr. Biden took office two years ago. When Emanuel was Obama's chief of staff, the administration had to deal with the financial crisis and the auto bailout.

One of the extraordinary things I discovered is that no matter how fiercely partisan they may be, at the end of the day they care about the country, how the White House functions, and about the position of chief of staff, which is so little understood. I think that’s why they came together that day, December 5, 2008, that really bleak morning when it looked as though the country was on the verge of a great depression, the auto industry was about to go belly-up, and there were two wars in a stalemate. As Vice PresCheney put it, they were there to show Rahm the keys to the men’s room.

In the administration of Joe Biden, the current chief of staff is Jeff Zients, who succeeded Ron Klain on February 8, 2023. The chief of staff is the most senior political appointee in the White House. The position is widely recognized as one of great power and influence, owing to daily contact with the president of the United States and control of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. The issues that confront the United States at any one time cannot be dealt with by the president alone, and therefore the president draws on the expertise of others in the administration and even within an administration as one chief of staff may differ from a predecessor or successor. Zients' background is in management consulting and business leadership, and he's spent about two decades in the private sector.

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on President Biden’s economic and domestic priorities

The staff of the various offices are based in the West Wing and East Wing of the White House, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and the New Executive Office Building. Senior staff, with high level, close contact with the President, have the title Assistant to the President. Second-level staff have the title Deputy Assistant to the President, and third-level staff have the title Special Assistant to the President.[2] These aides oversee the political and policy interests of the president. The president said the White House will host an official transition event next week to thank Klain and to welcome Zients back to the White House as chief of staff. President Biden formally announced Friday that Jeff Zients, the former White House COVID-19 czar, will replace Ron Klain as chief of staff.

White House Military Office

WASHINGTON — Jeffrey D. Zients, who served as President Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator and a chairman of the Biden transition team, will bring a different set of skills to the job when he replaces Ron Klain as the White House chief of staff. John Bradford Wiegmann is a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Wiegmann also oversees appeals in national security-related prosecutions, supports the Department’s participation in interagency groups established by the National Security Council, and works with foreign partners on issues of common concern. Department of Justice, Wiegmann was an Assistant Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, a Deputy Legal Adviser at the National Security Council, and Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the Department of Defense. Before joining the government, Wiegmann worked at Shea & Gardner in Washington, D.C., where he focused on civil litigation, and he served as a law clerk for Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Biden chooses Boston native and longtime aide who runs his Oval Office to be a deputy White House chief of staff - Boston.com

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Zients also co-founded The Urban Alliance Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works with companies to provide young people from low-income families with paid internships, mentors and job training. Mr. Klain’s departure would mark a rare moment of high-level turnover in an administration that has been remarkably stable through two years of crises and political battles. "From the day you get elected, the sand starts running through the sundial," Emanuel said. "And you can't afford ... to lose any days in on-the-job training, especially with all the crises." But Emanuel said Klain brings more than trust to the job; he brings experience and familiarity in navigating the White House and various agencies. Biden has repeatedly accused President Trump of fumbling the nation's pandemic response and has vowed to lead the country with a scientific approach to slowing the virus's spread.

Employers added 467,000 jobs as the economy picked up momentum, while the Labor Department said there were nearly 700,000 more jobs created in November and December than first reported. Ron Klain, President Biden's White House chief of staff, joins Judy Woodruff to discuss the president's priorities. Klain also worked as an adviser on Biden's unsuccessful 1988 and 2008 presidential campaigns, and as a top aide to Biden in the '80s and '90s on the Senate Judiciary Committee. President-elect Joe Biden has named his longtime aide Ron Klain to be White House chief of staff, the campaign announced Wednesday evening. Ron Klain was also Joe Biden's chief of staff when he was vice president. Technology has obviously exploded, and there’s no such thing as a news cycle anymore.

The news cycle is 24/7, and there are more platforms than ever. I do think it makes it more challenging for the president to govern and the chief of staff to execute policy, but it makes it all the more important that you have a chief of staff who understands the nexus between policy and communications. You have to be able to manage the administration’s message and make sure everyone is on the same page. Those orders were more than an annoyed attempt to keep the president’s schedule clear. Haldeman may not have known it, but as head S.O.B. he would make history, essentially creating the modern chief of staff. Part gatekeeper, part taskmaster, a chief of staff is the White House’s most put-upon power broker—an employer who must juggle the demands of all branches of government and report to the chief executive.

Earlier, Ried was a political advisor, and later Political Counselor, at the U.S. Other assignments include tours in Algeria, Indonesia, Iraq, Timor-Leste, and the United Kingdom. A native of California, Ried holds a BA from the George Washington University and an MA from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris, France.

And at the end of the day, he’s the person who executes the president’s policies. Haldeman created the template for the modern empowered White House chief of staff. Nixon wanted a powerful chief of staff who would create time and space for him to think. It’s a model that presidents have strayed from at their peril ever since.

The chief of staff is one of the most significant White House appointments. Presidents going all the way back to Washington had confidants. But the modern White House chief of staff began with Eisenhower and Sherman Adams, who was so famously gruff and tough they called him the Abominable No-man. President Biden’s Cabinet reflects his pledge to appoint leaders of government agencies that reflect the country they aim to serve. "I guess his friends would say he was kind of like a confirmed bachelor," she joked of Goodell, noting that he's about eight years older than her. Skinner recalled telling her mother that she was "not really interested" at first because she was "on a career path" at the time.

Every president who tried a different model has paid the price. Jimmy Carter really tried to run the White House by himself and he found himself overwhelmed. Two-and-a-half years into his presidency, he realized he had to appoint a chief of staff. Bill Clinton tried to run the White House much as he ran his campaign, without empowering the chief of staff to take charge. Mack McLarty was his friend, but he wasn’t given enough authority. Every president learns, often the hard way, that you cannot govern effectively unless the White House chief of staff is first among equals.