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Joe Biden has appointed Ron Klain, who was the “Ebola Czar” during the Obama administration, as his chief of staff.
Klain, 59, has been a vocal critic of Donald Trump’s pandemic response. He first worked with Biden in the 1980s.
In a statement sharing the news, the president-elect praised Klain’s “deep and varied experience.”
“Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years we’ve worked together, even as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst recessions in our history in 2009 and then weathered an overwhelming public health emergency in 2014,” Biden said. “His wide and varied experience and ability to work with people from across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we face this time of crisis and bring our country together again.”
Klain said, “It is the honor of a lifetime to serve President-elect Biden in this role, and I am honored by his trust.”
Klain has had a long career in government. He served as former Vice President Al Gore’s chief of staff and chief of staff for the Senate Democratic leadership committee. He has worked with several Democratic presidential campaigns, including the 1988 and 2008 Biden presidential campaigns. He was also Gore’s top Democratic lawyer during the recount of the 2000 presidential elections.
From 2008 to 2011, he served as chief of staff to then-Vice President Biden and helped oversee the $ 787 billion stimulus package that Barack Obama signed in response to the Great Recession.
Klain’s experience in a global health pandemic and recession has been cited as one of his top qualifications for helping Biden at this time. The president-elect made the coronavirus pandemic and the economic recession it has caused the center of his presidential campaign, vowing to help Americans emerge from the crisis.
When Klain was appointed as the Ebola Response Coordinator in 2014, his appointment was initially criticized because he lacked public health experience. The Obama administration at the time noted that he was chosen for his “extensive management experience.”
Among those who congratulated Klain was Elizabeth Warren, the progressive senator from Massachusetts who faced Biden in the 2020 primaries. Warren said Klain is an “excellent choice for chief of staff. He understands the magnitude of the economic and health crisis and has the experience to lead this next administration through it. ” Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, members of the so-called “squad” of progressive congressmen, also offered congratulations.
Waleed Shahid, communications director for the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, said Klain “understands that the Democratic party has moved in a more progressive direction.”
Progressives and moderates came together to help elect Joe Biden. But after the elections, the two camps have already started arguing about the future of the party, and progressives say Biden should adopt a more ambitious policy on the climate crisis, surveillance and healthcare.
