Ron Klain becomes Joe Biden’s Chief of Staff at the White House

“It is difficult for me to play such a role in Biden’s decline,” Ron Klain wrote in an email to Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager in October 2015. Klain had therefore decided to help Clinton with her efforts. in the White House, even before Joe Biden, whom he had previously worked for, announced that he would not be running for the 2016 presidential election. later captured by Russian hackers and published by Wikileaks. But this was only valid until 2017, because the two men had an argument. President-elect Joe Biden announced Wednesday that Klain would be his White House chief of staff.

59-year-old Ronald A. Klain was born in the state of Indiana, to which he is still linked today. However, he spent most of his life in Washington, where he has worked since the late 1980s. It was there that he met Joe Biden. The then senator was chairman of the judiciary committee and Klain was his advisor in the Clarence Thomas hearings for a vacant seat on the Supreme Court.

In 1992 he moved to Bill Clinton and helped him in his successful campaign for the presidency. After his victory, he advised the president to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court and, among other things, helped get Ruth Bader Ginsburg confirmed in the Senate. In 1995 he became Vice President Al Gore’s chief of staff and also worked on his election campaign, but was fired in 1999 following an internal dispute.

Just a year later, Gore again relied on him; it was the Florida tales. The judges stopped him when Gore was behind with 537 votes. Gore admitted defeat. Klain hasn’t passed it to date. “People keep telling me to ‘get through’ the 2000 elections and recount,” Klain wrote in 2019 on Twitter. “I didn’t and I think I never will.”

Klain then moved on to the private sector as a lobbyist, but in 2004 he was engaged with John Kerry, whom he supported in the preparation of the televised debates as Bill Clinton and Gore and later Obama, Hillary Clinton and Biden.

Another guest appearance in the private sector followed in 2008 before becoming Vice President Joe Biden’s Chief of Staff. He held the position until 2011. At that time he was co-responsible for the $ 787 billion bailout package for the US economy. He was actually discussing becoming Obama’s chief of staff in his second term, but he left the White House for private reasons and took up another job. In 2014, however, he returned to coordinate the response to the Ebola epidemic in the United States for Obama. This was followed by a commitment with Hillary Clinton and a position as a consultant and lobbyist in the business world, before returning to her former boss for Biden’s campaign.

Klain has been considered the most likely choice for the post for months. The most important task in the presidential administration, which does not require confirmation from the Senate, now rests with him. He is responsible for the White House workflow, who can see the President and what the President reads. Especially important is a relationship of trust with the man in the oval office. According to Jay Carney, a former White House press officer who now works for Klain, this is the case. “Biden absolutely trusts him,” he told the Washington Post. But Klain has another important quality, Carney said. He always tells Biden what he thinks, not what he wants to hear.

Biden described Klain as “invaluable” in a statement Wednesday. It will be based on his “profound and diverse experiences”. Biden stressed that the two had worked together to “save the US economy” and “deal with a difficult health emergency.”

With the appointment of Klain, the elected president sends several signals. On the one hand, it shows that experience matters, while under Donald Trump, people who were not necessarily suitable for the respective position were often promoted. Furthermore, Klain is also wearable by the progressive wing of the Democrats. A quality that is important at the moment, since after the elections, moderates and progressives hold each other responsible for the loss of parliamentary seats and defeats in the various Senate races. Elizabeth Warren described Klain’s election as “excellent” and also congratulated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both are the figureheads of the left wing.

Furthermore, the president-elect shows what priorities are for him in his term: addressing the crown pandemic and overcoming the resulting recession in the US economy. During the election campaign, he proved that Klain is ready. In a video in which he stands in front of a whiteboard with several keywords, he analyzes the president’s reaction and above all promises one thing: Joe Biden will act differently.

Ultimately, Biden also sends an important signal to Donald Trump: He doesn’t let his behavior disturb him. Although the president has not yet admitted his defeat, Biden is moving forward with the planning of his presidency.