3 yıl önce

Biden picks longtime aide Ronald Klain as chief of staff

Klain will lead a White House likely to be consumed by the response to the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to spread unchecked across the nation, and he'll likely face the challenge of working with a divided Congress.

Reuters

US Vice President Joe Biden listens to Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain speak to organisation leaders responding to the Ebola crisis, while in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex in Washington, DC, on November 13, 2014.

US President-elect Joe Biden has chosen top Democratic official Ronald Klain as his chief of staff and assistant to the president.

Klain is one of Biden's closest confidants and first worked for the Democrat in 1989 when he was a US senator.

He was in charge of the Obama administration's response to the Ebola health crisis in 2014, when Biden was vice president.

A fierce critic of Republican President Donald Trump's handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Klain was expected to be a key figure in Biden's response to the health crisis.

Ron Klain’s deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again. https://t.co/s4XlAgMrxf
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 12, 2020

Longtime aide

“Ron has been invaluable to me over the many years that we have worked together, including as we rescued the American economy from one of the worst downturns in our history in 2009 and later overcame a daunting public health emergency in 2014,” Biden said in a statement.

Klain said in a statement: “It's the honour of a lifetime to serve President-elect Biden in this role, and I am humbled by his confidence. I look forward to helping him and the vice president-elect assemble a talented and diverse team to work in the White House."

Klain was Biden's vice-presidential chief of staff and was most recently a senior adviser to Biden's presidential campaign.

I’ve seen so many kind wishes tonight on this website. Thank you - and I’m sorry I can’t reply to each of you.

I’m honored by the President-elect’s confidence and will give my all to lead a talented and diverse team in a Biden-Harris WH.
— Ronald Klain (@RonaldKlain) November 12, 2020