President-elect Joe Biden named Democratic political veteran Ronald Klain as his new chief of staff. Klain will manage Biden’s White House team and, in the coming weeks, work with the former Vice President to put together his new administration.

Klain and Biden have a long-standing relationship and he was seen a likely candidate for this job. The Indiana native previously served as Biden’s chief of staff while he was Vice President and first began working for Biden in the late 1980s. Below, find more information about Klain’s background and what kind of chief of staff he might become.

Klain first began working for Biden in the late 1980s. Biden was then a senator from Delaware, while Klain was a recent Harvard Law School graduate—and former editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review. This early job began Klain’s long run in Democratic politics, and with future President Biden.

Klain served as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which, at that time, Biden led (and also included the contentious confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas). He then moved on to work for Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts and later became staff director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee.

In 1992, Klain joined the Clinton administration. He led the team that won confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and eventually worked his way up to becoming chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore. During the 2000 election, Klain led Gore’s unsuccessful vote recount effort in Florida.

In between the Clinton and Obama administrations, Klain worked in lobbying and venture capital, helping grow the firm Revolution, run by former AOL chief executive Steve Case.

But, Klain and Biden remained close over the years, and, in 2009, Klain reprised the role he played for Gore, becoming then-Vice President Biden’s chief of staff. This job was just one among many he took on over the course of the Obama administration.

Klain worked to combat both economic and public health crises while serving in the Obama administration.

Aside from working as Biden’s chief of staff, Klain wore many hats during President Barack Obama’s time in office. He became known as an expert in debate preparation and as one of the leaders in the Supreme Court confirmations of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Biden also cited Klain’s support with both the 2008 financial crash and the Ebola outbreak as reasons for his new appointment as White House chief of staff.

“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 recent statement.

President Barack Obama, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and then-Ebola Response Coordinator Klain spoke with reporters in 2014.

In 2014, Klain was named Obama’s “Ebola czar” during the virus’s outbreak. There were eleven total Ebola cases in the United States, with only two people contracting Ebola within the U.S. (others traveled with the disease from other countries—neither of the patients who contracted the virus in the U.S. died from it).

Klain has been vocally critical about President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 response, and frequently tweets about the topic.

“The Trump administration’s response to this crisis has clearly failed,” Klain said in a July Biden campaign video. “Donald Trump has waved the white flag in the fight against coronavirus.”

Biden is receiving widespread praise for giving Klain the job.

In his statement announcing Klain’s new position, Biden cited Klain’s ability to cooperate with members of all political parties as a major attribute in his favor.

“His 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,” Biden noted.

Indeed, Klain has recieved words of approval from both sides of the aisle. Both Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Elizabeth Warren praised the Klain choice, representing both the more moderate and more liberal wings of the Democratic party.

Even Scott Jennings, a Republican political strategist, CNN commentator, and George W. Bush White House veteran, lauded Klain on Twitter, calling his selection “a terrific choice.”

Klain, too, is looking forward to his new appointment. He called this opportunity “the honor of a lifetime” and tweeted thanking his followers for their support. He also noted his excitement about leading what he called “a talented and diverse team” in this new administration.

Klain once credited his political involvement to Robert F. Kennedy.

In a 2008 New York Times op-ed, Klain told a story from his childhood, revolving around Robert Kennedy’s 1968 visit to Indianapolis. Kennedy was supposed to give a campaign speech there, when he learned the news of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Instead, Kennedy told the crowd about the tragedy and gave one of the most beautiful, impactful speeches of his life. This story was personal to Klain, who grew up in Indianapolis and met Kennedy a few weeks prior to that speech. He attributes the lack of riots or violence in Indianapolis on that night to Kennedy’s powerful words.

Klain wrote, “Forty years later, whenever I hear people say that a politician’s speeches don’t matter, that campaigns are a waste and that the sort of conflict we have in the 2008 Democratic primary is ‘destructive,’ I think of Robert Kennedy’s words in Indianapolis that night—a speech that would have never happened but for the hard-fought, highly competitive 1968 primary campaign—and the millions of people like me who were inspired by them and their impact on that city.”

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