US election updates: Joe Biden names Ron Klain to chief of staff and assistant to the president role
US president-elect Joe Biden has made his first cabinet pick, choosing longtime adviser Ron Klain to serve as his chief of staff and assistant to the president.
The pair have worked together for close to 35 years, with Mr. Klain serving as chief of staff for Mr. Biden during Barack Obama’s first term and as a key adviser on the 2020 Biden campaign.
“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,” Klain tweeted.
Klain is one of Biden’s closest confidants and first worked for the Democrat in 1989 when he was a US senator. He will lead a White House likely to be consumed by the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
For his appointment, Biden said: “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 further added, “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.”
Klain served as chief of staff for Biden during Barack Obama’s first term, was chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore in the mid-1990s, and was a key adviser on the Biden campaign, guiding Biden’s debate preparations and coronavirus response. He’s known and worked with Biden since the Democrat’s 1987 presidential campaign.
