Jeff Zients to be Biden's next chief of staff

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

President Biden will name Jeff Zients to serve as his next chief of staff, turning to a management consultant who oversaw the administration’s coronavirus response to replace Ron Klain, who is expected to leave in the coming weeks, according to four people familiar with the decision.

Zients left the White House in April 2022 after steering the administration’s pandemic response and leading the largest vaccination campaign in American history. He returned to the White House in the fall to help Klain prepare for staff turnover after the midterms — a project that was ultimately limited in scope as few senior staff have departed across the administration. But, in recent weeks, Klain has assigned him different projects, which some viewed as preparing Zients for the top role, people familiar with the arrangement said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Zients takes over the top job as Biden enters a new and challenging stretch of his presidency: Republicans have already launched a barrage of investigations into the administration and the business dealings of the president’s son. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate the handling of classified documents found at Biden’s personal office and Wilmington, Del., home. And Biden is preparing to launch his re-election bid.

Zients comes into the job with a vastly different profile than Klain: His first government job was during the Obama administration as he has spent most of his career in the private sector. He has only ever worked in the executive branch. His personal Twitter account has no posts.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/22/jeff-zients-biden-chief-of-staff/

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No paywall

[C0RI0LANUS]

1. Wikipedia Entry for Mr. Jeffrey Zients

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Zients

[2naSalit]

2. Thanks.

The name was familiar but I couldn't place him.

[C0RI0LANUS]

5. Only this....

I'm sure Pres Biden and CoS Klain discussed the ascension of Mr Jeffrey Zients to CoS. Pres Biden has made great decisions with his appointments.

Mr Zeints is also comparably young and therefore he may have the stamina required for the 18-hour days that await him.

[ancianita]

3. So do you have any thoughts about him?

Before I post some of my 'issues' ?

[BumRushDaShow]

6. I think there is a strategic reason for it

and it has to do with the GOP control of the House and his being able to put in place someone who has leverage. I.e., someone with names in a rolodex (so to speak) to corporate America and the financial sector to help put a kibosh on what is going to be an economic showdown with the GOP loons designed to send this country into a tailspin ahead of the 2024 election.

[ancianita]

7. Thanks. This helps me get over my issues.

I had misgivings about his background in business with Bain & Company, which Romney took over as Bain Capital, so he gave off the vibe of being more adjacent to Republicans than not; I remembered that he'd been on the transition team (had him on my list) but there was little info about what he'd done during transition; I'd further misgivings when I read he worked as co-counsel with Ricchetti, whose law degree is from George Mason U. (where Koch's Mercatus Center resides) as Biden's Counselor.

I've also learned more about that team from David Brooks in the NYT, surprisingly, that

Biden was arguably the most moderate of the nearly 30 Democrats who ran for president in the past year. The team around him, the folks who would presumably lead his administration, are Clinton/Obama veterans and not exactly a bunch of left-wing woke activists: Mike Donilon, Ron Klain, Anita Dunn, Jake Sullivan, Jeff Zients and Bruce Reed, one of the leaders of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council.

They understand they are leading an extremely broad coalition and have done an excellent, underappreciated job of incorporating both moderate ideas and ideas from the Bernie Bros...

The Democratic Party is an institution that still practices coalition politics, that serves as a vehicle for the diverse interests and ideas in society to filter up into legislation, that plays by the rules of the game, that believes in rule of law. Right now, it is the only major party that does that.

https://newdemocratcoalition.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/the-new-york-times-no-the-democrats-havent-gone-over-the-edge

I also feel better learning that Biden has had a relationship with both of them since Obama days.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Zients was on Obama's National Economic Council

Jeff Zients was with Obama for the long haul — and now he’s going long in investing

By Thomas Heath
May 11, 2018 at 2:46 p.m. EDT


Jeffrey Zients was the businessman’s businessman in the Obama White House — someone whom corporate leaders felt they could talk to in an administration they often thought was too tough on them. Former President Barack Obama said in an interview that they liked Zients over the president or his inner circle because they considered Zients one of their own.

“The truth is that Jeff’s policy perspectives were not significantly different than my own on most economic issues,” Obama said. “It’s just that Jeff was a rich, successful businessman, so when he said it, it sounded better to them than when I said it.” But now that he’s out of government and setting off on a new business venture of his own, Zients is embracing a strategy that in many ways shuns the thinking of so many of America’s corporate titans.

With Wall Street investor Vincent Mai, he is building the Cranemere Group, a budding conglomerate that wants to be another Berkshire Hathaway — Warren Buffett’s $500 billion colossus. They are rejecting the debt-fueled buy-and-sell grind of private equity and doing it old-school like Buffett — looking for value where others have missed it and investing for the long-long term.

Zients, 51, said that during his eight years in the Obama White House — “I turned out the lights on the way out” — he and the president talked about the advantages of durability. They discussed the benefits of long-term investment, whether in policymaking or in business.

(snip)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/jeff-zients-was-with-obama-for-the-long-haul--and-now-hes-going-long-in-investing/2018/05/11/baadb1aa-5312-11e8-9c91-7dab596e8252_story.html

No paywall

Although full of business-speak, the above article is pretty good background-wise... although it buried a critical role that Zients served during that administration - essentially saving Healthcare.gov - i.e., getting it back up and running, and then successfully dealing with a technical, political, and P.R. nightmare.

He was one of the few who stayed in the Obama admin for the full 8 years so he "knows the place".

[ancianita]

9. Thanks. I read that. You put his background succinctly and foregrounded what will matter.

That business speak will serve the president well when Repubs from either chamber decide to air their issues. I imagine he'll be of help to Karine Jean-Pierre as press secretary, as she faces the horse race group over the next two years.

Okay. Losing Ron Klain doesn't feel so bad now.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. Apparently Klain knew in advance that he was going to exit

and started re-homing Zients, as well as showing him the ropes, and shifting him into the current flow for the CoS job.

I expect because of Zients' background, he will be more "public-facing" and media-responsive than Klain, who was more a "very behind the scenes" guy.

[ancianita]

11. Yes, Klain is that good.

The "public facing" strength will be what's needed in the next two years.

[Cha]

12. Yes, I was thinking "Strategic", too..

in so many words.

TY BRDS!

[BumRushDaShow]

15. YW Cha!

I think Klain was always more a "behind the scenes" hard worker and not so much into being a media engager, who wanted to just keep it at managing and wrangling the West Wing staff.

[Fiendish Thingy]

4. Terrible timing

I wish Klain could have waited until the debt ceiling was resolved.

[Bayard]

13. Well, there's a disqualifier:

"His personal Twitter account has no posts."



I hope he's as good as Klain.

[Cha]

16. lol.. Too Busy Working!

[Hortensis]

14. Reading the LA Times. Zients became known as "Mr. Fix-It"

during the Obama years for his ability to turn around failing government projects. LOTS of them after an anti-tax, anti-government Republican administration that spent two terms undermining our institutions, and they also included fixing the launch of the ACA's healthcare.gov.

And of course he did a great job taking over at the height of the pandemic -- after tRump and the Republicans spread both pandemic disease and pandemic chaos across the nation, and tRump did his incompetent best to refuse to allow transition to the new government. At that point more Americans were dying every day than died on 9/11, and most action had to be organized or reorganized from scratch.

[Cha]

17. Well there you have it.. "Mr Fix it".. Perfect

Timing!

Mahalo, Hortensis!

[Hortensis]

18. For sure. At least big problems open up big opportunities.

Mahalo, Cha.

[Cha]

19. Well said.. & PJB is On It!