Ron Klain plans to step down as White House chief of staff in the next few weeks, people familiar with the matter said Saturday, a move that would mark the biggest shakeup in Joe Biden’s inner circle since his inception. the presidency.
Klain’s decision to leave the White House comes after he oversaw Biden’s inauguration during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, as well as the country’s response to the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The chief of staff has also guided the administration through high-stakes negotiations with Capitol Hill on Biden’s legislative agenda, including a series of large-scale economic packages and the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court. .
Klain’s departure is not expected to happen before February 7, when Biden will deliver his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. An exact date has not been finalized, but Biden is already considering possible successors, according to people familiar with the plans.
The White House declined to comment. To celebrate the two-year anniversary of Biden’s presidency on Friday, Klain tweeted: “Tough two years. So much to do. But so much progress”.
Klain’s departure, if confirmed, would remove Biden, 80, as one of his closest aides. Klain also worked for Biden when he was vice president under Barack Obama.
Biden is preparing for a possible re-election campaign launch in 2024, after Democrats did better than expected in 2022. The midterm elections. The rebound in approval ratings also prompted calls from some parties for Biden to step down because of his age.
But the White House has recently been rocked by the appointment of a special counsel in the justice department to investigate the handling of classified material in Biden’s personal office and main residence in Delaware, which has cast an unexpected cloud over the administration.
The New York Times first reported that Klain would leave in the coming weeks, naming Jeff Zients, the former White House pandemic coordinator, Anita Dunn, a White House political strategist, and Steve Ricchetti, a longtime Biden adviser, as replacements. . .
Klain’s exit from the White House was widely expected, given the grueling nature of the project’s chief of staff at the start of the new presidency. Reince Priebus, Donald Trump’s first chief of staff, served from January 2017 to July of that year. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s first chief of staff, served for more than a year and a half. However, Klain did not surpass Andy Card, who was George W Bush’s first chief of staff from 2001 to 2006.
As well as steering the White House through Biden’s potential campaign for a second term, the next chief of staff will have to manage a more difficult relationship with Republicans in Congress after gaining a majority in the House of Representatives.
In particular, the president must strike a deal with lawmakers to raise the US debt limit in the coming months to avoid the nation’s first debt default. Republicans are demanding deep spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling by $31.4tn – a demand the White House has rejected.