The White House plans to name Jeff Zients as chief of staff following the departure of Ron Klain, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday, in what would be an important reshuffle in one of the most complicated periods of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Zients will join the White House as Biden navigates the controversy over classified government documents found in his private home and former private office as he prepares to run for re-election in 2024.
The discovery of the file, which is being examined by the US Department of Justice and has led to the appointment of a special counsel, has dampened spirits about the Democrats’ better-than-expected performance in last November’s midterm elections.
Zients previously served in the Biden White House as the administration’s response coordinator to the Covid-19 pandemic before resigning last April. Biden said he chose Zients for the job “because no one can produce better results than Jeff”.
The former coronavirus tsar also held senior responsibilities under former President Barack Obama as director of the National Economic Council and as an operations supervisor to fix bugs in the government’s health insurance website. Prior to that role, he was twice appointed acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Reports of Zients’ arrival came a day after people familiar with the matter said Klain, White House chief of staff since the start of Biden’s tenure, planned to leave. Klain is not expected to depart before February 7, when Biden will address a joint session of Congress in the president’s annual State of the Union address.
Klain has managed the key moments of Biden’s term including the inauguration of the president after the riots on January 6, 2021 in the US Capitol and the full negotiations with Congress on an extensive legislative program, including a series of blockbuster economic packages.
The White House declined to comment on Klain’s departure and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Zients’ planned appointment.
If the news is confirmed, Zients would be a more centrist chief of staff than Klain, who enjoys close ties to Democratic lawmakers from the party’s progressive left. Zients also has less style than Klain, a prolific social media user who often posts on Twitter to promote and defend Biden’s policies.
The change is expected to come when the White House grapples with the new balance of power on Capitol Hill after Republicans narrowly gained control of the House of Representatives in the wake of the midterm elections. This means Biden will no longer focus on getting major legislation through Congress, as was the case during his first two years in office with Democratic majorities in both chambers.
However, he prefers to blame House Republicans, including the need to raise the US debt limit.