A female administration .. Joe Biden Makes The Difference

Joe Biden, the “elected president” of the United States is two months away from his arrival at the White House. Eight weeks to build the team that will surround him at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. If the team that is revealed day after day is more feminine and mixed than in the Trump administration, Joe Biden has above all, and not surprisingly, entrusted key positions to his faithful.

The positions allocated…

After having appointed Ron Klain to the strategic position of “Chief of staff”, Biden selected Jen O’Malley Dillon, 44, to assist Klain as his assistant. The former campaign manager is finally joining the White House after making it known for a long time that she has no plans to work in the administration if Biden wins the election. A former deputy campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, she led the campaign of former MP Beto O’Rourke in the 2020 Democratic primaries, before taking the reins of Biden’s campaign at the approach of the general election.

Among the “main advisers” of the future president, we note the arrival of Cedric Richmond, also director of the Office of Public Engagement of the White House. Richmond, national co-chair of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, will focus on raising awareness among Democratic organizations, public interest groups and advocacy groups. He is a figure of the Democratic Party and of the “black caucus” in Congress. He is also expected to liaise with business and climate change activists according to observers. Less surprisingly, Joe Biden’s close friend, Mike Donilon, will also join the White House as the president’s senior advisor. He is the originator of much of the campaign messages and had been Biden’s advisor when he was vice president.

Another figure in the making of the team is Julie Chavez Rodríguez who will occupy the very political post of director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs of the White House. Julie Rodríguez, 41, joined Biden’s campaign as a senior adviser after holding a high-profile post during Kamala Harris’s campaign for the Democratic primary. She was one of Harris’ first recruits after Harris won her seat in the California Senate in 2016. Granddaughter of civil rights leader César Chávez, Rodríguez is close to Barack Obama. She previously served as deputy director of political engagement at the White House.

Dana Remus becomes advisor to the president. She served as legal counsel for the Biden campaign. Separately, Remus’ experience as clerk to Supreme Court Tory Judge Samuel Alito could prove invaluable to the Biden administration as it braces for repeated clashes with the Tory Supreme Court majority in coming years. Another Biden confidant, Steve Ricchetti, who was vying for the post of chief of staff, also becomes an adviser. His past career as a lobbyist for health insurance, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies in the 1990s and early 2000s, however, raises concerns among the most liberal of the Democratic camp.

Julie Annie Tomasini, in the Biden team since 2008, will be the Director of Operations for the Oval Office. Finally, Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon is named as “chief of staff” of the wife of “Sleepy Joe”, whom he often defines as his main advisor, “Dr. Jill Biden”.

… and the names that circulate

One of the positions that arouse the most public interest is that of “press secretary”, in other words spokesperson for the White House. Several names are being considered: Karine Jean-Pierre, francophone born in Martinique, senior campaign advisor to Joe Biden who later served as Kamala Harris’ chief of staff, and Symone Sanders, senior campaign advisor, are competing for the face of the White House in front of the press. Kate Bedingfield, deputy director of the Biden-Harris campaign and director of communications, is being considered to become the all-powerful communications director of “The West Wing”.

As for the “cabinet”, the future government, things will logically be formalized later. But the name of Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the UN during the Obama mandates, comes up very often for the post of secretary of state. She was among the first to congratulate Joe Biden on the formalization of his victory by the American media. On CNN, however, she refused to discuss her future.