Biden to name Jeff Zients as chief of staff, source says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden will identify as his chief of workers Jeff Zients, a former White Home pandemic coverage coordinator, a supply aware of the matter stated on Sunday.

The Washington Publish earlier reported the choice.

Ron Klain, Biden’s present chief of workers, plans to go away his put up within the coming weeks, sources aware of the matter have instructed Reuters.

Zients served because the White Home COVID coordinator from the beginning of the Biden administration in early 2021 via April of final yr. He was credited with overseeing and implementing Biden’s efforts to get Individuals vaccinated, but additionally confronted criticism that the administration didn’t do sufficient early on to spice up testing capability.

Zients additionally served as an financial adviser to President Barack Obama’s administration, wherein Biden served as vice chairman.

The White Home had no instant remark.

Zients’s return to the White Home would come as Biden prepares to declare his intention to hunt a second four-year time period in 2024, a transfer anticipated after the State of the Union handle subsequent month.

The chief of workers place, thought-about some of the essential on the White Home, is the senior political appointee liable for driving the president’s coverage agenda and guaranteeing applicable workers members are employed.

The job can have a excessive burnout fee because the lengthy days pile up. Biden’s predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, went via 4 chiefs of workers in 4 years.