Biden Makes Picks for Big White House Roles

Campaign chief Jen O'Malley Dillon slated to be deputy chief of staff
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Nov 17, 2020 11:51 AM CST
Biden Makes Picks for Big White House Roles
Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., right, watches as Joe Biden appears on a "Zoom with Oprah Winfrey" virtual show in October. He will play a senior role in the Biden White House.   (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Joe Biden announced a raft of top White House staff positions on Tuesday, drawing from the senior ranks of his campaign and some of his closest confidants to fill out an increasingly diverse White House leadership team, per the AP:

  • Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon will serve as a deputy chief of staff. The 44-year-old was the first woman to manage a successful Democratic presidential campaign. She is a veteran political operative who worked on both of Barack Obama’s White House bids.
  • Campaign co-chair Rep. Cedric Richmond, a 47-year-old African American who represents Louisiana, will leave Congress to be a senior adviser and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, the role Valerie Jarrett filled in the Obama administration. He’s expected to engage with Congress and focus on the Black community and other minority groups.

  • Campaign adviser Steve Ricchetti, who served as Biden's chief of staff in Obama's second term, also will have a senior White House role; Mike Donilon, a longtime Biden confidant, will serve as a senior adviser; Dana Remus, the campaign’s current general counsel, will be counsel to the president; Julie Chavez Rodriguez, granddaughter of the late farmworker union leader César Chávez and one of Biden’s deputy campaign managers, will serve as director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; and Annie Tomasini, who is currently Biden’s traveling chief of staff, will serve as the director of Oval Office operations.
  • Anthony Bernal will serve as a senior adviser to Jill Biden, after he was her chief of staff on the campaign, and Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon, a former Obama ambassador to Uruguay, as her chief of staff.
(Biden previously picked his chief of staff.)

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