- Today, I'm pleased to announce nominations and staff
for critical foreign policy and national security positions.
Key nominations and appointments
for the critical economic positions.
I'm really pleased to add members to my team
that'll get the job done.
- It's a rule of thumb in Washington
that personnel is policy.
That is to say, a new president's choices
for top jobs in his administration tell you an awful lot
about where that administration will be headed.
We've now seen President-elect Joe Biden make more
than two dozen choices for top jobs
in the administration that will take office in January,
and that's enough to draw some conclusions
about the kind of team he's put together.
The first thing to say, perhaps,
is that Mr. Biden clearly chose not to let the dispute
about the outcome of the 2020 election,
those lawsuits President Trump and his campaign have filed
to try to overturn the results,
from getting in the way
of moving forward on the personnel front.
You know, under similar circumstances in 2000,
when the outcome of the election again was under dispute,
the new president, then George W. Bush,
chose not to make choices for top jobs until December,
and some people think that put his new administration
behind the curve a little bit at the outset.
That's clearly a risk Mr. Biden chose not to take.
Beyond that, there are several notable characteristics
that mark the emerging Biden team.
First, it's center left, not far left.
Joe Biden campaigned and won as a centrist Democrat,
and against the more progressive wing of his own party,
and his team reflects that.
There's no Senator Bernie Sanders.
There's no Senator Elizabeth Warren.
They're the favorites of Democratic progressives.
Instead, Mr. Biden has tended more
toward fellow veterans of the Obama administration,
people with establishment credentials,
and people who have worked with Mr. Biden for years,
including his Chief of Staff, Ron Klain,
his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan,
his White House Counselor Steve Ricchetti,
his Secretary of State Tony Blinken,
and the latest addition to that list,
and the surprising one, Susan Rice,
who's moved from being a national security expert
to Head of the Domestic Policy Council.
Second, this is not exactly a team of rivals.
You know when Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008,
he famously picked his top Democratic primary opponent
that year, Hillary Clinton, to be his Secretary of State,
arguably the most important person in his Cabinet.
- I have known Hillary Clinton as a friend, a colleague,
a source of counsel, and a tough campaign opponent.
She possesses an extraordinary intelligence,
and a remarkable work ethic.
I am proud that she will be our next Secretary of State.
- Well, that hasn't been so much the pattern here.
Joe Biden obviously picked Kamala Harris,
a primary season opponent, to be his running mate,
and he's just chosen Pete Buttigieg,
the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana,
and another opponent in the primaries
to be Secretary of Transportation.
But most of the top jobs have instead gone
to people who Joe Biden has known
for years in other capacities, such as General Lloyd Austin,
who was the leader of troops in Iraq
when Joe Biden was vice-president,
they got to know each other then,
he's picked to be now Secretary of Defense.
Third, this team is diverse.
Mr. Biden said during the campaign,
and repeatedly since the election,
that he wants to pick a team that looks like America,
and his choices clearly reflect a desire to do that.
- I said at the outset, I wanted to represent,
this campaign to represent and look like America.
We've done that.
Now that's what I want the administration
to look like and act like.
For all those of you.
- Some firsts have been set here.
The White House communications team
will be made up of all women.
The Treasury Secretary will be a woman.
Her deputy will be a black man.
The former Head of the Congressional Black Caucus
will be a top White House advisor.
The Director of National Intelligence will be a woman
for the first time.
Some on the left will say
there should have been more diversity,
but some critics will say there has been some diversity
for diversity's sake, and they'll probably point
at General Austin at the Pentagon,
or California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
at the Department of Health and Human Services,
despite the fact he doesn't have a health
or a medical background.
Fourth, most of these picks will not be controversial,
but a few may be.
It's rare for a new president not
to get the Senate to go along
with his top choices to fill out his new administration,
but it's not unheard of.
The most notable exception
in recent times probably came in 1988,
when the new president, George H. W. Bush,
picked a former Senator, John Tower,
to be a Secretary of Defense,
and the Senate rejected that pick.
- I will be recorded as the first Cabinet nominee
in the history of the Republic to be rejected
in the first 90 days of a presidency,
and perhaps be harshly judged.
- If Republicans control the Senate after a couple
of runoff races in Georgia in January,
they'll be in a position
to block President-elect Biden's picks
if they choose to do so,
and they may make one
or two choices to make that point clear.
One of the people who's perhaps vulnerable
in that regard is Neera Tanden,
picked to head the Office of Management and Budget,
and who's riled up Republican senators
with some of her partisan comments over the years.
As he finishes out his team,
it'll be interesting to see
whether Mr. Biden goes for a couple of Republicans
for offices, just to make real his pledge
that he wants to work across the aisle with the other party.
Bottom line is that this team, as is often the case,
reflects the president that has chosen it.
That is to say,
it's long on Washington experience, and center left.