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Ron Klain’s imminent departure as the White House chief of staff is the first step in a broader reshuffling among President Joe Biden’s advisers as he prepares for a 2024 re-election bid.
Jeff Zients, who led the Biden administration’s Covid-19 response, is set to replace Klain, and other White House aides are expected to leave in the coming months and shift over to the campaign, sources said.
But one part of Biden’s administration has been unusually stable, and it looks to stay that way for the foreseeable future: the Cabinet secretaries who run the sprawling federal government. Not one of the 15 department heads in the presidential line of succession quit in the first half of Biden’s term, nor have any given notice that they plan to leave any time soon, White House officials said.
The absence of turnover among the Biden appointees — whose jobs include stopping crime, keeping food safe and guarding against attack — is a rarity. Since Ronald Reagan’s presidency in the 1980s, only Barack Obama had no one from the Cabinet step down by the midpoint of his first term, said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Miller Center, a think tank on the presidency at the University of Virginia.
By contrast, Donald Trump churned through Cabinet secretaries as president — and senior staff members — at a head-spinning clip; nearly half his Cabinet had turned over as he entered his third year in office. By early 2019, Trump had cycled through seven of 15 Cabinet secretaries and was on his third chief of staff.
“Not one single member of the Cabinet has left in disgrace, is writing a tell-all book or has bad-mouthed the president,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., who is close to the Biden White House. “There are no leaks, no backbiting, nothing.”
The new Republican-controlled House may try to yank at least one from his job. Some GOP House members hope to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in reprisal for what they see as lax immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border. A White House official said Mayorkas would fight any such attempt and has no wish to step down.
The durability of Biden’s Cabinet is something of a surprise. Before the midterm elections in November, some administration officials believed Cabinet departures hinged on whether Democrats kept control of the Senate.
