What It Takes to Be White House Chief of Staff

Summary

Podcast Summary:

The Political Scene | The New Yorker
Episode: What It Takes to Be White House Chief of Staff
Date: July 7, 2023
Host & Panel: Evan Osnos, Jane Mayer, Susan Glasser

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Main Theme

This episode unpacks the essential, behind-the-scenes role of the White House Chief of Staff—often dubbed the "second most powerful job in Washington." The hosts examine the unique pressures of the job, profile legendary chiefs like Jim Baker, and discuss the recent transition from Ron Klain to Jeffrey Zients in the Biden administration. Drawing from history, they analyze what makes an effective chief of staff, the consequences when the job is mishandled, and the implications of Biden’s choice for the role as he heads toward reelection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Grind and Turnover of the Job

[03:30] Jane Mayer:

• Ron Klain’s departure as Biden’s Chief of Staff is unsurprising due to the job’s immense pressures and his own exhaustion.
• Klain stayed through notable legislative victories and a strong midterm for Democrats, leaving on a high note.
• "It is a job that really wears you out. And he in some ways had hoped that maybe he would get out even earlier."
• The average tenure is about 18 months—Klain’s was somewhat longer.

2. Klain’s Legacy: Power and Political Fusion

[05:03] Susan Glasser:

• Klain unified political strategy and legislative management, a rare and powerful combination in the modern White House.
• His micromanagement made him a central figure, the “indispensable man.”
• The transition to Jeffrey Zients signals a shift—Zients is a technocrat lauded for managerial skills rather than political instincts.

Quote [06:52] Susan Glasser:
"Klain had his hand in everything and everyone looked to him. That's why he was an extraordinarily powerful chief of staff."

3. Can the Job Be Split? Historical Lessons from Jim Baker

[08:12] Susan Glasser:

• Jim Baker's "laws of power":
  1. Real Estate: Proximity to the President (corner office) equates to power.
  2. Paper: Control of information flow to the President.
  3. Personnel: Authority to hire key staff ensures loyalty and control.
• Baker’s ability to blend power, politics, and policy set the gold standard.
• Memorable anecdote [10:42]: Baker outmaneuvered Ed Meese for real decision-making authority, even if Meese got the flashier title.

4. The Role as Presidential Protector

[11:29] Jane Mayer:

• Baker’s skill was in guarding the Oval Office from dangerous influences—a role his successor Donald Regan failed at, leading to the Iran-Contra scandal.
• Chiefs of staff "are supposed to have this passion for anonymity," but when ego takes over (as with Regan), dysfunction follows.

Quote [14:08] Susan Glasser (on Baker and power):
"The problem is with some chiefs of staff, they think they're more chief than staff."

5. Historical Parallels: Dysfunction Is Not New

[16:27] Susan Glasser:

• White House chaos, infighting, and scandal predate Trump.
• Reagan’s presidency, often mythologized, was rife with internal intrigue—a crucible that made Baker’s competence even more impressive.

6. The Chief of Staff and First Ladies’ Influence

[14:29] Jane Mayer:

• Nancy Reagan played a decisive behind-the-scenes personnel role, highlighting the importance (and sometimes opacity) of spouse influence.
• In Biden's White House, Jill Biden is "the keeper of the faith," and her views are central to personnel decisions.

[17:35] Evan Osnos:
"Jill Biden is one of the people who is the keeper of the faith. And she remembers when people are loyal and not loyal."

7. Trump’s Chiefs: Enablers and Facilitators

[19:37] Evan Osnos:

• Trump’s chiefs of staff were a "tragic, comic parade," marked by short tenures and dysfunction.
• Mark Meadows in particular allowed Trump unchecked freedom, culminating in complicity with the January 6 events.

Quote [19:57] Jane Mayer:
"Mark Meadows, the last chief of staff, becomes the chief who lets the president do whatever he wants instead of trying to protect him from himself... They basically stage an attempted coup to overthrow the 2020 election, and Mark Meadows goes right along with it."

8. The Uncomfortable Job of Telling the President “No”

[22:38] Jane Mayer:

• A key role is to "tell the President what he doesn't want to hear," something almost all of Trump's chiefs failed to do.
• Chiefs' gatherings emphasized this: confidence and independence are essential.

Quote [23:16] Evan Osnos quoting Baker:
"You have to be a shit detector. You have to be willing to prevent the President from getting into trouble."

9. Biden’s Choice of Zients: Technocrat vs. Political Operator

[24:58] Evan Osnos:

• Biden may overestimate his own political instincts, often surrounding himself with long-trusted aides.
• By picking Zients (a "Mr. Fix-it" known for managerial acumen and wealth), Biden gambles that efficiency and government performance will trump pure political prowess.
• Zients’ wealth could translate into a rare degree of independence, possibly making him more willing to offer tough counsel.

[26:01] Jane Mayer:

• The risk: there’s rarely a true divide between policy and politics in D.C., and managing both is key to success.

10. The Coming Test: 2024 and the Stakes

[27:03] Susan Glasser:

• Biden’s reelection bid, age, and a restive Democratic coalition make the chief’s portfolio even more critical.
• Zients must not only manage paper but principles—meaning, manage Biden himself.

Quote [30:26] Susan Glasser:
"It's not managing a paper flow, which is clearly something that Jeff Zients is expert at, it's managing the principles. And Joe Biden is not necessarily the easiest principle to manage. And that's his client and his customer and his portfolio all wrapped up in one."

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• [06:52] Susan Glasser:
  "Klain had his hand in everything and everyone looked to him. That's why he was an extraordinarily powerful chief of staff."
• [14:08] Susan Glasser (on Baker and power):
  "The problem is with some chiefs of staff, they think they're more chief than staff."
• [19:57] Jane Mayer (on Mark Meadows):
  "Mark Meadows, the last chief of staff, becomes the chief who lets the president do whatever he wants instead of trying to protect him from himself..."
• [23:16] Evan Osnos quoting Baker:
  "You have to be a shit detector. You have to be willing to prevent the President from getting into trouble."
• [30:26] Susan Glasser (on Zients’ challenge):
  "It's not managing a paper flow, which is clearly something that Jeff Zients is expert at, it's managing the principles. And Joe Biden is not necessarily the easiest principle to manage..."
• [30:47] Evan Osnos (on the job's toll):
  "I think the old joke is that if you come in at 6 foot 4, you leave 5 foot 9."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:38] — The role and challenges of the chief of staff introduced
• [03:30] — Reflecting on Ron Klain's tenure
• [05:06] — Transition to Zients and the risk of bifurcating the job
• [08:12] — Jim Baker’s power strategies
• [11:29] — How the chief of staff protects the president
• [14:29] — Behind-the-scenes influence of First Ladies
• [19:37] — The Trump-era revolving door and enabling culture
• [22:38] — The necessity of delivering hard truths
• [24:58] — Why Biden chose Zients and what it means
• [29:32] — Managing presidential temperament
• [30:19] — Advice for Zients; the real challenge ahead

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Final Insights

• The job of White House Chief of Staff is an unparalleled mix of power, stress, and responsibility—equal parts politics, management, and gatekeeping.
• History shows the dangers of a chief who is either too weak, too self-important, or not brutally honest with the president.
• Biden’s shift from political operator (Klain) to technocrat (Zients) could redefine the last phase of his presidency and shape his reelection campaign—testing whether government efficiency or political acumen best equips a president for the battles ahead.

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This summary captures the full breadth and insights of the discussion for listeners seeking an in-depth understanding of the White House Chief of Staff’s stakes and evolving role.

Transcript

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[Evan Osnos]

Welcome to the Political Scene from the New Yorker, a weekly discussion about the big questions in American politics. The Evan I'm Evan Osnos and I'm joined as ever, by my colleagues Jane Mayer and Susan Glaser.

[Jane Mayer]

Hi Evan.

[Susan Glasser]

Hey there.

[Evan Osnos]

It's the toughest job in government, Tim, and it's probably the worst job in government. And I can speak with some authority because I have held a job longer than anybody in history except two people.

[Susan Glasser]

And those two people went to jail.

[Evan Osnos]

So you can see that's Jim Baker, the Velvet Hammer, as he was known. It's a nickname which perfectly encapsulates his time as a very effective chief of staff to both Ronald Reagan and then George H.W. bush. That job. The White House chief of staff is sometimes called the second most powerful position in Washington because it can make or break a presidency. But it's not easy. Dick Cheney, in fact, attributed his first heart attack to the stresses of being chief of staff, and the role comes with some real pitfalls in it. Earlier this year, Joe Biden's first chief of staff, Ron Klain, left the administration and was replaced by Jeffrey Zients. When we spoke last winter, the transition from Klain to Zients was a jumping off point to look at what it's actually like to run a White House. Since then, Biden has announced his re election campaign and the White House has clashed with House Republicans over investigations and the budget developments which do not make Jeffrey Zients new job any easier. Jane, as we say, Ron Klain is packing up. This is not a huge surprise. It's around the time that folks begin to cycle in and out. He's been on this job essentially nonstop since the beginning of the campaign, even before they were in the White House. The average tenure of a chief of staff I read recently is about 18 months. He lasted a little longer than that. What's your assessment of how Ron Klain did and your sense of why he's leaving?

[Jane Mayer]

Well, I mean, I think, as you say, it's not a surprise he's leaving. Everybody who knew him had heard that he was saying he was exhausted. It is a job that really wears you out. And he in some ways had hoped that maybe he would get out even earlier. But he hung in there and it turned out to be a good thing that he did because earlier in the administration, if he had left, it would have looked like he was leaving in a down moment. He managed to hang on through the midterm elections where the Democrats did surprisingly well. He has a lot of legislation that got passed in the first half of the term. And you know, there are accomplishments that he can tout. I mean, there were people who said, I actually got an email from someone who said, is he leaving because of the dialogue documents that they found in Biden's garage? No. I mean, this has been in the works for quite some time. I mean, and Ron Klain, when he leaves, I think it's, you have to say he has been next to the president, the indispensable man inside the White House. So it leaves very big shoes to fill. He's been involved in politics in Washington for basically his whole adult life, it seems almost. I mean, he had a brief stint in the business world before he came into the Biden White House, but he worked on the Hill with Biden in the Senate. He worked with Biden in the vice presidency. And you know, he really knows his way around. And he's being replaced by someone who is much more of a newbie.

[Evan Osnos]

Susan, what do you make of this transition?

[Susan Glasser]

Well, look, first of all, let's say Ron Klain has been the most powerful Democratic Chief of staff in many years and I think very, very effective. He was, as Jane said, the indispensable man, but he really defined the Biden presidency so far. And I think that this moment of transition is critical for any president, but it's particularly critical for Joe Biden. This is kind of a make or break moment for Biden where he is facing a decision, or probably a decision he's already made to run for reelection. And he's made a very consequential choice to go not with the new chief of staff who brings political savvy and experience to the table, but one who is praised universally, Jeffrey Zients, for his management sty technocrat. So Biden has made potentially a decisive choice here about how he's gonna run his White House in the final two years of this term, and that he's essentially setting up a bifurcated presidency from here on. And if he runs for reelection, Jeffrey Zients is gonna be the guy who's actually kind of essentially doing the work of the presidency and the administration, while the rest of Biden's team is focused completely on the election. Now, Ron Klain unified those things, and he was a super powerful chief of staff for that reason. He had both the politics portfolio and the legislation portfolio, the governing portfolio, if you will. He was also, by all accounts, and Evan, I'd be interested in your take on this, but something of a real micromanager by everything that I've heard over the last couple years. Klain had his hand in everything and everyone looked to him. That's why he was an extraordinarily powerful chiefs of staff and presidencies rise or fall, and who you pick in that job, which is why we're having this conversation.

[Evan Osnos]

You know, one of the things you identified about him was that he did have his hand on a lot of things. I mean, the caricature of him, particularly from the right, was that he was, in effect, the prime minister of this White House. But it really is true that it was very hard to find an issue where after a couple of calls, people didn't say, you really need to talk to Ron Klain about it. I wanna drill down on something, Susan, that you mentioned, this interesting question about whether it's possible to bifurcate the political from the management task. A lot of people will know you wrote a celebrated book with Peter Bake called the man who Ran the Life and Times of James A. Baker iii, who is really recognized as kind of the model chief of staff that a lot of his successors have all Sort of aspired to be. And I want to read a sentence from the book. You say that Baker had not become the ultimate Washington player because of his ideological fervor, but because he figured out how to wield the levers of power. His doctrine was deal making. And you can't make deals and get things done while criticizing from the outside. You have to be allowed to play the game before you can win it. What you're describing is this fusion of kind of bare knuckle political instinct with an understanding that you then have to operate the machine. How do you see that playing out in the current context?

[Susan Glasser]

Yeah, well, that's exactly right. That to wield power, you first of all have to have it. And actually, Jim Baker became sort of the gold standard coming into a Reagan White House, a Reagan presidency where he'd actually run two national campaigns against Ronald Reagan. So it's kind of a remarkable thing. And the very first thing that he did, I think is very instructive. What is power really in Washington? The guy who was supposed to get the job was Ed Meese, who was Reagan's longtime consigliere from California. A lawyer. Baker's also a lawyer, but he out lawyered Ed Meese is what he did. And they were going to negotiate because Reagan hated conflict. Okay, Baker's going to have the title if she stopped. But you two work it out. I want a power sharing agreement. There's this memo. We have it in the book. It's an amazing document because he just ran circles around Ed Meese in terms of what really matters in Washington. That will be crucial for Biden's White House, as it is with any White House. And Baker said, forget about the titles. You have those. Whatever you want.

[Jane Mayer]

You want to be in cabinet rank, they called him. Right, Cabinet rank.

[Susan Glasser]

You want to be cabinet rank, great. Absolutely. I don't care. You wanna be on tv, Great. I don't care. Here's what I care about. And he basically got Ed Meese to agree to sign away on the front end before the Reagan presidency even began. The things that matter. What matters in Washington? Baker's laws of power are real estate.

[Evan Osnos]

Okay, where your office is.

[Susan Glasser]

He occupied the traditional corner office of the Chief of staff, so people naturally treated him as the guy in charge. Number one, real estate. Number two, paper. Nothing. Got to see Ronald Reagan that didn't go through Jim Baker's office first. And then number three, personne, he was insured to the White House Office of Personnel. So you hire the people, they think they work for you. And so those three laws essentially are the definition, not only in the White House, but really in any organization, of who's really the guy in charge. But then there is this bigger picture question, because White House chief of staff is a unique job. There's power, but there's politics and there's policy. Baker's model is the one where nothing is done, including the politics, without the approval of the White House chief of staff. And in fact, he actually ran Both Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign and George H.W. bush's failed 1992 reelection campaign from the position of White House chief of staff. And we can talk about it. There's a great story, in fact, how he exiled his big annoying rival in the White House who was the political director.

[Evan Osnos]

Who was that?

[Susan Glasser]

A guy named Ed Rollins. Rollins was a huge. He was sort of the true believer conservative revolutionary who thought that Baker was hopelessly moderate. He was always causing problems. So Baker said, congratulations, Ed, I've gotten you promoted. And I want you to know I fought like heck for you to become the campaign manager. And they basically exiled him. It's really. It's one of my favorite stories because Baker, when he told us this for the book, he was so proud of this, because he understood, right. Like people in Washington, sometimes they get hung up on titles and perks and things like that. And so here this guy has the big grand title of campaign manager for the president's reelection campaign. But every single decision is being made by Jim Baker sitting there in that corner office.

[Jane Mayer]

So I gotta say, having covered that White House for the Wall Street Journal, this is absolutely right. Baker was an incredibly efficient and effective chief of staff, and he is looked at as the model now. And I think. Couple things you guys have said I think are worth taking another look at. And very important one is because Baker had run opposing campaigns, he had a good sense of Ronald Reagan's frailties and vulnerabilities. He knew the weak spots, and he knew what to protect against. And his successor in the job, who was Donald Regan, did not have that. And when I look back and think about Baker during that period, the key thing he did was he stopped dangerous people from getting to Reagan. Reagan had a tendency to. He was gullible. He'd fall for the wrong ideas and get carried away with them. And Baker kept those people who would be bad influences out of the Oval Office. It didn't happen in the second term when Donald Regan took over. And what did you get? The Iran Contra Ferry. You had Oliver north, this charismatic young military figure, Swashbuckling, getting into the Oval Office along with the CIA director, William Casey, in the back of the, you know, in the shadows, basically manipulating Reagan and walking him into a disaster that almost got him impeached. I wrote a book about it, Landslide the.

[Susan Glasser]

Which is a great book, by the way.

[Jane Mayer]

Thank you.

[Susan Glasser]

So including the big scoop there relevant to our last president, Donald Trump, the book opens with the contemplation of whether the 25th Amendment should be invoked by Reagan's own advisors.

[Jane Mayer]

Because, yes, he got. He became after during the Iran Contra faire, which exploded. It's barely remembered now, but it is actually a phenomenal scandal. What happened.

[Susan Glasser]

It's kind of the template of modern stuff.

[Jane Mayer]

It's pretty unbelievable. It ended up with Reagan saying publicly we don't make deals with terrorists, and meanwhile sending piles of money to a bunch of terrorists in order to. Sending them arms in order to get profits that he's then sent to Central America to wage an illegal war. It's hard to believe that it actually happened, but it did. It was an incredible mess and illegal in every way.

[Evan Osnos]

And to your point, Jane, I mean, the fact that it happened was partly because Don Regan was more interested in his own power, his own personality. I mean, he was at one point created this protocol where they would say when he was coming into their room, you know, please. Whatever they would say, please prepare for.

[Jane Mayer]

Please. Tail to the chain.

[Susan Glasser]

By the way, that's another rule, Cardinal rule, which Baker loves to. And by the way, he's 92 years old, still doing well in Houston, Texas, where he was from and lived the rest of his life. Baker will still. He loves to say the problem is with some chiefs of staff, they think they're more chief than staff. And Reagan, that was his problem.

[Jane Mayer]

But it was kind of amazing. Cause Reagan. So in the second term, you have an overwhelming landslide election. Ronald Reagan's reelected, and the deal about who would be his chief of staff was made behind his back. And basically what happened was the Treasury Secretariat at the time, Donald Regan wanted to get in closer to what he saw as the power center, the White House. And Baker, who had been the Chief of staff, was exhausted and thought Treasury Secretary was a really distinguished and important Cabinet role. And so they worked out a deal between them and basically presented it to the President, who went along with it and turned out to be a fateful deal, I guess I should say, for Reagan, it went on. And pretty soon Reagan was. Was almost going over the cliff with the Iran Contra affair. He was so depressed and the scandal was subsuming the presidency. And the person who really stepped in and tried to right the ship, believe it or not, was Reagan's wife, Nancy, who was always the unofficial personnel director in that White House. And she basically canned Donald Regan after he idiotically hung up on the first lady in a fight. And I've read that Jim Baker said that that was a firing offense in its own right. And basically they shoved him out the door. Nancy Reagan basically pushed him out the door. And you would have thought that was the end of it. But no, because one of the other things I think is interesting about chiefs of staff is they know everything, they've seen everything, and they're supposed to have this passion for anonymity. But Donald Regan was a real. He was an egotist. And what did he do? He sort of broke the protocol of Washington, which is you keep your mouth shut. And he went out and he wrote a tell all book that got revenge at Nancy Reagan by describing how she was turning to a sorcerer to make major decisions in the White House.

[Susan Glasser]

Well, Jane, listening to you is a reminder in many ways that tumult, chaos and dysfunction did not begin in a White House with Donald Trump, but it certainly has a strong echo of Donald Trump. It's very interesting because of course, Ronald Reagan has been the subject of a sort of modern day cult of personality by Republicans quite up until Donald Trump. But in truth, the Reagan years were characterized by an extraordinary amount of backbiting and infighting and staff turmoil, which made it in many reasons, that's why Baker was seen as so legendary, because the level of intrigue and backstabbing that he had to survive to become the paramount figure in that Reagan White House was very considerable. But I think the basic point that we're talking about here that really brings us up to the present day is this sort of what kind of a White House you have determines what kind of a presidency you have. And that's really the reason we're having this conversation. It's very interesting historically, but it's not just irrelevant. Joe Biden, for example, very different figure than Nancy Reagan, but also a very considerable power broker, as far as we can tell, in the very opaque Biden presidency, isn't she?

[Evan Osnos]

Well, specifically with the outgoing chief of staff, Ron Klain. I mean, there was a point people will Remember in the 2016 campaign. Ron Klain actually ended up working for Hillary, Hillary Clinton a little bit sooner than some people in Biden's orbit would have liked because that was sort of an indication to people who were watching closely that maybe they didn't think that there was all that much chance for a Biden presidency. Of course, he didn't run in the end because of the death of his son. But Jill Biden is one of the people who is the keeper of the faith. And she remembers when people are loyal and not loyal. And one of the people Ron Klain had said had to get back into in order to get back into Biden world was Jill Biden. The political scene from the New Yorker will be back in just a moment.

[Susan Glasser]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.

[Evan Osnos]

I'm Michael Colory, Wired's Director of consumer, Tech and Culture.

[Susan Glasser]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics.

[Jane Mayer]

Right.

[Evan Osnos]

So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin, Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always explain how these Silicon Valley forces are.

[Susan Glasser]

Affecting Washington and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[Jane Mayer]

Reince is a good man. John Kelly will do a fantastic job. Ready? Are you ready?

[Evan Osnos]

So John Kelly will be leaving toward.

[Jane Mayer]

The end of the year, at the end of the year. And I appreciate his service very much.

[Susan Glasser]

Thank you. Thank you all.

[Evan Osnos]

The Trump era really requires us to focus on that specific period of chiefs of staff. It was a kind of tragic, comic parade of these figures. I mean, it's easy to forget them now, one after another, cycling through each one of them, leaving in shock, basically.

[Jane Mayer]

Except for the last one. And again, I think what you see is Mark Meadows, the last chief of staff, becomes the chief of staff who lets the president do whatever he wants instead of trying to protect him from himself, which is really part of the role, a major part of the role of chief of staff. He kind of lets Trump be Trump. And what do they do? They basically stage an attempted coup to overthrow the 2020 election, and Mark Meadows goes right along with it.

[Susan Glasser]

I would even go farther and say that Mick Mulvaney, in some ways, third chief of staff, acting chief of staff. He was so sort of disempowered by Trump on the front end. He wasn't even ever given the formal, actually used let Trump be Trump as his slogan. What I find fascinating about Meadows was that he went beyond merely enabling Trump and was arguably a facilitator of it. He was the person, I think, in many ways, if you study the record, who helped to orchestrate and to create this extraordinary effort to overturn the 2020 election. And that in many ways he was a co conspirator with Donald Trump and someone who gave flesh to Trump's inchoate desires.

[Jane Mayer]

And he let the coup planners in the door again. It's this thing about who guards the door, who keeps the paper, what gets to the president. And you saw some of the strangest and most dangerous schemers that this country's seen sitting there with the President Trump planning how they could overthrow the election.

[Susan Glasser]

Well, let's just talk about the fact that the December 18, 2020 meeting, five hour meeting, the way it has arguably even, and by the way, even Donald Trump called it probably the craziest meeting in the history of the White House. And that's saying something. They discussed Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell's plan to implement martial law. I can pretty much say, I know hypotheticals are hard to do, but I think it's fair to say that almost any other chief of staff who ever served in that job would have literally thrown his body in front of the Oval Office to stop people from coming into the Oval Office and discussing, as they then did for five hours, imposing martial in order to, quote, rerun parts of the election.

[Evan Osnos]

And we also know, based on the January 6 hearings, that when the day itself, when the violence was unfolding, we know this thanks to Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Mark Meadows, that he was made aware of what was happening and he did exactly nothing. In effect, he prevented the transmission of this information or at least an intervention going in and trying to get the President to do something.

[Jane Mayer]

And he said, he said to Cassidy Hutchins, the President, the president doesn't want to hear it. And that is another essence of what this job is supposed to be. There was a gathering of former chiefs of staff at some point. And the basic agreement of the advice to the incoming chiefs of staff was you have to have to tell the President what he doesn't want to hear. And so what you need is someone who's got the confidence and independence to.

[Evan Osnos]

Stand up and say Baker actually had a. As he often does, actually.

[Jane Mayer]

It's a judgment job, really. In the end of the day, you.

[Evan Osnos]

Have to be, as he said, you have to be a shit detector. You have to be willing to prevent the President from getting into trouble. Susan, you know this better. And then help him get out of it when it happens. And you look at what happened in the Trump presidency. And more or less none of them were doing that. They were all force multipliers. They were helping Trump be even more himself.

[Susan Glasser]

Look, I think having this conversation is a reminder about Joe Biden actually being in a pretty perilous position right now. He has just despite, maybe you can say, well, the midterms weren't as bad as they could be, but he's just lost the House of Representatives. He's on the brink of making a very risky decision, it seems to me, to decide to run for president again at the age of 80. If he actually ran and won and at the end of his second term, he would be 86 years old. That is inevitably going to attract much more pressure, scrutiny, and weight to things like who is his chief of staff, who was his vice president, what are the effects, if any, of aging? And frankly, they're visible every day. And so, Evan, I gotta ask you, why did he make what is a little bit of an unconventional choice here? Joe Biden, he's known for really feeling comfortable surrounding people who've worked for him for a long time. Ron Klain, as Jane pointed out, he had a brief detour into Hillary Lamp, but truthfully was a longtime Biden adviser. Many of the other power figures in this administration have a comfort level with Biden. They worked for him for many years. Zients has been around Biden for a long time, but he is not previously a member of the inner circle. And Biden is a highly political figure. His whole career has been in politics, electoral politics, and yet he goes and picks a technocrat. Why?

[Evan Osnos]

I think that at the core, this is because Joe Biden runs close to the line of a risky instinct, which is to say that he thinks sometimes he may be his best political advisor. And he's surrounded by people who have figured out how to operate within that culture. Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn, people who he does listen to. And Ron Klain was absolutely one of them. I mean, there's been reporting recently that one of the things that he's been able to do was he was one of the people who said to Joe Biden in the run up to the 2022 midterms, look, you don't need to be everywhere touting your achievements. That's not gonna play well in a lot of states. You're not that popular. Stick to two messages, abortion and democracy, and go where you're wanted. And that, in the end, turned out to be essential advice. So if he's not there, one of the things we need to figure out is, and we won't know until the moment arrives. Does Jeffrey Zients have that capacity or is his managerial skill enough that he can figure out how to make Mike Donilon and Anita Dunn deliver that news?

[Jane Mayer]

I think you could say two contradictory things about Jeff Zients, who's sort of known around Washington as Mr. Fix. It is his nickname. One is by being being known as a master implementer and technocrat, he can make government efficient and hopefully make the government perform well. And that is actually gonna be the core of Biden's campaign message. Government is valuable to Democrats and I know how to make it work for you. That's gonna be his message and that's important.

[Evan Osnos]

That's not incidental.

[Jane Mayer]

But on the downside, and this is a point that I think Susan made very early on, There really is no bifurcation between and policy implementation and actual politics in Washington. You can have the best record in the world, but if the perception is that you're screwing up or if the public doesn't understand what you're doing, if you can't sell it and have a sort of public role, then it's not gonna be a success.

[Susan Glasser]

I think that's really notable is that you know Klain because he was a very strong and forceful figure in this White House. Right. People are used to coming to him with every kind of question. Political. There's a war that there's running. There's huge legislation that's being negotiated on Capitol Hill that he's in the middle of. He himself was in some ways personally straddling and keeping together the often unwieldy coalition of left progressives and more centrists that make up the Democratic party politics right now. Because Klain might have sympathies with the progressives, but he also had long experience speaking to more establishment Washington. And so you're just gonna look like, take all that kind of like pressure off the top of the White House right now. And I think the potential for conflicts now exists. And let's be real, right? Like it's not a technocratic moment in our politics going into the 2024 campaign. Does anybody think a dispassionate, cool, level headed argument about government working is the way to get a Democrat elected president?

[Evan Osnos]

Actually, Joe Biden might think that.

[Jane Mayer]

Actually I actually would argue that having a really strong record to run on makes a big difference. And. And looking at Zients himself is kind of interesting. Zients is an extraordinarily wealthy chief of staff, far more wealthy than the president and according to reports that have been written, his personal wealth could be up to $400 million or so. He was already over 100 million worth, over $100 million when he was in his 30s. It's a self made fortune. It includes interestingly sort of eye catchingly, something like between 1 and $5 million worth of, of gold bullion. I haven't seen that in a disclosure form before. So I mean it's, he's, you know, he's formidable in terms of wealth, which I imagine is probably something that may help his self confidence and ability to independently. He doesn't need this job. He can independently say to Biden, when Biden's doing something that he thinks is a tragic mistake, he may be be the kind of person who can step up and say, I mean, one of.

[Evan Osnos]

The things, Susan, that Jeffrey Zients is dealing with is we're coming into the second two years of the administration. Everybody's tired, everybody's kind of maybe not as cheerful as they were at the beginning. What role does the chief play in actually managing the president? Him or herself?

[Susan Glasser]

Yeah, I think for Zients that's going to be the definition of the job as it is for so many presidents. And that's another lesson from Jim Baker, is that you have to meet the president and speak his language, whatever that is. Ronald Reagan's love language turned out to be corny jokes. He loved them. That's what he did every morning. That's what he would start the day with, is some super corny joke. Jim Baker, a great storyteller by the way, very sort of Texas charm and loved to tell a good dirty joke, whatever. But he was, he would study up. He would come prepared with a joke to tell with a corny joke each morning because that's Ronald Reagan's language and he needed to manage the president and figure out how to get him in his place.

[Evan Osnos]

If you were delivering some advice to Jeff Zients at this moment, right now, on the cusp of a potential 2024 campaign, what would you tell him?

[Susan Glasser]

Yeah, you know, the trick here is that it's not managing a paper flow, which is clearly something that Jeff Zients is expert at, it's managing the principles. And Joe Biden is not necessarily the easiest principle to manage. And that's his client and his customer and his portfolio all wrapped up in one.

[Evan Osnos]

Well, he's got the job cut out for him. I think the old joke is that if you come in at 6 foot 4, you leave 5 foot 9.

[Jane Mayer]

That's a good one.

[Evan Osnos]

This has been the political Scene from the New Yorker. I'm Evan Osnos. We had production assistance today from Alex d', Elia, Dan Richards and Catherine Winter. Steven Valentino is our executive producer. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. America is changing and so is the world.

[Susan Glasser]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Evan Osnos]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[Susan Glasser]

Tristan Redman in London.

[Jane Mayer]

And this is the Global Story.

[Evan Osnos]

Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and.

[Jane Mayer]

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[Susan Glasser]

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[Jane Mayer]

From.

[Susan Glasser]

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