Biden chooses all-female senior White House press team

WILMINGTON, Del. – President-elect Joe Biden will have an all-female senior communications team at his White House, led by campaign communications director Kate Bedingfield.

Bedingfield will serve as Biden’s White House communications director. Longtime Democratic spokesperson Jen Psaki will be his press secretary.

Biden also plans to appoint Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, according to a person familiar with the transition process who secured the anonymity to speak freely about the deliberations.

All three are Obama administration veterans. Bedingfield was Biden’s director of communications while he was vice president; Psaki was a White House communications director and State Department spokesperson; and Tanden was a senior advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, and helped develop the Affordable Care Act.

“Communicating directly and honestly to the American people is one of the most important jobs of a president, and this team will be given the enormous responsibility of connecting the American people to the White House,” Biden said in a statement.

“These skilled and experienced communicators bring diverse perspectives to their work and a common commitment to better rebuild this country,” he added.

Karine Jean Pierre, who was the chief of staff to Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, will be the President-elect’s senior press assistant. She is another alumnus of the Obama administration, having previously served as regional policy director in the White House’s Bureau of Political Affairs.

Pili Tobar, who was communications director for the coalitions on the Biden campaign, will be his deputy director of communications at the White House. Most recently, she was Deputy Director of America’s Voice, an immigration reform advocacy group, and a member of the press staff of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y.

The transition also announced the appointment of three senior advisers to the Biden campaign to senior communications positions. Ashley Etienne, former director of communications for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will be Harris’ director of communications. Symone Sanders, another senior advisor to the Biden campaign, will be Harris’ senior advisor and chief spokesperson.

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Elizabeth Alexander, who served as the former vice president’s press secretary and communications director while serving as a U.S. Senator from Delaware, will be Jill Biden’s communications director.

The hires reflect Biden’s stated desire to build a diverse White House team – four of the top seven communications positions will be filled by women of color, and this is the first time that the entire senior communications team at the White House. Maison Blanche is entirely female.

But they also reflect what should be a throwback to a more traditional White House press operation, after President Donald Trump upset the way his administration communicated with the press.

Unlike the precedent set by past administrations, Trump’s communications team held few press briefings, and those that did take place were often combative cases riddled with inaccuracies and lies. Trump himself has at times been his own press secretary, answering questions from the media, and he has often bypassed the White House press corps entirely by tapping into his favorite Fox News shows.

After his campaign went virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic, Biden faced some of his own criticism for not being accessible to reporters. But towards the end of the campaign, he answered questions from the press more frequently and his transition team has held weekly briefings since he was elected president.

The choice of a number of veterans of the Obama administration – many of whom have close relations with the Washington press – suggests a return to a more pleasant relationship with the press.

Meanwhile, at the OMB, Tanden would be tasked with preparing Biden’s budget presentation and would commission several hundred budget analysts, economists and policy advisers with in-depth knowledge of the workings of government.

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His choice may appease progressives, who pressured Biden to show his commitment to progressive priorities with his first appointments. She has been chosen from more moderate voices with roots in the party’s anti-deficit wing, such as Bruce Reed, who was the personnel director of President Barack Obama’s Deficit Committee in 2010, which came up with a set of recommendations. politically painful that have never been acted upon.