This article is about the former White House chief of staff. For the former Florida politician, see Ron Klein. For similarly named people, see Ron Klein (disambiguation).
Ronald Alan Klain (born August 8, 1961)[1] is an American attorney, political consultant, and former lobbyist who served as White House chief of staff under President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2023.
Throughout 2020 he worked as a senior advisortoBiden's presidential campaign.[3][4] Following his victory, Biden announced on November 12 that Klain would serve as White House chief of staff.[5][6] During his tenure as chief of staff, Klain was often characterized as a key ally of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party within the White House.[7][8][9]
In January 2023, Klain announced his plans to step down as chief of staff in the weeks after Biden's State of the Union address in February.[10][11] He was succeeded in the role by Jeff Zients on February 7.[11]
Klain joined the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992 and was involved in both of Bill Clinton's presidential campaigns.[22] He oversaw Clinton's judicial nominations. In the White House, Klain was Associate Counsel to the President, directing judicial selection efforts and leading the team that won confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.[22] In 1994, he became chief of staff and counselor to Attorney General Janet Reno and in 1995, chief of staff to Al Gore.[23]
Klain continued to serve as Gore's chief of staff following the official launch of Gore's presidential campaign on June 16, 1999.[24] On August 2, 1999, Klain resigned from the role to join the Washington, D.C., office of O'Melveny & Myers, a law firm.[25][26] As general counsel of Gore's Recount Committee, Klain oversaw the November–December 2000 recount of votes in Florida, which ended when the Supreme Court put an end to the counting and George W. Bush was named the winner.[2]
Klain prepping President Obama for a presidential debate in 2012. John Kerry (center) played the role of Mitt Romney.
During the early primaries of the 2004 presidential campaign, Klain worked as an adviser to Wesley Clark during Clark's run for president. After John Kerry won the Democratic nomination, Klain became heavily involved behind the scenes in his campaign.[27] Klain was registered as a lobbyist for Fannie Mae until 2005.[28]
Klain served as an informal adviser to Evan Bayh who is from Klain's home state of Indiana. In 2005, Klain left his partnership at O'Melveny & Myers to become executive vice president and general counsel of Revolution LLC, a technology venture capital firm launched by AOL co-founder Steve Case.[2] At the time of his October 2014 appointment as Ebola response coordinator, he was general counsel at Revolution LLC and President of Case Holdings.[29]
In May 2010, amid concerns about whether the now-defunct solar-panel company Solyndra was viable, Klain gave the go-ahead for an Obama visit to the factory, and stated in an email to White House advisor Valerie Jarrett that "the reality is that if POTUS visited 10 such places over the next 10 months, probably a few will be belly-up by election day 2012."[35]
Klain was mentioned as a possible replacement for White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel,[36] but opted to leave the White House in January 2011 and return to Case Holdings, where he oversaw Revolution LLC and assisted Steve Case and his wife, Jean Case, in administering the Case Foundation.[37]
On October 17, 2014, Klain was appointed the "Ebola response coordinator" sometimes referred to as Ebola "czar."[38][39][40] Although Klain, according to Julie Hirschfeld Davis writing in The New York Times, had "no record or expertise in Ebola specifically or public health in general,"[39] the choice was praised by Ezra Klein for his bureaucratic experience with coordinating agencies.[41][42] His term as Ebola response coordinator ended in February 2015.
After his term as Ebola czar, Klain worked as an external advisor to the Skoll Foundation Global Threats Fund.[43] He also served as chairman, public advocate and private advisor for Higher Grounds Labs, which describes itself as supporting "start-ups building products that help progressives win."[44]
During the 2020 Biden campaign, Klain served as an advisor on the COVID-19 pandemic.[48] In April 2020 he told Wired: "If we’re going to make Covid-19 go away, we’re going to need a very high vaccination rate. The number one public health challenge of 2021 is going to be getting people to take the vaccine."[48] He helped Biden prepare for the presidential debates against Trump.[49][50] On November 11, 2020, it was announced that President-elect Joe Biden had selected Klain to be White House Chief of Staff.[51][52]
Klain has received praise for his organizational abilities and for his responsiveness while serving as President Biden's chief of staff, while drawing criticism for being overly concerned with élite opinion, as reflected by his active Twitter presence, and for being too aligned with his party's left bloc. During his first year in his position, Klain used Twitter, saying "I find being on Twitter useful as an early-warning system of things that, to be honest, reporters are talking about." He also uses the platform to take aim at critics and to push pro-Biden messages.[53]
On January 21, 2023, it was reported that Klain would resign as chief of staff in the period following the 2023 State of the Union Address on February 7.[56] On February 1, 2023, the White House held a goodbye transition event for Klain.[57][58] Klain returned to legal services firm, O'Melveny & Myers LLP as a partner, on April 18, 2023, to lead its Strategic Counseling and Crisis Management Practice.[59]
On November 20, 2023, Airbnb announced that Klain would join the company as chief legal officer on January 1, 2024.[60]
During the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Klain publicly warned the Biden reelection campaign to refocus on immediate economic problems affecting American voters such as inflation rather than long-term projects such as infrastructure investments.[61]
Klain is married to Monica Medina, an attorney, consultant, and co-founder of Our Daily Planet, an environmental news platform.[62] They were college sweethearts at Georgetown and in February 2019 he tweeted that they were celebrating their 40th Valentine's Day together.[63] They have three adult children, Hannah, Michael and Daniel.[64][13]
In financial disclosures, Klain reported owning assets worth $4.4–12.2 million in 2021 compared to $1.4–3.5 million in 2009. He received a salary of almost $2 million in 2020 from the venture capital firm Revolution LLC, where he served as general counsel and executive vice president.[65][66] In 2009, he reported earning a salary of $1 million.[65]
Klain was portrayed by Kevin Spacey in the HBO film Recount, which depicted the tumult of the 2000 presidential election.[32] In 2021, he was included in the Time 100, Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[68] In 2023, Klain was portrayed by Jon Levine in season four of For All Mankind, which takes place in an alternate timeline in which Al Gore wins the 2000 election and Klain becomes the White House liaison to NASA.[69]
^"Student Honors". Indiana Jewish Post. Indianapolis, Indiana. June 18, 1976. p. 15. Archived from the original on November 12, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
^"Ron Klain". Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service McCourt School of Public Policy. Archived from the original on August 16, 2016. Retrieved August 3, 2016.
^ abc"Ron Klain". Washington Post Politics. Archived from the original on January 8, 2019. Retrieved January 8, 2019.
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