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| Photo Credit: AP. |
The White House is facing a series of staff shakeup following indications that many aides have left or are preparing to leave after 18 months on the job. The timing is coming at a perilous moment for Democrats ahead of midterm elections amidst President Biden’s poor job approval rating and soaring inflation.
Analyst believe the US may be headed for recession more than
a decade after the global credit crunch which affected big banks and witnessed
the eventual demise of Lema Brothers during the George Bush years.
“Given the complex challenges that the administration is
facing, these departures are coming at an inopportune time,” said Democratic
strategist Joel Payne, according to The Hill.
“At this point in an administration, it is not abnormal to
experience attrition,” Joel added.
A senior administration official acknowledged that many
aides are “tapped out,” according to The Hill.
“It’s been a long few years,” the official said. “The
burnout is real. It might not be the ideal time to leave with everything going
on, but it’s the right time.”
This week the White House announced that White House counsel
Dana Remus would leave her post next month and would be replaced by her top
deputy Stuart Delery.
There are predictions that the GOP would take the House and
Senate chambers after November’s midterm election.
Republican lawmakers are expected to probe the Joe Biden administration
on a number of topics.
Former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), a Biden ally and senior
policy adviser at Nossaman LLP, argued that Remus’s departure offers good
timing for the White House to prepare for such investigations, according to The
Hill.
“I think it would be more surprising if she left in the
fall. I think that her timing now provides Delery more than ample time to get
prepared for the kinds of onslaught they expect from Republicans in the fall,”
he said.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, was named
senior adviser to the president for public engagement this week and will
replace former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), who left the White House last
month, The Hill reported.
Bottoms will take on a top adviser role in the West Wing
after serving as vice chairwoman of civic engagement and voter protection at
the Democratic National Committee.
According to The Hill Julie Chavez Rodriguez was promoted
this week to senior adviser and assistant to the president and plans to
continue serving as director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental
Affairs.
President Biden’s approval rating tanked for its third
straight week to an abysmal 39 percent with 56 percent of Americans
disapproving of his job performance.
Stewart Verdery, a former aide in the George W. Bush
administration, argued that tough polling for Biden isn’t at the fault of officials
inside the White House, according to The Hill.
“This administration actually has had a ton of stability at
its senior levels. The cabinet is intact and most senior staff are still in
place, especially compared to the roller-coaster of personnel changes we saw in
2019 and 2020,” he said, referring to the tumultuous Trump administration.
“The dismal poll numbers for the Democrats are more about
angst about their local policies — school shutdowns, prosecutors who don’t
prosecute, homelessness — and the worldwide energy market than anything
specific White House political staff can affect,” he added.
Former press secretary Jen Psaki left the press office last
month to take a job at MSNBC and was replaced by Karine Jean-Pierre – the first
Black and first openly LGBTO person to hold the role, according The Hill.
Biden’s rapid response director Mike Gwin left for a role at
the Treasury Department after serving in the White House since Biden took
office. This week Michael Kikukawa , a press wrangler left for a role at
Treasury.
Vedant Patel, who had served as an assistant press secretary
since Biden took office, left for the State Department, and Amanda Finney,
former chief of staff in the White House press office, left for the Department
of Energy, The Hill reported.
Mr Biden admitted this week during an interview that
recession is not inevitable owing to skyrocketing inflation and low consumer
confidence in the economy as well as interest rate hikes and the vow by the
Federal Reserve to do whatever is required to halt rising inflation.