Most of President-elect Joe Biden's nominees for his administration won't be known until tomorrow, but we've got enough names to start a thread.
* Secretary of State: Antony Blinken.
- Former staff director at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Vice-President Biden's national security advisor; special assistant to President Bill Clinton. Promisingly, he's an advocate of an immediate end to US involvement in arming Saudi Arabia. Here's a transcript of a CBS interview with him, discussing COVID-19 and Syria.
And here he is talking to Grover about refugees.
* Special Envoy for confronting Climate Change: John Kerry. No introduction necessary, of course: 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, and Secretary of State under Barack Obama. Was involved in the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord. In the early 2000s, he also supported US involvement in several military conflicts, including Iraq and Libya-- though he reversed his position on Iraq when no WMDs were found.
* Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas is a Cuban refugee, and has a long career in law, as both a US Attorney and a private practitioner. He acted as Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services for a time under Obama, during which he implemented DACA.
* US Ambassador to the United Nations: Linda Thomas-Greenfield. She was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2013 to 2017.
* Director of National Intelligence: Avril Haines. Former Deputy CIA Director. Haines personally chose not to discipline CIA personnel who were involved in hacking the computers of the authors of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA torture. She also supported Trump's nomination of Gina Haspel as Director of the CIA; Haspel has overseen both torture and the destruction of evidence of torture.
* National Security Advisor: Jake Sullivan. A former foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton. Sullivan's most prominent role was as part of the negotiation team that brokered the Joint Plan of Action, limiting Iran's nuclear program and loosening sanctions.
* White House Chief of Staff: Ron Klain. Previously Chief of Staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden. Briefly worked as a lobbyist for Fannie Mae.
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All in all, there's a lot of Obama-era faces here, as was probably to be expected. I'm optimistic about Mayorkas, given the positive work he's done on facilitating citizenship for refugees (and not only through DACA).
Haines would be biggest alarm bell.
* Secretary of State: Antony Blinken.
- Former staff director at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Vice-President Biden's national security advisor; special assistant to President Bill Clinton. Promisingly, he's an advocate of an immediate end to US involvement in arming Saudi Arabia. Here's a transcript of a CBS interview with him, discussing COVID-19 and Syria.
And here he is talking to Grover about refugees.
* Special Envoy for confronting Climate Change: John Kerry. No introduction necessary, of course: 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate, and Secretary of State under Barack Obama. Was involved in the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord. In the early 2000s, he also supported US involvement in several military conflicts, including Iraq and Libya-- though he reversed his position on Iraq when no WMDs were found.
* Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: Alejandro Mayorkas. Mayorkas is a Cuban refugee, and has a long career in law, as both a US Attorney and a private practitioner. He acted as Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services for a time under Obama, during which he implemented DACA.
* US Ambassador to the United Nations: Linda Thomas-Greenfield. She was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2013 to 2017.
* Director of National Intelligence: Avril Haines. Former Deputy CIA Director. Haines personally chose not to discipline CIA personnel who were involved in hacking the computers of the authors of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on CIA torture. She also supported Trump's nomination of Gina Haspel as Director of the CIA; Haspel has overseen both torture and the destruction of evidence of torture.
* National Security Advisor: Jake Sullivan. A former foreign policy advisor to Hillary Clinton. Sullivan's most prominent role was as part of the negotiation team that brokered the Joint Plan of Action, limiting Iran's nuclear program and loosening sanctions.
* White House Chief of Staff: Ron Klain. Previously Chief of Staff for Vice Presidents Al Gore and Joe Biden. Briefly worked as a lobbyist for Fannie Mae.
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All in all, there's a lot of Obama-era faces here, as was probably to be expected. I'm optimistic about Mayorkas, given the positive work he's done on facilitating citizenship for refugees (and not only through DACA).
Haines would be biggest alarm bell.