Ron Klain

He's actually served his country for many, many years, and among those positions are Chief Council for the Senate Judiciary Committee under then Chairman Joe Biden, Associate Council for Judicial Selection under President Clinton, Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Attorney General Janet Reno, Staff director of the Senate Democratic Leadership Committee under Leader Tom Dashell, and chief of

staff to Vice President Al Gore. In addition, uh He also served as Assistant to the President and chief of staff to Vice President Biden in the Obama administration, and returned after serving several years in that position to serve as the White House E Bowler Response Coordinator. Think you've got the perfect resume for this job, but my question is you know so much about being chief of staff the people, and you know so much about the White House.

Don't you know that being chief of sta after the White House President of the United States is a difficult job to do, and usually the tenure is about eighteen months. So when you were offered the job, did you say, I know I'm only gonna be able to do this for about eighteen months, or do you say I'm gonna make it all four or eight years? Well, David, thanks, thanks that very generous introduction. I appreciate it. Look, I was honored and flattered humbled when President Biden. President Biden

asked me to come do this. Um, it is a ruling job, There's no question about it. I think it's easy to understand why the average tenure in the job is seventeen eighteen months. Um, you know, I'm here every day, working away. I'm honored to be part of this team I have. I'm very lucky. I have probably the most experienced a group of colleagues who have ever served as a senior level in the White House. I have people

who carry a lot of the load every day. That makes the job a lot easier than it would be. We're facing a lot of hard challenges, no question about it. Difficult situations on the international front, a lot of challenges here at home. But I'm really lucky to be part of an A plus team that's tackling these challenges every day. So let's talk about the job of being chief of staff and how the White House works. So the President does he get up early in the morning and call

you at home and say what's going on? Or or do you you get in? What? What time does he get in and what time you meet with the staff people and what time you see him in the beginning and the end of the day. How does that work? So I'm usually in the White House every day by UH and I talked to the President early in the morning by phone from the residents. We have our morning

staff meetings before the President comes downstairs. We have a number of different kinds of alignments of meetings depending on the day of the week and whatnot, UM where we kind of go over what's gonna happen that day, what's gonna what the key questions are that need to be put to the president, What are the key things we need to resolve that day? As a team? As I said, this is UH to the White House many times before. UM, but I think this is the most team oriented staff

I've seen. Uh. Usually the President comes downstairs around nine o'clock. I'm his first meeting the day. Every day, I kind of go through where things are and some key priorities, get his reaction to the materials he's been reading overnight. President takes with him upstairs every evening a thick binder of materials to read, decision memos, UM and briefing memos. Those. He usually comes in with questions. I try to come in with answers UH, and we have a conversation. Then

he proceeds to a number of different staff meetings. I see him a number of times during the day for different kinds of meetings they're going on, whether their national security meetings or domestic policy meetings. And then usually at the end of the day I come in and kind of wrap with him on you know, what are the key outstanding things, what are the things he's going to see in his book that night that he really needs to focus on, Uh, what are the big decisions he's

gonna have to make? And some of the meetings is going to have the next day and UH, today UM does anybody have the right or the senior staff who has walked in privileges? Are you the only one that can walk into the Oval office without an announcement or are there a couple of people that can do that? Now, any of the president's senior advisor of senior policy advisors can come in and see him. Obviously, you know it's he's got to not be in another meeting or whatever.

But but I I we run a White House here where a lot of people have access to the President and a lot of people are able to talk to him straight and directly about what they think without having to go through me. So Um, the president seems like an even tempered person, but you know everybody gets upset from time and time. Does he yell and scream or he's not a yeller and scream, or how does he show his displeasure at something you write a note to him or or to you, or how does he show

say he's not happy? I think one of Joe Biden's great strengths as president is that he hasn't who lived a life filled with incredible triumphs and incredible tragedies. And um, people know his by biography, they know his background, Uh. They know the successes he's had, they know the grave personal setbacks he suffered. And one thing that is true is there's never a morning I go in there with news that's as bad or worse than the news someone else has had to deliver to him at other points

in time in his life. And I think that gives him a very even keel. I think when things are going well, he doesn't get too hyped up, and when when we're having tougher days, he maintains that composure, that demeanor, And I think that's one of the hallmarks of his temperament. One of the things he brings to the office, that that steadiness, that experience uh and uh in a life that has been, as I say, filled with triumph and tragedy, and that's seasoned him and prepared him for this moment.

Some people say, he's you know, it's seventy nine years old. That's old to be president United States. Do you see signs of his age? Is he uh in better shape than you are? And in terms of exercising or how do you deal with the fact that he's, you know, older than anybody's ever been to be president Nited States? Well, he's he He's definitely better shape than I am. That's for sure. He's very fat. He works out almost every day in the morning before he comes down to the

Oval office. Uh. And I think the American people saw for themselves last night the president's stand to give an hour long address that was filled with passion and power and wisdom and energy. They saw him hold the longest press conference in the history of presidents a couple weeks ago at the start of the year. To our press conference, we took questions from all kinds of reporters. So I think his fitness, his vigor is beyond question. Uh. People

see him on the job every day. Uh. And then what they see as a person who's fully capable of doing the job, fully vigorous and great mental and physical health, uh, and taking on the burdens of the office and executing them well. So today you would say the President enjoying the job or does he say, geez, I wish I

hadn't really done this. Well, I don't know that enjoying is the way you describe tackling the responsibilities of being the president United States, And particularly now where I think he has emerged as the leader of the free world, is the person who's leading this coalitions confronting Vladimir Putin. But I think he's very glad he ran for president. I think he is um, you have been well prepared

for the challenges he's tackling. I think, more importantly, I hear from people all around the country, Democrats and Republicans, that they're very glad he's the person in the Oval office right now, that he's the person with the background, experience, the judgment to tackle these hard problems. And uh so, I think there's a lot of confidence in him as

the person who should be where he is. About intelligence for a moment um, Usually, uh the intelligence that comes into the c I A UH is not declassified and given to reporters in a public way. Clearly, in this process, somebody, I assume the President United States, thought it was a good idea to declassify the satellite photos and to declassify the information we have about what Putin was sinking or saying. So was that a difficult decision to come to And

do you think it worked or didn't work? Yet? David, I think it was the right decision given the kind of environment we were facing. We knew that President Putin had a reputation for disinformation. We've certainly seen that all around the world, and we knew that his most likely approach here would be to create some kind of disinformation campaign, a false flag attack, potentially a false provocation out and

outlies to justify his invasion of Ukraine. As it became clear and clear to us that that was what he had planned, we thought it was more and more important to strip him of that advantage by making clear what we knew his plans were and making it clear to

the world what we thought would happen. And I think that decision by the President Biden, in conjunction with our NATO allies or other allies that are part of the coalition, is shared decision to proceed this way has been one of the reasons why there has been such a unified and uniform ruled reaction to what President Putin has done. There's no ambiguity about who is the aggressor here. There's no belief in any of the false stories about what

quote unquote provoked this invasion. I think that transparency that uh sophisticated use of intelligence and a modern information warfare context has served the allies very very well. I also think it's stripped President Putin of any element of surprise in the attack and helped the Ukrainians be ready for what what has hit them. So how do you respond

to the critics that you have? And you have some critics sometimes, I'm sure you know who say you should have sent armaments to the Ukrainians before the invasion, so they were better armed than they are now that we're now sending them after the invasion, and and that you should have imposed the sanctions before the invasion occurred. What do you respond? How do you respond to those kind of criticisms versa all, we did send armaments to the

Ukrainians before the invasion. We sent more arms, more military assistance to Ukraine in the past twelve months than any year uh since. So we did send a variety of kinds of military assistance to the Ukrainians. That assistance continues to be to come into the country, but we did

send plenty before this happened. In terms of the sanctions, we thought that the best way to make sure we'd have the most unified and powerful set of sanctions was to make it clear that those sanctions would take effect when and if President Putin invaded. The results that we've seen. Illustrate that, David, You've seen There's never been a effort to impose sanctions this stringent on a country as large and as complex and as interconnected to the world economy

as Russia. It's really a kind of astonishing effort that you're seeing under way here. And the impact of those sanctions has been devastating. They're devastating because there's such a powerful group of countries unified in their application. And I think doing it the way we did is what's made all that possible. When you impose sanctions, Let's suppose the offending party, Let's say Russia says, Okay, we made a mistake,

We're sorry, we're pulling back. Did the sanctions go away or are their penalties that are subsequent to the withdrawal? Other words, are there ongoing penalties or they're in effect reparations for having done these bad things? Or the sanction just go away? Or is that not decided yet? Hasn't been deciding? What would happen if the Russians withdrew again? That be part of whatever kind of diplomacy would unlind the crisis in Ukraine. Sadly, Uh, this is a this

as you say, is a hypothetical question. We see no signs, unfortunately, that the Russians have any intention of withdrawing right now, and indeed, their military operations in Ukraine continue to escalate. They continue to um, you know, attack more civilians, more civilian sights. The fighting continues to get more and more fear So, we offered President Putting a number of diplomatic

off ramps in the run up to this invasion. We offered him a number of different arrangements, never different possible ways in which he could meet with members of the coalition and the Ukrainians, a number of different kinds of structures to do that. At every juncture, President Putin rejected the path of diplomacy, continued on the path of invasion. And that's what we're seeing unfold right now. Let's talk about build back better. UM. I wondered who came up

with that tongue twister? Um, it's hard to say that quickly. Um. Was that something that you came up with or who came up with that? I don't know who came up it certainly was the principal slogan for the president's campaign. Uh in uh was the slogan for most of his policies was the umbrella under which most of the policies that he ran on build Back Better. Uh, it's actually gained some traction on the world. A number of European countries have now adopted Build Back Better initiatives. So I

think it's a slogan that's resonated with people. Uh. It is a bit of a tongue twister, but I think it does have some residents, and it comes from the campaign. So is the Build Back Better bill that passed the House likely to ever see the light of day in the Senate? Are you now committed to breaking it up and passing individual pieces of it? Well, I think what we're gonna try to do is get as many of the President's initiatives enacted as possible in the best way possible.

The Senate has the option to do reconciliation as a procedural device that takes only fifty votes to pass a bill that has tax changes and other kinds of economic changes in it. Uh, And that would probably be the vehicle we'd use to move some legislation like this through the Senate. We're obviously in conversations with a number of senators about what elements have the most support. What elements are the most effective to get pass to the Senate.

You're the president. Talk about a number those last night, David. I think people are very concerned about inflation and very concerned about what inflation means to everyday families, and that means they pay too much for things, and so key parts of the Build Back Better Plan address that directly. Bring down the cost of childcare, bring down the cost of prescription drugs, bring down the cost of elder care,

bring down the cost of healthcare. So we're looking for and most importantly in some ways are equally important, I should say, bring down the cost of energy by moving us to more of a clean energy economy. So, uh, you look at those proposals. There are proposals that meet the moment of higher costs, and we're going to continue to work with the Senate to find a formula that moves that agenda forward. So, Ron, you have been criticized by some for saying that you are so powerful that

you really are effectively running the whole government. How do you respond to that. You're like that, you're the Prime Minister. It's ridiculous. I'm a staff person. I've been a staff person my whole life. I've never run for anything. I've never been elected to anything. I've been proud to work for some distinguished public servants, Uh, President Biden being one of them at several points in time of my career, President Obama, of course, President Clinton. Uh. That's that's who

I am. And at the White House, not only am a staff person, I'm a staff person who works with a number of other enormously talented staff people. So this is a real team effort here, team on the policy side, team on the strategy side. My job is just to help coordinate those people get that advice to the president. Uh.

So that's how I see my role. How do you respond to the other criticism of some people have had, not necessarily of you, but of the president that he governed as he campaign as a moderate, but he's governing more to the left than people expect it. And what is your response to that criticism that some have made. Yeah, look, I think that that criticism wipes out the history of and paign. Uh. There's nothing that the President sent to Capitol Hill that he did not put before the voters

in the campaign. Our economic agenda is the economic agenda he ran on an eighty one million Americans voted for when they elected him. In fact, if anything, we've trimmed that agenda back. The Build Back Better plan that we sent to Capitol Hill was significantly smaller than even the one we campaigned on. Uh, the infrastructure bill is something he campaigned on, the voting rights bill something he campaigned on, and the COVID relief package that we started the administration

with again as something he endorsed in the campaign. So he was very straightforward voters about what he would do if he were president, and that's what he's done. And look, the proposals we put forward are substantial y because the problems we inherited were substantial. It's not any vision, and not any grandiose vision. We inherited an economy that was dead in the water, fifty thousand jobs a month, just fifty a months the three months before we got here,

virtually debt economy. The government hadn't even bought enough vaccinations to give one vaccine to every American, let alone too vaccines to ever American, let alone booster shots. We had no system to really massively distribute and administer those vaccines. We face a climate crisis. We face all kinds of other challenges now, obviously this challenge over in Europe. So we've put together proposals to meet the moment, not out of some effort to kind of do something bigger than

we should, but because we inherited very big problems. Uh. And and you've seen a lot of progress. We obviously then went and created more jobs in one year than any administration in history, for any administration, says nineteen thirty nine, according to New York Times fact check, So any administration since nineteen thirty nine, we uh see the fastest second time of growth in forty years. Was the first time in twenty years. Our economy grew faster in the year

than China's economy. So we put in place the kind of recovery measures that were needed. We've vaccinated over two u fully vaccinated over two twenty million Americans. Uh. You know that these are big tasks we took on this year, and I'm proud of what we've done to achieve them. So usually in the after the first year of an administration,

you see some turnover and a cabinet or something. But you haven't had any turnover, and I haven't had any scandals either, So, how come you haven't any scandals and how come you haven't any turnover? Well, uh, I think the president of a very good job of picking a cabinet and picking senior officials, and I think the lack of scandals reflects that. Uh. I think the lack of turnover reflects the fact that these are men and women who are very eager to serve, who doing a great job,

who are making a difference. It's the most diverse cabinet history. It's the first time in history the cabinet has been evenly divided between men and women, the first time in history that a majority of the cabinet isn't white. And it's a diverse cabinet. It's an incredibly talented cabinet, and we're very lucky to have their service. The President's favorability ratings are not as high as I assume you would like, and uh, I wondered, how do you win the White

House deal with that? Well, I think the most important thing is the president to do the right thing. And I think that what you're seeing right now is um a mood in the country that's impacted by the fact that this pandemic has lasted longer than anyone thought it would. Uh that while we've had tremendous growth on the economy and jobs, we're having a problem with inflation, and I think those things contribute to um generally um uh mood in the country that's not as upbeat or confidence we

would like. What I think in the case of President Biden is we made a lot of hard decisions in to put in place a new economic strategy that you heard the President talk about last night in the State of the Union, a new COVID strategy that we're again updating again today with new steps on COVID UH, and those hard decisions I think are starting to show results. I fully accept the fact that the American people are

more show me, not tell me. And what they want to see is they want to see that we really have reached a new way of managing COVID. They want to see we really have not just created jobs, but the jobs are going to stay, the wages are going to go up. They want to see that these the economic recovery is real and sustained. I think the political

credit will follow from that. When I was here both with President Clinton and President Obama, we saw the recovery ahead of the politics, and I think you're seeing that now too, and so I do think our approval reading will go up in the months ahead as the economic recovery, the progress on covid UH become more permanent, more lasting, and internalized more by the voters. Now. One of my former partners at at Carlisle was Jim Baker, and he was considered maybe up until you the gold standard of

how to be chief of staff. But he didn't actually like the job that much, and he wound up as Secretary of Treasury eventually and as Secretary of State. So do you have any aspirations to any of those jobs or something like that? I don't think so. I think when I finished my tenure here, I'll go back. Uh. When I finished my tenure here, I'm gonna like take a month in sleep, and then I'll figure out what

I'll do next. Uh. You know, Secretary Bayer, I have to know him a little bit during the Florida recount when we are on opposite sides of that. He has been unbelievably gracious. He sent me the the kindest note when I got this job. Um, he's sent me a couple of the notes since then. He's just such a uh you know, he's just been He's just such a wonderful person. Um and um uh and I he is the gold standard of doing this job. I couldn't even aspire to that. Just try to do the best I

can every day. So whenever you do finish this position as chief of staff and a friend calls you subsequently and says, I've been offered the job of chief of staff to the President nited states, would you tell him to take or her to take that job or not.

I would definitely tell anyone to take this job. It is a hard job, but it's a unique opportunity to work with, first of all, an incredible president and vice president of course at a time it's very important to our country, and to work with an amazingly talented group of people here in the White House throughout the agency's They just blow me away every day and I learned something new every day. It's been the culminating experience in my career. Uh and um i um. I just couldn't

be more grateful for the experience. And whoever replaces me in this job whenever my typing the job ends, I hope has the same kind of experience. Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen