Published: November 23, 2020
Biden will announce his first Cabinet picks on Tuesday, his top advisers said over the weekend, POLITICO’s Maya Parthasarathy reports.
Incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain added that the president-elect’s transition team would “beat the pace” of both the Obama-Biden and Trump transitions.
Biden reportedly has already settled on two major picks: Tony Binken to be secretary of state and Jake Sullivan to be national security adviser, Bloomberg reported Sunday.
Blinken, who served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration, is a longtime Biden confidante. Sullivan was a top aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and served in senior positions in the White House and State Department under President Barack Obama.
‘UNDISPUTED EXPERTISE’: Nearly a dozen military family advocacy groups are endorsing Michèle Flournoy to be Biden’s choice for defense secretary, recommending a “speedy confirmation process” for the leading Democratic policy wonk and former top Pentagon official if she is nominated as widely expected.
“We appreciate her undisputed expertise on a wide variety of subjects at the Defense Department, and we appreciate her deep commitment to America’s troops and their families. We particularly appreciate that she is a member of a military family herself,” they told Morning D in a statement, citing her previous Pentagon experience and founding of the Center for a New American Security (she’s also a partner with Blinken at consulting firm WestExec Advisors).
The statement was issued by the American Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces; America’s Warrior Partnership; Blue Star Families; the Bush Institute; Disabled American Veterans; the Elizabeth Dole Foundation; Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America; the Institute for Veterans and Military Families; SEAL Kids; The Mission Continues; and the Tragedy Assistance Program, or TAPS.
But should she be secretary of defense? Flournoy is highly regarded in both parties, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her detractors. Two leading national security critics, Winslow Wheeler, a former defense appropriations staffer on Capitol Hill, and Pierre Sprey, one of the lead designers of the F-16 fighter jet, have published a detailed critique of her stated vision for the Pentagon and what they see as her cozy ties to the defense industry.
“We need to listen to military leaders who have experienced both defeat and victory on the battlefield while remaining free of industry influence and careerism; engineers and scientists who have developed proven, useful technologies; and industry leaders who have delivered successful, affordable products and eschewed self- and corporate-interest,” they wrote in an article published by the Project on Government Oversight. “The Flournoy plan proposes no such rigorous evaluation or evaluators of new ideas and new weapons.”
THE NAME GAME: While it feels like a foregone conclusion that Biden will nominate Flournoy to run the Pentagon, what about his second tier of Pentagon leaders?
We’ve been talking to Biden advisers and others close to the transition team and a number of other leading Democratic defense policy wonks have emerged as likely candidates to fill out some of the other top rungs.
One we are hearing for the deputy secretary of defense post is Frank Kendall, who served as undersecretary of defense for acquisition in the Obama administration. Kendall, who is now a consultant affiliated with CSIS, has been a senior adviser to the Biden campaign.
A potential candidate for Pentagon budget chief is John Conger, who served as the principal deputy comptroller in the Obama years and is now director of the Center for Climate and Security, where he has been a leading voice for engaging the military much more aggressively in confronting and preparing for climate change. Conger laid out his vision for a “climate-focused” DoD budget” in a recent essay in Defense One.
And Kathleen Hicks, who was Flournoy’s deputy at the Pentagon and is running the Pentagon “agency review team” for Biden, is high on many lists for undersecretary of defense for policy.
What about service secretaries? Rep. Ruben Gallego’s name has emerged as a possible contender for Navy secretary. Gallego, a Marine veteran, was a Biden surrogate who helped him become the first Democrat to win Arizona in more than two decades. “I would love to serve under the Biden administration but nothing has been offered,” Gallego recently told POLITICO’s Alex Thompson.
POLITICO
Transition 2020: Cabinet Picks Coming
November 23, 2020
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