Indiana Sen. Mike Braun, playing off the theme of Groundhog Day, called for White House staff “term limits” on Wednesday to bring fresh ideas to the one building that recycles former aides the most of any in Washington.
In an unusual report targeting the “swamp,” he named 19 top Biden aides, led by White House chief of staff Ron Klain, who should be swept away first.
“This report is about them: the permanent political class who keep rearing their heads year after year. This cycle of incompetence in the federal government has made us all into Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day, forced to relive the same day over and over,” the Republican wrote.
Today I’m releasing my #GroundhogDay Report on how the D.C. swamp keeps coming back again & again.
This report exposes the permanent political class of bureaucrats & failed ideas that make it feel like we’re living the same day over & over.
Read it here!https://t.co/BJOq6La0Vz pic.twitter.com/Q9LvrRePFQ
— Senator Mike Braun (@SenatorBraun) February 2, 2022
While he also urged term limits for politicians on both sides of the aisle, he said that the staffers who keep showing up from old administrations with their even older ideas need to be pushed out.
“It isn’t just career politicians dragging D.C. deeper and deeper into the swamp. It’s also a club of insiders that float from administration to administration, bringing their bad ideas and lobbyist connections with them through the revolving door,” he said in the 63-page report.
In an interview with Secrets, Braun, a first-term former businessman, said he knew there was a problem with staffers embedding into Washington offices before he got here. But, he said, “it’s worse than I thought.”
He said that longtime staffers floating between political offices, K Street lobbying firms, and political think tanks view the federal government as “their cathedral.”
Braun said that some of their “tribal knowledge” is needed to make the city run, but he added that it also “breeds complacency and poor performance” that no CEO would allow.
Each entry includes a summary description of the 19 people, then an expanded section on them.
He called Klain, a fellow Hoosier, the most representative of the swamp rat problem he called out in the report.
His summary for Klain in the report, titled “Joe Biden Groundhog Day, How The Swamp Keeps Coming, Back Again And Again,” read:
“Ron Klain has been a Washington insider for decades; so much so that The New York Times referred to him as having ‘A Beltway résumé.’ After a long career in Washington, Klain served as Chief of Staff to Vice President Al Gore during the Clinton Administration. As The New York Times describes, following the Clinton Administration, ‘Mr. Klain salved his wounds in classic Washington fashion: by making tons of cash.’ During the Obama Administration, he served as then-Vice President Biden’s Chief of Staff from 2009 through 2011. President Biden again selected him as his Chief of Staff after the 2020 election. He has been viewed by many to be pulling the President towards the more liberal wing of the party.”
Said Braun, “I know from experience: Your operation is only as good as the people you hire. That’s why we shouldn’t be surprised by the poor product we get out of Washington. They keep hiring the same people and expecting different results.”
