Jill Biden, the president-elect’s wife, has picked her chief of staff, foreshadowing a busier East Wing than that of first lady Melania Trump.
Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon will lead Biden’s agenda, which she has long said would prioritize education and cancer research. Along with her first lady duties, Biden will juggle a college English and writing post, making her the first presidential wife to hold a day job while her husband is serving.
Anthony Bernal will help Biden, 69, and Pantaleon as a senior adviser.
As second lady, Biden taught at Northern Virginia Community College, pushing for two years of tuition-free community college, and worked with first lady Michelle Obama to support military families. Biden’s interests in cancer research and military families are inspired by her stepson Beau, who died of glioblastoma in 2015 at the age of 46 after serving in Iraq for a year.
President-elect Joe Biden also named several key staff members as the presumptive first couple prepare to move into the White House on Jan. 20.
Dana Remus will be White House counsel after joining the campaign as chief counsel and working to represent Biden, 77, against President Trump’s complaints regarding the election. She previously was former President Barack Obama’s deputy White House counsel for ethics.
Steve Ricchetti, Biden’s former chief of staff and campaign chairman, and Mike Donilon, a longtime confidant, will continue in the president-elect’s inner circle. Ricchetti will be counselor to the 46th president, and Donilon will be a senior adviser.
Joining already-announced White House chief of staff Ron Klain, reported deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon, and public engagement director Cedric Richmond will be Julie Rodriguez as the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Annie Tomasini as the director of Oval Office operations.
Richmond’s appointment will trigger a special election in Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District.
“I am not leaving the people of Louisiana. I am not leaving the people of the 2nd Congressional District. I am New Orleans, through and through. I bleed black and gold,” the former Congressional Black Caucus chairman said Tuesday.
Trump has had a relatively low profile as first lady, focusing on her “Be Best” initiative to combat cyberbullying. Her husband has declined to concede after multiple outlets called the election for Biden on Nov. 7. Neither of them have contacted their apparent successors.
