President-elect Joe Biden risks alienating liberal Democrats with his decision to appoint Bruce Reed as White House deputy chief of staff.
Biden announced Tuesday that Reed, his chief of staff from 2011 to 2013 when he was vice president and before Reed joined his 2020 campaign as a senior adviser, would remain in his inner circle. That’s despite far-Left Democrats imploring Biden since October not to bring Reed back to the White House.
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other House Democrats aligned with outside groups, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren-linked Progressive Change Campaign Committee and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders-connected Our Revolution, urged Biden not re-hire Reed when Biden was said to be considering making him Office of Management and Budget director or chief of staff.
Reed, they claimed, should have been disqualified given his advocacy of austerity measures and role on Barack Obama’s Simpson-Bowles commission, which recommended Social Security cuts.
Reed, who has vocally supported regulating technology companies, was former President Bill Clinton’s top domestic policy adviser after starting his career with then-Sen. Al Gore. He was later promoted to deputy for policy on the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992.
Social Security Works, Justice Democrats, and Data For Progress also circulated a petition and ran ads against Reed, targeting his tough-on-crime approach to criminal justice in the 1990s.
“Giving Bruce Reed any job, much less Deputy Chief of Staff, is an act of deliberately ignoring the most harmful policies Democrats have pursued over the last 30 years,” tweeted the Revolving Door Project, an organization scrutinizing administration appointments. “Bottom line: Bruce Reed is no team player — his whole project in politics has been slapping down the Left.”
On the minus side: Giving Bruce Reed any job, much less Deputy Chief of Staff, is an act of deliberately ignoring the most harmful policies Democrats have pursued over the last 30 years. (2/x)https://t.co/ygZUlHTGSY
— Revolving Door Project (@revolvingdoorDC) December 22, 2020
Reed and Steve Ricchetti were high on liberal Democrats’ so-called “hit list.”
Ricchetti, who will be a presidential adviser, was Biden’s campaign chairman. Like Reed, Ricchetti was one of Biden’s chiefs of staff when he was vice president, but he was also a lobbyist. Ricchetti’s brother Jeff still boosts pharmaceutical companies.
