Following his electoral win, president-elect Joe Biden began to select people to serve in his Cabinet. The President’s Cabinet includes the vice president and the heads of fifteen executive departments. Together, this group of sixteen advises the president on any subject relating to the duties of each member’s respective office. All Cabinet positions are chosen by the president and require confirmation from the Senate (with the exception of the Vice President). So far, Biden has announced his nominations for three Cabinet positions: Alejandro Mayorkas as the Secretary of Homeland Security, Antony Blinken as the Secretary of State, and Janet Yellen as the Secretary of the Treasury. He has also announced that John Kerry will serve as his Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, a new position that will have an elevated status.
For the position of Secretary of State, Biden has announced that Antony Blinken will be his nominee. A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Law School, Blinken has a long and accomplished career. He was the staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden was the chair of the panel and served on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. During the Obama administration, he served as the deputy national security adviser and deputy secretary of state. He led diplomacy in the global refugee crisis and the fight against ISIL. It’s expected that Blinken and Jake Sullivan (Biden’s choice for National Security Adviser) will take part in executing many of Biden’s plans for his first hundred days in office. These plans include rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal with Iran, and the World Health Organization.
With his nomination for Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas has the potential to be the first Latino and immigrant to hold the position. Mayorkas was born in Havana, Cuba and arrived in the United States as a political refugee in 1960. He became the youngest U.S. attorney in 1998 and served as deputy secretary of Homeland Security and director of the Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Obama administration. During his time as deputy secretary, he led the DHS’ response to the Zika and Ebola outbreaks and headed the implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. If confirmed as the head of the DHS, Mayorkas will lead the agency on counterterrorism, border security, immigration enforcement, cybersecurity, and more. Mayorkas may face obstacles when attempting to obtain confirmation from the Senate, as no Republicans voted to confirm him as deputy secretary in 2013.
Biden also announced that Janet Yellen will be his nominee for Secretary of the Treasury. She will be the first woman to hold this position if confirmed. Being the first woman is not something unfamiliar to her, as she was also the first to hold the position of chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Her tenure at the central bank was noted for her ability to maintain low interest rates while also growing jobs and wages. During the Clinton administration, Yellen served as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and the chair of the Economic Policy Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development concurrently. Outside of her work as a public official, Yellen taught economics at Harvard, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of California, Berkeley. If confirmed as the Secretary of Treasury, Yellen will have influence over economic policy following the 2020 stock market crash and the massive increase of unemployment in the United States, both the results of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Along with his nominations for Cabinet positions, Biden announced who would serve as the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. This position marks the first time that the National Security Council will have an official dedicated to addressing the climate crisis. The Envoy will have Cabinet-level rank. For this new position, Biden has chosen John Kerry. Kerry first entered federal politics as a senator for Massachusetts in 1985. During his 18-year career as a senator, he chaired several committees, including the Foreign Relations Committee. During the Obama administration, Kerry served as the Secretary of State. He helped draft the 2015 agreement between Iran and the P5+1, which placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program, and negotiated the Paris climate agreement on behalf of the United States. Kerry has experience as an activist as well as a politician, as he was a spokesperson for Vietnam Veterans Against War and was a key figure in the creation of World War Zero, an organization dedicated to fighting climate change. As the Envoy for Climate, Kerry will relate information to the president on climate-related policy, but due to the novelty of the position, the details about his role are still ambiguous.
There are still several nominees that president-elect Biden will need to choose in the next two months. In the Cabinet alone, the heads of the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs still need to be selected. There are also many Cabinet-level and White House staff positions to fill. Outside of the Cabinet, several people have already been chosen for significant positions. Avril Haines was nominated to be the Director of National Intelligence. If confirmed, she will be the first woman to hold this position. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a diplomat with a 35-year career with the U.S. Foreign Service, was named U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Biden’s Chief of Staff was announced to be Ron Klain, who was the president-elect’s chief of staff during the Obama administration.
With these announcements, it’s clear that Biden has begun taking the steps to transition into his presidency and identify his future allies. As America moves from the presidency of Donald Trump to that of Joe Biden, it will greet a collection of new officials who will shape its trajectory for years to come.
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