Some Dems Push Biden to Shake Up White House

President Joe Biden faces pressure from some members of his party to make changes at the White House, including rethinking policy strategy or replacing staffers, NBC News reports.

"A sign of a good leader and a successful executive is to identify the policies or personnel choices that have not resulted in success and make necessary course corrections — because it’s too important not to," said Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., who co-chairs the Blue Dog Coalition of centrist Democrats.

NBC notes that only a few Democrats have called for White House workers to be replaced, but one member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who spoke to the network anonymously said the COVID-19 pandemic and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has some voters wondering about the competency of Biden’s team. Ousting some high-ranking aides, such as chief of staff Ron Klain, could illustrate that Biden is willing to change things.

"Biden’s the star quarterback, and you can’t fire the star quarterback, so you start looking at the head coach and the offensive coordinator and the defensive coordinator," the unnamed legislator told NBC. "Fairly or unfairly in a situation like this, you start looking at the person who is in the chief of staff position."

The member of Congress said that the White House failed strategically when it came to passing the Build Back Better plan, noting that Biden made two trips to Capitol Hill for meetings with House Democrats with important pieces of legislation pending but did not ask them to support his infrastructure plan.

"There was no strategy. That just put the president in a horrible, horrible situation," the legislator said. "That has to fall on the head of the chief of staff."

Another unnamed lawmaker said, "I don't think there’s anything abnormal after a year of looking at your staffing situation and maybe shaking things up. My hope is that he does do that."

Biden said he’s "satisfied" with his staff during a press conference last month, and White House spokesperson Chris Meagher noted this in response to a question from NBC saying, "The president has spoken to questions around any staff changes in the past. There's no change since his comments."

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