What Biden's Chief of Staff Has Learned, One Year In
About this episode
At the one-year mark of the Biden administration, Klein interviews White House chief of staff Ron Klain on the administration's record and its critics. They discuss the vaccination campaign's successes and failures — testing shortages during Omicron, uneven school ventilation upgrades, and what the U.S. can learn from Asian countries' pandemic responses — plus plans for variant boosters and vaccine manufacturing capacity. On the economy, Klain rejects the criticism that the American Rescue Plan was a mistake, noting inflation is global, and explains Biden's supply-side approach: expanding productive capacity for cars, chips, and clean energy rather than curbing demand. They also cover the collapse of Build Back Better negotiations with Joe Manchin, the death of voting-rights legislation, and how the 6–3 conservative Supreme Court constrains policymaking.